by Beth Byers
“You’re so lovely,” Vi offered.
“He’s prettier than I am,” Loopsie wailed.
He was, Vi thought. But what she said was, “I saw his gaze lingering on you.”
It was all a lie and it seemed that even drunk, Loopsie didn’t believe.
“He was probably trying to figure out how to throw me over without burning his bridges with my father. Reese works for Daddy right now, and Father could make sure that he doesn’t get another position easily.”
Vi glanced at Rita again who winced. Vi echoed the wince. Having to stay with a girl to support yourself was no avenue to happiness.
Vi rubbed the back of her neck and said, “You know what you need? A long bath with epson salts and rose oils. You’ll be fresh and ready for the hunt tomorrow. Like a rose on a summer day. How could Reese resist?”
“Easily,” Loopsie cried. “I’m old hat now. You know why our mothers tell us to not give in before marriage?” That last was a whisper and Vi was surprised that as drunk as Loopsie was she wasn’t shouting it.
“Why?” Rita asked, getting up and nodding at Vi to help. Together they pulled Loopsie to her feet and then wound their arms together. They would look a bit like clingy schoolgirls who had to walk arm-in-arm with their dearest friends, but it would—hopefully—keep Loopsie on her feet.
“They get bored. Sooner or later even your bobby will get bored of you, Rita. Your Vi’s husband probably already has. She just doesn’t know he’s stepping out on her.”
Vi and Rita’s gaze met and they both shook their heads. Not Ham. Not Jack. They silently comforted each other while they struggled to get Loopsie across the yard. The girl was hissing mean asides about every woman that they passed and if Vi was understanding the comments right, several of the men had become bored of Loopsie in the past.
Rita and Vi poured Loopsie into her bed with an aspirin and a large glass of water and then locked her in. She wasn’t truly bound into the room. The other key was on the small table near the door, but Loopsie would need to be sober enough to find and use it before she could leave.
“What a mess,” Rita muttered as they stepped away. Their rooms were across the house and Rita sighed. “Father thought he was doing me such a favor to bring all my old chums round to see Ham and I wed. They all call him the bobby or the Yard man. They act like he’s deaf. It’s everything Ham didn’t want, and I’m afraid he’ll be gone by the time our wedding morning comes around.”
“He won’t be,” Vi promised. She tugged Rita to a stop and cupped her friend’s face in her hands. “Ham loves you.”
“I know he does, but no man deserves this.”
“He loves you enough to see this through and come out on the other side. It’s not like you’ll be spending every day with these people. How dare they treat being the person we call for help as somehow dishonorable.”
Rita shook her head and then said, “He keeps saying he’s fine.”
“He is,” Vi promised.
“He could just be saying that. This isn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want to be the fellow who married me for my money.”
Vi rolled her eyes and then snapped, “Stop it.”
Rita stepped back.
“Every single man here who would offer for your hand would benefit by the money you have, Rita. Even the rich ones can’t aspire to what you have in your accounts.”
Rita bit down on her bottom lip, sniffling.
Vi added gently, “Only one of them, benefiting or not, would marry you as quickly poor as rich. Ham loves you, not your money.”
“I know he does, and I love him too.”
“Rita darling, I have never seen Ham look happier than he is right now.”
Rita’s eyes welled and she admitted, “I have been so worried. It’s like he lets the jabs roll off his back, and I take them three times over.”
“Stop it.”
Rita started to reply and Vi covered her mouth.
“Stop it.”
Rita tugged Vi’s hand away and started, “But—”
“Stop it.” Vi’s voice was gentle and easy. “You’re letting the cats win.”
“So, stop it.” Rita shook her head and then said, “I’m being almost as melodramatic as she is, aren’t I?”
Vi shook her head. “Never!”
Rita hooked her arm through Vi’s and said, “It’s a sad story there for poor Loopsie. I’ll tell you about it sometime, but I think I need to go rescue Ham now that I’ve rescued you.”
