A Notorious Countess Confesses (PG7) (12 page)

Sir John Fisker bestirred himself. “Do I hear three pounds one shil—”

A woman sprang up. “Three pounds five shillings!”

And then she sent a scornful glare down at the man next to her, likely her husband, who had been one of the chucklers. He recoiled in shock.

Mr. Lanford, he of the bristly hair, shifted in his seat. “Now … just a moment, here … surely you’re jesting if you think anyone will pay three—”

“I wonder, Sir Fisker,” Evie mused, loudly, glacially. “Is there a basket of appreciation Mr. Lanford can bid on? Perhaps a basket of manners?”

Another risk that paid off in laughter. Some it nervous, granted, some of it from the men, and some of it bitter, that from the women. But laughter, nevertheless.

“Do I hear four pounds, one shilling?” the auctioneer wondered, with something like glee.

Evie wasn’t done. “It’s priceless, in fact, labor and commitment these women ceaselessly give to their families. Day after day. The worry, the planning, the skill, I ask you! Who are we to put a value on it? How fortunate we are to have this rare opportunity to bid on it! These tea cakes are nothing less than a beautiful miracle. They represent all that’s best of womanhood, all that our great country is.”

Mrs. Sneath could bear it no longer. She leaped upward, the flowers on her bonnet swaying.

“Four pounds for the glorious tea cakes!” she boomed rapturously.

Olivia Eversea, from the opposite side of the room, sprang up. “Six pounds!”

This elicited a gasp. Olivia basked in the shock for a moment. She was never more radiant than when she had a cause, and she glowed like an avenging angel.

And then, to the horror of their husbands, women all over the audience began bouncing up like voles from holes.

“Six pounds one shilling!”

“Six pounds TWO!” came a shout from one of the women who’d glared at Evie in church.

“Six pounds three!”

Up and up and up the bidding went, shilling by shilling, while everywhere in the audience husbands cringed, murmured pleas, or issued futile commands, reached up placating hands and tugged at skirts, only to be swatted away.

Six pounds was a good deal of money for most of these people, in all likelihood.

Evie turned around, craned her head.

The vicar was grinning from ear to ear.

She flashed him a smile of wicked triumph, brief and surreptitious, swiveled back to face the auctioneer, and decided to avert disaster.

“TEN pounds,” she said definitively. Taking pains to sound bored.

The hush that followed was almost spiritual in nature. It settled over the crowd like a blanket of new-fallen snow.

And then, one by one, triumphant smiles lit the faces of all the women, like stars winking on in a dark sky.

When at last Sir John Fisker found his voice, it was gravelly with emotion. “Do I hear ten pounds, one shilling?”

Eyes slid toward her. Evie gave her head an infinitesimal shake, discouraging further bidding.

“Going once … going twice … sold to Lady Balmain for ten pounds, Mrs. Margaret Lanford’s miraculous tea cakes!”

He gave a little jubilant hop and brought the gavel down with a hearty THWACK!

Cheers erupted.

Chapter 9

“CONGRATULATIONS, LADY WAREHAM. It seems you bought friends for ten pounds. A bargain really, all told. Quite an impressive bit of theater.”

“Theater! The man was an oaf. I ask you! To speak that way about your wife in front of an audience. He begged to be put in his place. It was entirely sincere.”

The vicar hiked a brow.

She sighed. “Very well. I grant you, a bit of it might have been theater. It’s all in the timing, you see, and one learns timing from the stage. Nearly everything I’ve ever learned has proved useful again, Vicar. And I’ve learned a very good deal in my day.”

She liked to imagine he was blushing on the inside though he appeared entirely unmoved. Apart from the faint smile. Given the man was the enemy of the innuendo, this was an improvement.

There was a silence.

“Thank you for bidding on the ginger cake,” she added.

His face suddenly went stony. “Well …”

And that was all he said.

“I sincerely hope it’s edible,” she added.

“For five pounds, I plan to have it gilded and ensconced as a memorial to charity in the vicarage. Perhaps I’ll have it engraved. Perhaps I’ll be buried under it.”

“Erect it in the town square. You can call it ‘the Vicar’s Folly.’ ”

He laughed. She felt like it was raining guineas when he laughed. It was abandoned as he was restrained. She basked in it.

She didn’t ask him whether he had five pounds. The answer worried her. In truth, her ten pounds was a bit of a risk, given her new need for economy.

