Lady Knowe nodded, having made up her mind. “Mr. Marlowe must come with us. His fiancée is in London, after all.”
“I can’t bear the woman,” the duke said dispassionately. “I might let him go at the end of the year simply because of his future wife.”
“My pity stems from his future mother-in-law,” Ophelia said with a shiver. “I suppose it might be a good idea to bring him to London. Perhaps Mr. Marlowe will reconsider his marital plans.”
Viola could scarcely stop herself from throwing up her hands in celebration.
Providence was indeed watching the fall of every sparrow. Mr. Marlowe was right! Now he would be coming to London, so all she had to do was make him fall in love with her.
How hard could it be?
She’d watched her older stepbrothers fall in love over the last few years. As she saw it, men denied their own emotions until they snapped and then pursued their future bride with a single-minded tenacity.
She could already picture Mr. Marlowe’s blue eyes looking at her adoringly.
Chapter Five
The Duke of Lindow’s townhouse
A ball in honor of Lady Joan Wilde & Miss Viola Astley
April 2, 1782
The Duke of Lindow’s ball in honor of Lady Joan Wilde and Miss Viola Astley opened the Season of 1782. Within the hour, it was an acknowledged triumph.
The two young ladies were besieged by suitors, among them several noblemen. Queen Charlotte herself made an appearance, and only a bilious attack kept His Majesty from attendance. Equally important, given society’s fascination with the Wildes, the family turned out in full force.
Attendees included the duke’s heir, North, who was rarely seen in London, along with his wife. Even more exciting was the presence of Alaric, the famous writer just returned from a prolonged visit to India.
Lavinia Sterling, the wife of His Grace’s adopted son, Parth, was exquisitely garbed, but no gown eclipsed the robe à la française worn by the duke’s sister, the wildly fashionable Lady Knowe. Her skirts were “pale thrush eggshell color,” scribbled a giddy fashion columnist for The Ladies Gazette, “trimmed with knots of roses and spangles fashioned from sunbeams.”
In short, the ball satisfied every guest as well as curious bystanders. Even those looking for scandal were able to amuse themselves by making up reasons why Alaric’s wife was not in attendance. The family kept to themselves the prosaic fact that (by her own description) Willa was as round as the full moon, and Lady Knowe had the idea that she might be carrying twins.
If truth be told, the Wilde family collectively breathed a sigh of relief as midnight rolled around without incident.
No one had fretted about Joan, but Viola?
Ever since Viola began throwing up from pure nerves, they had all worried that the pressure of a debut ball would be too much for her unruly stomach.
That very morning, His Grace had dispatched a constable accompanied by three burly grooms to confiscate hundreds of prints made by an enterprising stationer gambling that images of Vomiting Viola would sell like hotcakes.
Sometimes it felt as if all of England was collecting prints of the next Wilde escapade. Housemaids from Scotland to Cheshire waited with bated breath for the tinker’s cart to appear with a stack of new prints depicting Lady Knowe dressing down an impudent knife grinder (fictional) or North knocking unconscious a man who had abused a dog (true).
When Betsy debuted two years ago and promptly began amassing marriage proposals the way children collect seashells, the printmakers of Britain had rejoiced.
Now, with two Wilde daughters to consider?
The family couldn’t leave the townhouse without being besieged by reporters. Joan enjoyed blowing kisses to those she liked; Viola seriously considered refusing to leave her bedchamber until the Season was over.
Yet the debut ball was not proving as dreadful as she had feared. She had exchanged remarks with several young men and danced with two of them. Her wretched shyness had not disappeared, but it had receded.
Most importantly of all, her nerves hadn’t gone to her stomach.
“Anyone who has heard you are incurably timid knows it to be a falsehood,” Aunt Knowe had whispered in her ear after the first hour. “Brava, darling!”
What Aunt Knowe didn’t realize was the reason for Viola’s surprising change of heart. Her show of courage. Her cure.
It was love.
Love had changed everything.
Love kept her calm as she danced an allemande with a young squire, calm as an eligible earl lectured her on gargoyles, calm as she accepted gentlemen’s compliments that would have made her squirm a month before.
She no longer worried whether her so-called suitors thought she didn’t measure up to being a Wilde. If her dance partners were secretly as rough and unprincipled as the man she’d interrupted at that long-ago ball, it wasn’t her problem. She could scarcely believe that she’d cared so much.
Every beat of her heart brought her closer to the part of the evening that truly mattered: a meeting with Mr. Marlowe in the library. At precisely twenty minutes past midnight, Viola slipped out of the ballroom, pretending that her hem needed adjusting.
To her horror, she arrived at the ducal library just in time to see Sir Reginald Murgatroyd, an acquaintance of her Aunt Knowe’s, disappear inside. Surely a respectable widower in his fifties hadn’t planned an illicit tryst?
Viola cautiously pulled open the door a crack.
“Found you!” Sir Reginald bellowed. He was standing with his back to Viola before an armchair set at an angle to the door. As Viola watched, he gave the pair of long legs stretched out before him a kick.
“That charming greeting can only originate from a member of my family,” said a deep voice from the depths of the chair.
Not a tryst, thankfully. Viola would have fled a rendezvous, but family squabbling was old hat.
“Of course it’s me, Nephew,” Sir Reginald said, giving him another kick. “On your feet, you lazy laggard.”
Viola slipped through the door and let it close silently behind her. Thanks to her bouts of shyness, she was an expert at concealing herself, and nothing could be easier than hiding in her own house.
The library at Lindow Castle was a comfortable room where the family lounged about, reading books and sipping tea. In sharp contrast, the library at the ducal townhouse was formal, with walls covered with brocade apricot silk and glass-fronted bookshelves designed to house works of great brilliance. Narrow, tall-backed armchairs were clustered around the room like stern matrons wearing whalebone corsets.
The windows were hung with silk curtains, heavy enough to conceal one small, if curvy, person. Over the years, they had proved useful for hide-and-seek—and avoiding Aunt Knowe. No matter how beloved, she had always been the person most likely to push Viola into meeting strangers.
Viola slid quietly along the wall and nipped behind the nearest curtain, sending up silent thanks that fashion dictated modest side panniers this year. Then she sent up a fervent prayer that Sir Reginald would drag his nephew back to the ballroom, now that the fellow had been kicked awake.
“What are you doing in here?” His Lordship demanded. “I have picked out your wife, and I want to introduce her, since you were impolite enough to arrive after the receiving line had dissolved.”