Chapter 7
“This is the third day outside,” Denny whined, “if you count the unofficial party, and I do. The pre-pre-pre wedding celebration with the tents and the pre-cheating at the snipe hunt. Now this snipe hunt. I wasn’t meant for this much sun. What’s next? A fox hunt? A ramble through the woods? Bloody hell, can’t I have an armchair and a pipe?”
“A pipe?” Vi mocked. Cigarettes maybe. Perhaps cigars after Cuba. But pipes? No.
Denny ignored Vi’s comment. “Why couldn’t they have hired bards and…and…traveling players?”
Lila yawned and then sipped her tea as she watched the bell ring for the end of the snipe hunt. “Finally.”
“Bards and traveling players haven’t been the pinnacle of celebration for a long time,” Jack said, ignoring the offered cocktail for a refill of his coffee. After two days of cocktails in the sun, the friends had been begging for orange juice without champagne, coffee, and even water.
“I hate to break it to you, my friend,” Denny said and then paused to echo his wife’s yawn. “But I am pretty sure a scavenger hunt that occurs in the sun with tents, scones, and hedge mazes are just a newer-old.”
“A what?” Vi asked, leaning her head against Jack’s shoulder.
“It’s still archaic.” Denny shoved his plate back and rose. “But not as old as bards. I want a bard. A…large animal on the spit, and the armchair. Something with less sun and more sitting.”
“What is the prize?” Vi asked, afraid to let Denny carry on further. Who knew where he’d end up as wound up as he was.
“I don’t know,” Rita admitted. “I asked Father, but he said it was a surprise for all of us.”
“Tell me about Jerome Albertson,” Violet asked as she leaned against Jack’s arm. “He hasn’t figured out yet that I was leading him on with Lady Eleanor.”
“Hmmm,” Rita said, avoiding the question, “I watched part of Jerome’s romancing of Lady Eleanor. Your stepmother has tried everything but throwing her drink in his face.”
“She’s a tiger,” Vi said and then giggled.
“Is that what you said?” Ham asked, staring at Vi in horror. Denny’s giggle was drowned out by Victor’s shout of laughter.
Innocently, Vi tried, “She is a tiger. Though Jerome may have interpreted what that meant differently than reality.”
“Because you led him to believe what you wanted,” Jack said without disapproval.
Vi leaned back, tilting her head, to grin at him. “Who, me?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing has been more entertaining in the whole of my life than this prank. Knowing that you told Jerome that Lady Eleanor was a tiger has taken it to a level that is a sheer blessing to me. To mankind.” Denny choked on his laugh but laughed through the coughing until his tears started.
“I am starting to feel sympathy for Lady Eleanor, and I would prefer to avoid her for the rest of my life. I see why your stepmother despises you as she does,” Ham told Vi without sympathy. “Have you been doing these things to her the whole of your life?”
“Who?” Vi grinned. “Me?”
“Why this time?” Rita asked.
Vi searched her friend’s face to see if she was upset, but Rita’s expression was carefree.
“She’s here for money for the wart again,” Vi muttered. “I care about Geoffrey, of course. But…the whole insistence that I do something for him…”
“You know you will eventually,” Lila told Vi. “Why not just do it and save
yourself so much focus from her?”
“She deserves to twist,” Vi muttered. “She wasn’t nice to Victor and I when we turned seven and canceled our party all because of a pack of frogs and her shoes. I can’t remember the details other than they aren’t important.”
Victor snorted, “I forgot that one. We were terrible children.”
Vi shot him a look and he held his hands up in surrender. His eyes, however, said he was just indulging her.
“Tell me about Jerome,” Jack said to Rita. “Do I need to worry about Lady Eleanor? Is he going to realize she’s as cold as she seems and lash out?”
“Ah,” Lila muttered, “the man of honor steps in.”
Denny’s giggle was next, but Rita ignored them both. “He’s one of those manly types, you know what I mean.”
Lila, Violet, and Kate nodded while Jack, Ham, Denny, and Victor look baffled.
“The manly man,” Lila told them, “is a fellow who thinks that all women are a little dim. Even when they’re brilliant, they’re only brilliant for a woman.”