“I’m not certain I’ve entirely won the day yet,” she said worriedly. “ten pounds or no.”

The women were arrayed in a phalanx on one side of the ballroom, eyeing her with varying degrees of wariness and shy curiosity while they supervised the dispersal of the baskets to the winning bidders. Some, especially those who had sprung up and shouted, looked abashed. She suspected they all felt a bit the way one does the morning after a particularly debauched evening, where one suddenly remembers just how a silk stocking ended up dangling from the chandelier.

And then Mrs. Sneath approached the ladies, looking like a soldier in Turkey red wool. They clustered round her like metal filings to a magnet. Much muttered conversation took place, a bit of gesturing, then at last Mrs. Sneath burst from their ranks as if she’d been launched.

She’d been sent as the emissary, it appeared.

“Prepare to be properly introduced, Lady Balmain,” Adam said calmly. “This may be your defining moment.”

Eve smiled brightly and straightened her spine.

“Lady Balmain, I’d like to introduce you to the inestimable Mrs. Sneath, without whom this event would not have been possible. She’s an indispensable part of our community here, and we owe her a great deal.”

Mrs. Sneath nodded approvingly at this introduction, as if was only what she deserved.

When they exchanged curtsies, Adam was uncomfortably reminded of a bullfighter confronting a bull. Something about Mrs. Sneath’s red hat and cape.

“Lady Balmain,” Mrs. Sneath began briskly, officiously, “the spirit you displayed today is precisely what we, the members of the Committee to Protect the Poor of Sussex, appreciate. I can only assume that a poor soiled dove like yourself has perhaps has suffered a bit at the hands of men, and now would like to serve as a cautionary tale and perhaps help others less fortunate as a way to redeem yourself in the eyes of society. Your speech today was brave, very brave indeed.”

She beamed her approval.

Out of the corner of her eye Evie saw the vicar straighten alertly, as if something delightful had just occurred. He said nothing at all. He simply turned his head toward, Evie, his expression benign and expectant.

But the bloody man’s eyes were glinting.

“Let me think now … have I suffered at the hands of men …” Eve tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose I did suffer a bit when Lord Englenton sent a string of pearls to me after my first performance at Covent Garden rather than the sapphires I wanted. It was very disappointing.”

And then she smiled, slowly. It increased in width and brightness, until it was, when full grown, decidedly wolfish.

Mrs. Sneath’s smile congealed. Her mouth was clearly unwilling to relinquish it, but the light in her eyes went out, and they darted wildly from the vicar to Evie and back again.

“I did return the pearls, however,” Evie confided sadly. “It wouldn’t have been right to keep them.”

Mrs. Sneath’s body nearly deflated with relief. “Of course you did, my dear. Because keeping them would have been sinful.” She said this firmly, as if her conviction alone was enough to make it true, enough to purify Evie’s soul.

“It certainly would have been sinful! Because I preferred the necklace sent to me by Lord Eskith, and it wouldn’t have been fair to play the two against each other, now, would it have been? Duels are a nasty business.”

Mrs. Sneath’s smile wavered again. “Quite,” Mrs. Sneath decided to say, finally. Albeit somewhat hoarsely.

She sent an imploring, almost conspiratorial glance at the vicar, one that said: She certainly doesn’t know the definition of sin, does she? Perhaps she can be taught.

Mrs. Sneath was certainly indomitable, and not stupid. She had a sense of Evie now. She just hadn’t decided how to manage her.

The vicar nodded once, encouraging Mrs. Sneath to continue. His hands were folded behind his back now. For all the world as if he’d settled in to enjoy a cricket match.

Mrs. Sneath rallied. “Well, it’s heartening anytime a still-young woman like yourself decides to repent her ways,” she tried. Her eyes were glittering determinedly now. Her words had the stentorian ring of a woman accustomed to getting her way.

Evie took a breath. She tipped her head in apparent thought. And then she leaned toward Mrs. Sneath and lowered her voice.

“Mrs. Sneath, may I confide in you? I feel I must be truthful in all things.”

She leaned toward Evie, and righteous hope and dawning triumph circulated with hopeless, prurient curiosity on her face.

When their heads were very close together Evie said in a conspiratorial hush: “What would you say if I told you I repent nothing at all?”

