“I am showing off my best feature. And oddly enough, all the barely suppressed anger from the dowager is making me feel alarmingly at home. Perhaps I’ll break out a limerick at the table tonight.”
Georgiana carefully adjusted her parasol so that not a touch of daylight reached her face. Needless to say, Georgie’s parasol was altogether more substantial than Olivia’s, with a high peaked top that shaded every inch of her from hair to toes. “Mother did not accompany us to this house party.”
“In fact, no one has quoted The Maggoty Mirror in the last hour, and if I, for one, don’t hear a few choice phrases from it soon, I might begin to forget its precepts. Although the living version does stalk before us.”
“Mother is not here,” her sister repeated, “and therefore you needn’t behave as if she was on hand, trying to force you to do something you abhor—such as marry Rupert.” She waved her gloved hand. “Look around you, Olivia. There’s no one here but the two of us.”
“If you manage to overlook the dowager, the duke, Lady Sibblethorp, and young Henwitty. Not to mention those poor footmen carrying the baskets and sweltering in their livery. I do wish Lord Justin had elected to join us on this excursion. I find walking unutterably boring, and at least Justin makes me laugh.”
“What were you talking about in the drawing room before we left?” Georgiana asked. “You seemed to be having a wonderful time.”
“Being shallow by nature, Justin and I have started a game to see which of us can come up with the worst insult.”
“Why on earth would you try to make up insults?” Georgiana looked genuinely pained, likely thinking that Olivia was going to let fly at their hostess. “When can you possibly use them?”
“It’s merely a game with no practical usage,” Olivia explained. “Justin came up with this for a man: You dog’s-head, you rotten, roguey trendle-tail!”
Georgiana glanced at the dowager’s back. “For goodness’ sake, Olivia, keep your voice down. I’m sure you’re well aware that the two of you are engaged in an extraordinarily tasteless activity. What on earth is a trendle-tail?”
“I’m not sure,” Olivia said now, wishing that she had never repeated it to Georgie. Of course her sister wouldn’t approve of such a foolish way to spend one’s time. “We both loved the way it sounded,” she added in a weak defense.
“Trendle-tail,” Georgiana repeated. “The word sounds vulgar. I’m sure it means something that you ought not be thinking about, let alone speaking aloud.”
The duke dropped back and turned around. “A trendle-tail is a dog with a curled tail: in short, not purebred.” He made no apology for eavesdropping.
Olivia’s pulse instantly started tapping along at a faster rhythm. His Grace had the largest shoulders she’d ever seen on a peer. They were wasted on someone who apparently spent his time playing with scraps of paper covered with numbers.
“And what is your current entry in the game you are playing with my cousin, Miss Lytton?” he asked, looking at her with those intently dark eyes of his.
If she’d had her choice, she’d rather not have shared her contribution, but they were both waiting expectantly. “Mine is an insult for a woman. You thin lean polecat, you of the grasshopper thighs and bony rump!”
At that, the duke actually broke into a crack of laughter. It sounded a bit rusty, but it was laughter.
Georgiana, naturally, did not laugh. “I trust you weren’t thinking of me,” she hissed, under cover of the duke’s laughter.
“Actually, no,” Olivia said, nodding toward the lean, if lovely, Lady Althea.
“Your insult says more about you than her,” Georgiana said, giving her a meaningful glance. Then she readjusted her parasol once again and slipped her hand under the duke’s arm. “Do tell me more about infinitesimal calculus, Your Grace?”
Olivia had actually never heard Georgiana coo before. She bent over, pretending that one of her ankle ribbons had come loose, hoping the two of them would take the opportunity to walk ahead.
She could easily imagine them married. Lord and Lady Prim, the Duke and Duchess of Dandification, the—
The duke turned around. “Miss Lytton, we are loathe to leave you behind.” He looked at her, unsmiling, and her unruly heart thumped again.
The group was clustered before a white gate in a fence that surrounded a small and rather dilapidated house. The dowager handed her cane to one of the footmen. “Give that gate a good beating, if you would,” she commanded. “It will rouse the inhabitants.”
“Excuse me,” the duke said. He slipped his arm from Georgiana’s. “Allow me.” He unhooked the latch.
“You needn’t, Tarquin,” the dowager said. “I always signal my arrival thus. One wouldn’t want the poor souls to run out half-clothed or some such. We would all be mortified.”
Without a reply, the duke opened the gate and held it open for all of them to pass. Their bright bonnets and parasols seemed doubly so in contrast to the battered house and its neglected garden.
Then the front door popped open and children began to spill out, all bobbing up and down in a frenzy of curtsying.
“A very good afternoon to you, Mrs. Knockem,” the dowager said, nodding at a plain, tired-looking woman with red, knobby hands. All the children were lined up by now. “Avery, Andrew, Archer,” the dowager said, nodding to each child. “I’m Alfred,” the littlest boy said. “Archer is in the pub.”
The dowager frowned. “In the pub, Mrs. Knockem? Surely Archer is extraordinarily young to be imbibing spirits.”
“Our Archer is bringing home a penny a week washing mugs, Yer Grace. We’re right proud of him.”
“A penny is certainly not to be overlooked.” The dowager looked at the line again. “Good afternoon, Audrey and Amy. Where is Anne?”
“She’s inside, feeling a bit poorly,” their mother replied, her hands twisting in her apron.
“Not in the family way, Mrs. Knockem?” the dowager inquired. “I understand she is walking out with the butcher’s youngest.”
“Oh no,” Mrs. Knockem said, blinking madly. “Our Anne is a good girl. She’s sat in a patch of something, and she’s all covered with little bumps. We do call it the purple itch hereabouts.”
The dowager gestured to the footman. “Bring the basket inside. Mrs. Knockem, if I might be so bold, one of my guests, Miss Georgiana Lytton, has quite remarkable skill at curing skin ailments.”
Olivia leaned over and breathed in her sister’s ear, “Lady Althea should just call for her carriage and return to London now.”
But Lady Sibblethorp was apparently not ready to give up the fight. “My daughter, Lady Althea, has also made an extensive study of minor skin ailments,” she said magisterially. “We shall examine the girl.”
Mrs. Knockem didn’t look particularly happy about the imminent house invasion, but she seemed to realize that there was no stopping a flood once the riverbank was breached. She fell backward a step, blinking even faster.
Georgiana stepped forward. “Mrs. Knockem, you must be so worried. Could you tell me more about what happened?” She walked into the house, her arm tucked under Mrs. Knockem’s, her head bent to hear her description.