“I hate those types,” Kate said. “You can’t possibly speak Greek. You can’t possibly really understand that play or that equation. You’re a woman.”
Rita snorted. “Exactly that. He’s a bit of a rogue but so good natured about it, I find I don’t mind as much as I should.”
“Is he going to push things with Lady Eleanor?” Jack asked. “Should I alert the earl?”
Rita shook her head. “Jerome is after a lover who gives gifts and does things like bring a fellow to the azure coast. He knows better than to hurt the golden goose. He may think he’s somehow convinced her that he’s not a rogue, but he won’t lash out if he doesn't get what he wants. Then he loses the chance to try again later.”
Vi couldn’t hold back her giggle and it was echoed by Denny. “We will now always refer to her as the golden goose.”
“The golden goose or the tiger?” Victor asked Denny. “They both have their own panache.”
Denny shuddered and said, “It’s funny to think Jerome is imagining Lady Eleanor as some passion-filled neglected wife who has all this energy to pour out. Refer to her too much as the tiger and I’ll start to believe it and then every time I’m around her, I’ll feel a little nauseated.”
“Hear, hear,” Jack agreed. “Just Violet calling her that has made me a little ill.”
“She’s had at least two lovers,” Vi said just to watch her twin squirm.
“Probably more,” Rita offered and then hid her grin when Victor and Denny gagged.
People were finally leaving the maze and turning in answers for the ‘snipe’ hunt. As they watched, Reese and Loopsie left the maze together and Vi whispered to Rita, “I didn’t expect that.”
“I’m not sure if she forgets what she did and felt or if in the light of the day, she doesn’t feel the same.”
Vi frowned and watched Loopsie lean in and say something to Reese who grinned at her. He said something and she stepped back. Her eyes were wide and she seemed shocked, staring at Reese so overtly that he said something else to her. He leaned in and spoke low, glancing around as if what he was saying was untoward. Whatever it was had Loopsie spinning and running into the crowd.
“Oh ho,” someone said and Vi’s whole table of friends turned from the scene before them to the fellow behind them. It was Percival. His gaze narrowed on Ham for a moment and then grinned engagingly. “Came over to say congratulations. Looks like Loopsie and Reese-y are having their final fallout. Her breakups are like watching a fellow chop down a tree. You know it’s coming down, but you’re just waiting for the call of timber. Seems like this tree took far longer to come down.”
Vi stared at him. She hadn’t liked him much before, but the look of humor on his face while this girl who was supposedly his friend had her heart broken was enough to make Vi want to give him a hard kick.
“Percival,” Ham said easily. “How did you do on the hunt?”
“Oh me? I didn’t bother after the first few clues. There were too many fiercely focused on the prize. I wasn’t going to win anyway, you know. What’s the prize? What did I give up on?”
“I don’t know,” Rita told him. Her face was even, but there was a stiffness to the corner of her mouth that said she was unhappy.
“Are these the new friends? I heard you were friends with that heiress. That girl who inherited all that money from her aunt?”
“Why?” Ham asked, but Denny gave Vi away with a high-pitched gasp and a glance at Vi.
“Is that you?” Percival asked.
Vi didn’t answer and Ham repeated, “Why do you want to know?”
Percival shook his head.
“The key factor to that woman,” Ham told Percival flatly, “isn’t her money.”
“But it is you?” Percival asked again. “You’re the heiress.”
“Half of people at this table have inherited money. Jack has. Violet has. Denny has. Victor has. Both of the earl’s daughters inherited money. Rita has already been given money and she’ll inherit more.”
Percival paused, realizing that no one was going to confirm what he was looking for. He tried for a baffled grin and said, “Curiosity, I guess. I thought you weren’t but then someone said you were. I didn't realize it was a secret.”
“It’s not a secret, Percival old man. It’s just not important.” Rita was almost gentle as she told him.
He shrugged and grinned again. “Did you see those Hollands brothers looking for the prize? They were focused on the prize and then Reese and Loopsie beat them out of the maze with the answer. It looked like strokes were imminent.”
