“It goes without saying my brothers are not suited for the position,” Betsy said.
“The Wildes are manifestly unfit for holy orders,” Aunt Knowe agreed. “I must fetch that dandelion syrup from the stillroom. Viola, if you must be sick, avoid the lemon tree. It hasn’t recovered from the last time.”
“I don’t want to do this,” Viola moaned. But she obediently began walking down the corridor to the breakfast room.
“It’s like acting in a pantomime,” Betsy advised. “Not real.”
“Not real to you,” Viola said, her voice rising a bit. “Everything comes easily to you, Betsy. You want to present London with an ideal debutante, so you do. You just do it, even though everyone in this family knows that the only person in the family naughtier than you was Parth. But all these people think you’re sweet. Sweet!”
“I’m—aren’t I sweet?” Betsy asked, disconcerted.
“In a way,” Viola said, hunching her shoulders. “But in most ways, you’re not. My point is that you don’t ever throw up on meeting a stranger, do you?”
“No. But I’m worried about meeting the duchess,” she reminded Viola. “Life is full of discomforting events.”
Viola gave her a bleak look. “I know.”
They’d reached the breakfast room, where Prism guarded the door, the better to guide guests to precisely the right table.
“Good morning, Miss Astley, Lady Boadicea,” he said. “Miss Astley, may I say how pleased I am that you will breakfast with our guests this morning?”
“There’s nothing to be pleased about,” Viola said morosely. Then she added: “I lurked in the ladies’ retiring room at the ball last night, Prism, and I heard nothing but praise for the household.”
Prism’s smile widened to cover his entire face.
“You are the true lady of the two of us,” Betsy told her sister as a footman pushed the door to the breakfast room. “Perhaps you should marry Lord Greywick.”
Viola looked at her in horror. “Don’t make jests like that.”
The breakfast room was one of Betsy’s favorite chambers in all of Lindow Castle. Her grandfather had seen the room in a decaying palazzo in Venice and had the whole thing shipped home to England. The wood paneling was painted delphinium blue with elaborate swirls picked out in white.
The matching cabinets were filled with exquisite spun-glass vases. They were never used, as the late duke had bought the contents along with the cabinets and considered them akin to wallpaper. “Can’t replace ’em, might as well leave ’em be,” or so legend had it.
This morning Prism had rearranged the breakfast room due to the press of guests visiting the castle. Rather than a single board, small tables were dotted around the room, set with white cloths embroidered with forget-me-nots.
Viola’s hand tightened around Betsy’s arm like an outgrown bracelet.
“Mind your skirts,” Prism said, with the familiarity of a butler who had watched both of them grow from toddlers to ladies. “The tables are set close together.”
Betsy pasted a blithe smile on her face as she walked across the room. Some fifty persons of worth and consequence looked up and nodded their greetings. Thankfully, there was no sign of a pink-clad duchess. Beside her, she heard an almost soundless moan.
Prism came to a halt. Betsy heard a rustle spread through the room, as the guests realized that the Wilde sisters had been placed at a table holding a future duke and a future marquess, not to mention Adrian Parswallow.
Prism pulled out a chair. “Lady Betsy.”
“Viola, you first,” Betsy said, keeping her voice carefree as she pushed her trembling sister into a seat. That was a breach of etiquette, since she was the elder sister, but she had the distinct impression that Viola was thinking about dashing from the room.
“I’ll sit beside my sister,” Betsy said to Prism, before he could try to place a gentleman between them.
Only once she was seated did Betsy realize that Prism had attempted to put her in a chair beside Thaddeus, but instead Viola now sat there. Which meant Betsy had Jeremy on her left. Both men were on their feet, naturally.
Betsy shot a quick look at Jeremy under her lashes. He looked frightful, with smudges under both eyes. So much for the idea that their kiss would send him to sleep. Then she remembered the other rude things he’d said.
Perhaps he was up all night tupping Lady Tallow.
She shot him a frown.
He swayed a little. “Sorry, I haven’t had any sleep,” he murmured, sitting down as a footman placed buttered eggs on Betsy’s plate. “Did you just frown at me? In public? You never do that. In public you generally resemble a china doll with a painted smile.”
“That is frightfully rude,” Betsy said, although she had to admit that he had a point. Her smile was a powerful weapon and she didn’t hesitate to employ it.
She turned to the table at large and beamed. “How are you all today? Mr. Parswallow, I hope to hear the rest of your poem before you leave.”
“I can stay in the castle a day or two longer,” the gentleman said eagerly. “Last night I wrote an ode to p’heacocks.” He struck a pose, not easy while seated. “An obscene grandeur and a decadent feather with green-groping eyes . . .”
He paused. There was a deafening silence.
“An evocative line,” Betsy said hastily, picking up her sister’s cold hand and giving it a squeeze. No one knew how much courage it took for Viola to do something as simple as attend breakfast.
“What are the family peacocks’ names, Miss Astley?” Thaddeus asked Viola.
Betsy took a bite of egg and gave him an approving nod. Most people didn’t notice that Viola’s shyness was crippling, and if they did, they didn’t guess that she could be distracted by talk of animals.
“Fitzy and Floyd,” Viola replied, brightening slightly.
“P’heacocks are glorious pl’humed beasts,” Parswallow put in. “They belong on castle grounds.”
“They seem to be fantastically quarrelsome,” Jeremy remarked, waving his fork. “I witnessed a battle royal during which bucketfuls of dirt were scratched from the ground and flung about. The air was blue with cursing.”
“Peacocks are territorial,” Thaddeus said in his placid way. “Has His Grace ever considered acquiring a peahen or two, Miss Astley?”
“We’re afraid it would give them more reason to fight,” Viola answered.
From the table behind them, Betsy heard a penetrating whisper. “Miss Astley isn’t often seen in public.”
Hopefully Viola hadn’t heard that; Thaddeus was inquiring about the battles between aging Fitzy and the young upstart, Floyd.
The woman behind them seemed to believe she was inaudible, even though she was seated so close to Betsy that their skirts were almost overlapping. “No, no! She’s not a real Wilde. Her mother is the third duchess, but she’s a child of Her Grace’s first marriage. She’s quite peculiar, from what I hear.”
The reply to this extraordinarily rude comment came in a murmur, while Betsy chomped on her eggs, anger churning in her stomach. How dare anyone label Viola as “peculiar,” simply because she was shy?