Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

Grace shook her head. “We hid them. Under the seat cushions.”

“Oh, how clever!” Elizabeth said approvingly.

“Amelia, wouldn’t you agree . . . ”

But Amelia wasn’t listening. It had become apparent that the movements in the hall belonged to a more sure-footed individual than the dowager, and sure enough, Wyndham walked past the open doorway.

Conversation stopped. Elizabeth looked at Grace, and Grace looked at Amelia, and Amelia just kept looking at the now empty doorway. After a moment of held breath, Elizabeth turned to her sister and said, “I think he does not realize we are here.”

“I don’t care,” Amelia declared, which wasn’t quite the truth.

“I wonder where he went,” Grace murmured.

And then, like a trio of idiots (in Amelia’s opinion), they sat motionless, heads turned dumbly toward the doorway. A moment later they heard a grunt and a crash, and as one they rose (but still did not otherwise move) and watched.

“Bloody hell,” they heard the duke snap.

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. Amelia was rather warmed by the outburst. She approved of anything that indicated he was not in complete control of a situation.

“Careful with that,” they heard him say.

A rather large painting moved past the doorway, two footmen struggling to keep it perpendicular to the ground. It was a singularly odd sight. The painting was a portrait—life-sized, which explained the difficulty in balancing it—and it was of a man, quite a handsome one, actually, standing with his foot on a large rock, looking very noble and proud.

Except for the fact that he was now tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, and—from Amelia’s vantage point—appeared to be bobbing up and down as he floated past. Which cut away significantly at noble and proud.

“Who was that?” she asked, once the painting had disappeared from sight.

“The dowager’s middle son,” Grace replied distract-edly. “He died twenty-nine years ago.”

Amelia thought it odd that Grace knew so precisely the date of his death. “Why are they moving the portrait?”

“The dowager wants it upstairs,” Grace murmured.

Amelia thought to ask why, but who knew why the dowager did anything? And besides, Wyndham chose that moment to walk past the doorway once again.

The three ladies watched in silence, and then, as if time were playing in reverse, he backed up a step and looked in. He was, as always, impeccably dressed, his shirt a crisp, snowy white, his waistcoat a marvelous brocade of deep blue. “Ladies,” he said.

They all three bobbed immediate curtsies.

He nodded curtly. “Pardon.” And was gone.

“Well,” Elizabeth said, which was a good thing, because no one else seemed to have anything to fill the silence.

Amelia blinked, trying to figure out just what, precisely, she thought of this. She did not consider herself knowledgeable in the etiquette of kisses, or of the appropriate behavior after the event, but surely after what had happened the previous evening, she warranted more than a “pardon.”

“Perhaps we should leave,” Elizabeth said.

“No, you can’t,” Grace replied. “Not yet. The dowager wants to see Amelia.”

Amelia groaned.

“I’m sorry,” Grace said, and it was quite clear that she meant it. The dowager positively reveled in picking Amelia to pieces. If it wasn’t her posture, then it was her expression, and if it wasn’t her expression, then it was the new freckle on her nose.

And if it wasn’t the new freckle, then it was the freckle she was going to get, because even if Amelia happened to be standing inside, entirely in the shadows, the dowager knew that her bonnet would not be affixed with the proper vigor when the time came to step into the sun.

Truly, the things the dowager knew about her were frightening, both in their scope and inaccuracy.

You will bear the next Duke of Wyndham! the dowager had snapped, more than once. Imperfection is not an option!

Amelia envisioned the rest of the afternoon and let out a sigh. “I’m eating the last biscuit,” she announced, sitting back down.

The two other ladies nodded sympathetically and resumed their seats as well. “Perhaps I should order more?” Grace asked.

Amelia nodded dejectedly.

And then Wyndham came back. Amelia let out a growl of displeasure, because now she had to sit up straight again, and of course her mouth was full of crumbs, and of course of course, he wasn’t even addressing her, anyway, so she was agitating herself for naught.

Inconsiderate man.

“We nearly lost it on the stairs,” the duke was saying to Grace. “The whole thing swung to the right and nearly impaled itself on the railing.”

“Oh, my,” Grace murmured.

“It would have been a stake through the heart,” he said with a wry smile. “It would have been worth it just to see the look on her face.”

Grace started to stand. “Your grandmother rose from bed, then?”

“Only to oversee the transfer,” he told her. “You’re safe for now.”

Grace looked relieved. Amelia couldn’t say that she blamed her.

Wyndham looked over to the plate where the biscuits had once sat, saw only crumbs, then turned back to Grace. “I cannot believe she had the temerity to demand that you fetch it for her last night. Or,” he added, in a

voice that was not quite so sharp as it was dry, “that you actually thought you could do it.”

Grace turned to her guests and explained, “The dowager requested that I bring her the painting last night.”