Rita said something nice to him, letting the fellow change the subject.
A few minutes later, he finished with, “I’m really happy for you, Rita.”
It felt like a lie, but he was trying and she smiled engagingly. “Thank you, Percival.”
To Vi he said, “I didn’t mean to cross a boundary with you. No hard feelings?”
“Of course not,” Vi said. “Too much sun has left us all a little off. Did you enjoy the day even if you gave up on the hunt?”
“Course I did,” Percival said. It was a lie, Vi thought. He probably had spent the day looking the house and grounds over and thinking, ‘This could have been mine.’
“That’s nice,” Rita lied and then asked, “How is your mother?”
“Same,” Percival said, softening enough that Vi realized why Rita had been friends with the fellow. “Following Father around the world and knitting for every passing orphan as she goes.”
Rita leaned back and said, “Who would have thought we’d meet in India during our school days and be friends all these years later, half the world away?”
“It’s a strange little world we live in, isn’t it?” Percival asked and a real grin crossed his face. “You were the most gangly awkward girl I had ever met. I was sure you were useless, but you weren’t. I really am happy for you, Rita.” To Vi’s utter shock he glanced at Ham and said, “You were right to wait. Even I can see he loves you more than I ever did. I thought we’d be good together, but you had your eye on something better. I’d say I hope you’ll be happy, but I can tell you will be.”
Every female at the table teared up and Rita rose, pressing a kiss to Percival’s cheek. She whispered something to him, and he laughed a self-deprecating noise and then stepped back. “Congratulations, old man.”
Ham nodded and shook Percival’s hand. As he walked away, Rita stared around and then muttered, “Has hell frozen over? I feel like I just saw my childhood friend for the first time in years.”
“It’s that he’s given up,” Jack told her. “He shifted from friend to a fellow who was targeting you. Now that your money is out of reach again, you’re just another one of the girls.”
Rita’s gaze moved to Vi. As the heiresses that were almost famous for their wealth, they understood each other better than anyone else. “You just shifted from a pile of buillon to a human. It’s in
credible, isn’t it?”
Given it wasn’t that amusing, Rita shook her head and rose. Vi glanced at everyone else and then followed, bypassing a gent who was narrowing down on the rules of the scavenger hunt, the shadow of Loopsie crying in the shadow of a tree, and Philip Russell animatedly telling his lover and her daughter a story that had them both hanging on his every word. They bypassed Geoffrey and Ginny who had slipped into the trees and were walking hand-in-hand far too openly if they wanted to avoid the wrath of Lady Eleanor. Then they slipped inside, hurrying up to Rita’s bedroom.
Sometimes the thing to do to make yourself feel better was to pack your clothes for your honeymoon and discuss shopping for new clothes in Paris. If doing that together was what Rita needed from Vi, she’d be happy to help.
Chapter 8
The dance started with servants handing out masks. There were simple black masks, otherworldly leather masks formed into shapes, and colorful feathered masks that suggested everything from exotic birds to wolves and foxes and fairies. Vi found a blue and aqua feathered mask that went with her dress and let Jack tie it for her.
Jack chose a formed leather mask that seemed half-devil, half-wolf. Then he tugged her into his arm, wrapping it tight around her. “Now that they don’t know it’s us,” he said with a grin, “I’m not limited to kissing your fingers or your brow.”
To Vi’s shock, he planted a passionate kiss on her lips and whispered, “I adore you Violet Wakefield.”
Vi pulled back and told him with careful precision so there could be no mistake, “I love you, Jack.”
He kissed her softly until Denny dryly said, “Save it for the bedroom, you two.”
Jack turned, holding Vi close, “We’re incognito now. Haven’t you noticed? Though I admit, it’s difficult kissing with these masks on.”
Around that time, Victor and his wife, Vi’s sister Isolde and husband Tomas, along with Denny and Lila appeared.
“You, sirrah,” Lila said with a laugh, “are a mountain of a man with the broadest shoulders and tallest form here. There’s no way that everyone doesn’t know who you are. And every woman knows Vi by her long strand of black pearls.”