Mrs. Sneath’s face blanked. And then she reared back and blinked rapidly, as if she’d just sustained a slap to the side of her head. “I’m afraid … I suppose I don’t …”

“Oh, don’t be afraid,” Evie interjected soothingly. “I’m quite harmless. But I do know a thing or two about getting what I want, and it strikes me that you might find this skill useful when it comes to helping the poor of Sussex. And I should like you to tell the women of your committee that they should never allow men to treat them like anything other than queens. If they’d like to know how to accomplish this, I’d be delighted to share what I know about men.”

And then Mrs. Sneath and Evie stood apart.

Mrs. Sneath appeared stunned motionless. And then the gears of her mind began almost visibly, furiously working. Her eyes twitched.

At last, something like a faint delight settled across her face.

“I’ll convey this to the ladies,” she said finally.

“Thank you, Mrs. Sneath.” Evie gave her a small, regal smile, which Mrs. Sneath, little did she know, imitated, before she curtsied and ferried her information about the countess away to the ladies.

“Why is it,” Adam said conversationally, after a moment, “that I suspect everywhere you go, Lady Wareham, uproar ensues.”

“A wise man once told me to be who I am.”

“Ah. But what I neglected to tell you is that I haven’t any wisdom at all. I simply do a lot of guessing, and it somehow comes right much of the time.”

“We’ll just have to see if this is one of the times, won’t we, Reverend Sylvaine? At least I’m never dull.”

“There are days when I long for the opportunity to feel boredom,” he said, half to himself.

“Oh, look, she’s returning and she’s bringing reinforcements.”

Mrs. Sneath was indeed returning. She was flanked by Mrs. Margaret Lanford, she of the glorious Tea Cakes with Currants, as well as two young women: a young woman with blond curls whose gaze was so fixed to the vicar he might as well have been the North Star, and who tripped over her feet once on the way there and was seized by the elbow and righted by Mrs. Sneath. The other young lady had dark hair and powerful dark slashes of eyebrows and a direct, intelligent, albeit slightly imperious gaze. It was the sort of face doomed to be called handsome the whole of her life, never “pretty.” Her posture was arrogant, and her dress was a bold yellow, in the first stare of fashion. She was a rich man’s daughter, Evie knew almost instantly.

“Lady Wareham, I’d like to introduce Mrs. Margaret Lanford, Miss Amy Pitney, and Miss Josephine Charing.”

They all exchanged nods and curtsies when Mrs. Sneath made the introductions. Josephine was the blond young lady, it turned out; Amy was the imperious one.

Their eyes were bright and fascinated. The younger women were flushed and a bit fidgety, perhaps with the excitement of viewing what Mrs. Sneath likely characterized as a fallen woman at such close range. Evie was tempted to hold out her hand for them to sniff.

She wasn’t much older than the two youngest, but the gulf in experience was as wide as the Atlantic Ocean. Appalling and fascinating them would have been child’s play—and might be very entertaining—but that would only keep them at a distance. She told herself firmly: You wanted friends, Evie. Be a friend.

After a moment of staring, Mrs. Lanford handed over her basket. Evie took it as graciously as a queen being handed a scepter.

“I’m very much looking forward to tasting the tea cakes, Mrs. Lanford.”

“I hope they’re to your liking,” Mrs. Lanford said stiffly.

“I’m certain they will be.”

What if they were indeed like rocks? Perhaps she could invite Paulie Lanford over and they could skip them like stones across the pond behind the manor.

Mrs. Lanford nervously craned her head over her shoulder. Looking for her husband, Evie thought, who seemed to have made himself scarce. “I must away,” she muttered, and ducked a shallow curtsy and hastened off.

Mrs. Sneath cleared her throat, which felt very much the equivalent of sounding reveille.

“We’ve discussed it, and we thought one of the best ways for you to decide whether you’d like to join our Lady’s Society, Lady Wareham, is to experience a little of the work we do. We are very much concerned with the children, with the poor, the elderly. The weak and defenseless.”

The three pairs of eyes across from her were shining, and not entirely benignly.

Ah. So some sort of test was imminent, it seemed. So be it. Evie gave them a regal, neutral smile. “A sound plan.”

“We should like you to join us at the O’Flaherty house tomorrow.”

“I’d love to,” she said immediately, even though she hadn’t the faintest idea what that meant and even as she thought she heard the vicar suck in a breath.