“Yes,” Griselda said thoughtfully. “So I’ve heard.” She turned to Annabel. “Have you a man hiding in the wings as well?”
“Absolutely not,” said Annabel with a huge grin. She had clearly recognized a kindred spirit. “I am open to suggestion, although I have decided that I should like a title.”
“This is the very first time I have chaperoned anyone onto the market, darling, but I might as well confess that I would take it extremely badly if one of you were to marry a plain mister.” Griselda and Annabel exchanged looks of perfect understanding.
“Now,” she said, turning to Tess, “I don’t want you to think that merely because my brother is utterly enchanted with you that I am not your advocate if you wish to refuse him. I am the first to admit that Mayne is not everyone’s blue-eyed boy. In fact, ever since he was jilted last spring—”
She stopped abruptly, looking as if she’d swallowed a spider.
That probably happened quite often to Griselda, Tess thought. Her tongue rattled on ahead of her mind. “Jilted?” she asked. “Was the earl betrothed, then?”
Griselda cast a glance at Josie. “Ah, no. And the past hardly signifies, given that he’s on the point of declaring himself to you, darling.”
“Of course,” Tess murmured. She couldn’t decide whether it made Mayne more attractive or less, to think of another woman rejecting him. A married woman, it appeared, from Griselda’s discomfiture. Probably less attractive.
“Now the question is,” Griselda said, “what about Felton? I mean, here he is in the house. One couldn’t pray for a better opportunity—and believe me, there are ladies all over England praying for just that opportunity.”
Annabel said, “Opportunity?”
“My darling, surely you have been told who Felton is?”
They all blinked at her.
“You haven’t? Oh my. He’s better than titled.” Griselda turned to Annabel. “Over two thousand pounds a year in rents, and that’s only the land. There are those who say that he owns the greater part of Bond Street, which is to say nothing of his holdings in stocks. He plays the market.”
“Oh,” Annabel said, light dawning in her eyes.
“Precisely.” Griselda nodded. “Here is Felton, providentially to hand. He may be a mere gentleman, but he has the most exquisite manners of anyone under a duke—and believe me, dears, his manners are far more polished than our royal dukes. It would make me extremely happy to see both you and Tess well away before we dealt with the little problem of Imogen and Lord Maitland.”
“There’s no way to deal with my feelings for Draven,” Imogen said half-angrily. She was the only sister who seemed untouched by Griselda’s charm. “I feel the way I feel, and I will not marry anyone other than Draven. And since he doesn’t wish to marry me, I shall remain unmarried.”
Griselda cast her a cool look that made Imogen’s back stiffen even more. “In that case, our only request would be that you not stand in the way of your sisters.”
“I can assure you that I would never stand in their way!” Imogen said rather wildly.
“Excellent. I would ask you to reconsider your notion of declining a season. If you are less than a success, then there will be no further questions should you eschew the season next year. But if you simply don’t attend, everyone will be curious.”
Imogen opened her mouth, but Griselda held up a magisterial hand.
“When the ton is curious, their imaginations grow quite fertile. As soon as they discover the Essex sisters are marriageable young women, they would wonder mightily at the absence of one of you. Wonder leads to speculation, and before you know it, you’ll be known as the sister with one leg. Or an attribute even less attractive.”
Imogen seemed struck by this.
Griselda turned back to Annabel. “Now, as to you, I think we are in agreement as to Mr. Felton’s superb qualifications for matrimony?”
Annabel’s mouth curved. “Absolutely.”
“Felton is rather extraordinary,” Griselda said meditatively. “There are those who accuse him of all sorts of hard-hearted dealings in business. Certainly he has never maintained a gentlemanly distance from the markets, a fact that his mother has never been able to forgive him for.”
“What do you mean?” Tess asked.
Griselda shrugged. “One hears rumors. His mother is very sensitive to matters of consequence, because she married below herself; she is the daughter of an earl, but he is merely a baron’s third son, or some such. I suppose she’d prefer her son was not so flamboyantly successful at commerce.” Her mouth curved. “There’s not a woman in London who agrees with her.”
“They’re estranged because he plays the markets?” Annabel said. “Are his parents so wealthy, then?”
“Oh, they’re well enough off, with a large estate in the country,” Griselda said. “I think the real crux of the disharmony must be Felton’s financial dealings, but I never heard the right of it. I did hear a rumor that he declines to share his ill-gotten gains with his family, so that might be it.”
She looked directly at Annabel. “None of that matters a pin. A man who won’t speak to his mother, after all, is a man who comes without a mother-in-law, and you may take that from me, m’dear: ’tis a marvelous piece of luck.”
To Tess, it sounded quite sad, but when she opened her mouth to ask another question, Griselda cut her off. “Why, they practically live next door and never speak. It’s quite amusing, in its own way. But enough of that lamentable family.”
“I think we are fairly well set,” Annabel said. “Tess shall quite possibly marry your brother Mayne. I shall quite possibly marry Mr. Felton, if he is in the least amenable. I shall make a concerted effort to inform him of my intentions, beginning this very afternoon at the races.”
Griselda looked at her thoughtfully. “If you don’t mind my saying so, darling, I shall look forward to it. One is never too old to learn from a master.”
“A high compliment indeed,” Annabel said, grinning at her. “Although quite unwarranted, I assure you.”
“Lord Maitland and his mother are joining us for the races,” Imogen broke in with her usual lack of attention to the subject of conversation. “Apparently Miss Pythian-Adams will follow in a carriage, as she doesn’t ride.” Her lips curled.
“Neither do I,” said Griselda, unperturbed by Imogen’s scornful eyes. “I have always found bouncing around on the tail of a horse enveloped in a cloud of dust more than tedious. Plus, horses invariably have yellow teeth. I loathe yellow teeth. My father-in-law had them, and I lived in fear that poor, poor Willoughby’s teeth would yellow before my very eyes. Perhaps it was fortunate that he died before it came to that.”
“Was your husband named Willoughby?” Tess asked, with some fascination.
Griselda nodded. “It’s been ten years since he died. Naturally, I miss him more every day. But enough of that unsavory subject. I shall enact my chaperonage to the best of my ability, meaning that I will attempt to leave you unchaperoned on every possible occasion and let you both effect the business without fuss. And I shall arrange for waltzing. There is nothing like the marked impropriety of clasping a lady to his breast to encourage a reluctant male into the path of virtue. By which I mean marriage, of course,” she added, probably because Tess, for one, was likely looking bewildered.