“I didn’t know,” Greywick said, a queer look on his face.
“Didn’t know what?” Joan asked.
“That the two of you are betrothed.”
“We’re not,” Joan said, at the same moment Otis said, “Not us.”
“We’re friends,” Joan added. She reached over and gave Otis a little pinch. “Best of friends, since he agreed to put on a corset and gown so that I can play a male role.”
“Very kind of you,” Greywick told Otis.
“Yes, it is,” Otis said. “I still can’t believe I agreed to do it. I don’t like the corset, and let’s not even mention the challenge of using a chamber pot.”
“You would never agree to such a thing, would you?” Joan asked Greywick, genuinely curious.
“Put on a corset? I hope not. And a gown? Never,” the viscount stated.
“My father is wedded to his corset,” Otis observed. “Given that I didn’t enjoy the experience this afternoon, I probably shouldn’t eat any cake.”
They were well into the first course when a footman quietly entered and whispered something in Prism’s ear. The butler left the room, even though he seemed to believe that the family might starve if he wasn’t there with an eagle eye, noticing when a plate was empty and directing a footman by a twitch of his eyebrow.
Joan had forgotten Prism’s absence forty-five minutes later, when the butler opened the doors and announced, “Lady Bumtrinket!”
Joan’s stepmother sprang from her seat, followed by everyone else in the room. “Aunt Daphne, what a surpr—what a pleasure to see you!”
Lady Bumtrinket was the kind of well-upholstered English lady who glistens with rectitude, like a plump salmon flopping its way upstream. She was in the right, always in the right, even if the current appeared to be going in a different direction.
Foolish current.
A lady of her silhouette, ancestry, and education feels no need to consider social strictures that might prompt others to hesitate. Being in her eighties, or possibly her nineties, she had long since ceased to consider society’s rules relevant to herself.
Because she was a relation of the Duchess of Lindow’s first husband, Sir Peter Astley, more discerning people would consider the connection severed or at least attenuated once Sir Peter was replaced by a duke.
Not Lady Bumtrinket.
She had spent her life in the bosom of the nobility. Dukes, earls, and the occasional baron were to her as everyday as the air she breathed, and had been since she left the ducal estate where she was born.
Viola glanced over at Joan with a wrinkled nose: Great-Aunt Daphne was heartily disliked among the Wilde offspring due to her reliance on “plain speech,” a phrase by which English folk often excuse rudeness.
“I’m sorry that Viola isn’t seated at our table,” Joan said. “She is terrified of Great-Aunt Daphne.” She, Otis, and Greywick began to walk toward the door, where Joan’s father and stepmother were greeting their guest.
“Last time I met her,” Otis said gloomily, “she told me I was as short and round as a suet pudding. Another reason to avoid cake, I suppose.”
“That is not true,” Joan told him. “If it makes you feel any better, she loathes me. I believe she thinks I should have been raised in the country, or perhaps just left on the hillside, the way the Romans did with unwanted babies.”
The flash of wrath in Lord Greywick’s eyes startled her. “Has she been horrid to you as well?” Joan asked. “You needn’t worry; the lady will certainly be seated with my parents.”
In point of fact, Prism was rushing to add a chair to the right of the duke, in the place of honor.
“I think not,” Lady Bumtrinket said, brushing past her niece and launching into the room. “I shall sit there, Prism.” She pointed a bony finger to the seat beside Greywick’s plate. “There’s more space at that table. My girth is primarily the fault of the current fashion, but even so, it must be accommodated.”
While Joan and Viola made their curtsies, receiving a regal nod in return, Prism summoned three footmen, who briefly swarmed the table and left a cluster of fresh china, crystal, and silver behind.
“I’ll have two plover’s eggs, gently coddled,” Lady Bumtrinket told the butler once she was seated beside Greywick. “I’m reducing, Prism. Reducing is the bane of the elderly, a group in which I reluctantly account myself.” She squinted at Otis. “I can share a recipe or two with you, young Murgatroyd.”
“Thank you,” Otis said.
The lady cast a peremptory eye on Greywick. “I haven’t seen you in a donkey’s years, Viscount. Where have you been?”
“The normal haunts,” he replied. “How are you faring, Lady Bumtrinket?”
“Irritable due to reducing,” she snapped. “You could use some reducing as well. You’ve grown inordinately large in the chest area. Or are you padding your coat?”
Greywick was apparently at a loss for words.
“I see that you are,” Lady Bumtrinket said in triumph. “I suggest you dismiss your valet immediately and find one who can offer you better guidance on the art of being a duke. A future duke, I mean. We all know that your father reneged on his ducal responsibilities, running away to live in another household.”
Joan blinked. She was aware that Lord Greywick’s father, the Duke of Eversley, chose to live with his mistress, but she had never heard it mentioned in public.
A polite smile touched Greywick’s mouth. “I assure you that the estate is well cared for in his absence, Lady Bumtrinket.”
“One cannot blame you for ignorance of aristocratic behavior, given that you can hardly be said to have had a father,” she continued, ignoring his comment. “Just be prudent when it comes to choosing your duchess. Very prudent.”
Lord Greywick responded with a wordless hostility that Joan was surreptitiously finding rather enjoyable. Still, she felt a sudden urge to defend him. She was used to Lady Bumtrinket, but he might not have encountered her at such close quarters before.
“I do remember that you were trying to marry one of the Wilde girls a few years ago,” Lady Bumtrinket said, without pausing for breath. “Would have been a good choice, but the youngest is still in the nursery, isn’t she?” Her eyes roved the table and stopped on Joan. “Still unmarried?” she demanded.
“Yes, I am,” Joan replied. She turned to Greywick. “Isn’t it extraordinary how manners are changing? The ducal governess taught me never to inquire about marital status.”
“Your governess knew you had to adhere to the highest standards in order to marry anyone above a grocer,” Lady Bumtrinket declared. “That is not true for those of us born to the ermine. Speaking of which, I saw your father the other day,” she said to Greywick. “Draped in an ermine robe in this weather. Extraordinary, even for him.”
Joan was starting to feel distinctly sorry for the viscount. No matter how much she disliked him, he didn’t deserve a browbeating.
But the man had no need for her support. “My father is a duke of the realm,” he stated. “If he wishes to clothe himself from head to foot in the fur of small, spotted animals, he has the means to do it.”