is she?” the Countess asked. “Have I met her?”
“I don’t think so, Grandmama. She is very nice—and she’s beautiful, as well.”
“Ah. A rare combination, to be sure.” Lady Exmoor smiled at her granddaughter.
“Yes. But that isn’t even the best part. She likes to read. We had a nice chat about books. She had read this one I borrowed, and she said it was thrilling. In fact, that’s where I met her. I was coming from the lending library, and she was going to it.”
“I hope I shall meet her.” The Countess looked across at Lord Buckminster, who seemed to have sunk into a gloom, and Lord Lambeth, whose attention was focused on a tiny piece of lint he was picking from his trousers. “But I am afraid we are boring our visitors. Lord Buckminster came to see if we had had any word from Thorpe and Alexandra.”
“Oh! And have you?” Penelope’s interest was diverted.
“Yes. I got a letter from Alexandra this morning. They are still in Italy on their honeymoon—Venice now, it seems. She waxed quite ecstatic over the beauty of it, but she did say that they planned to come home shortly.”
“Good. I shall like to see her again.”
“Yes. I say, that will be bang-up,” Lord Buckminster agreed, abandoning his glumness. “Thorpe’s a good chap.” He paused. “Lady Thorpe, too, of course—well, what I meant was, not a chap, of course, but still—though I don’t know her all that well—I mean—”
“Yes, Bucky,” Lady Ursula stuck in blightingly. “I feel sure we all know what you meant to say.”
“Er—yes. Quite.” Buckminster subsided.
“I feel sure you will be very glad to have Lady Thorpe back, Lady Castlereigh,” Lord Lambeth said blandly to Ursula, observing her through half-closed lids.
The Countess smiled faintly and carefully avoided looking at her daughter. Lady Ursula colored. Most people in the ton knew how little she had believed that Alexandra Ward was her long-lost niece when the American heiress had arrived in London a few months ago, and how vigorously she had fought against the Countess’s accepting her as such. When finally it had been proved, she had given in with ill grace.
“Of course I will,” she told Lord Lambeth, reproof tinting her voice. “Now that I am sure that Alexandra is really Chilton’s child, I am fond of her, as I am of everyone in my family.”
“Naturally.” Given the fact that he had never seen any evidence of true fondness from Lady Ursula toward her daughter or son, Lambeth supposed that perhaps she was as fond of Alexandra as she was of others in her family.
He did not know all the facts of the case, not being close friends with the family or Lord Thorpe. However, ample gossip had passed around the ton this Season for him to know that the Countess’s son, Lord Chilton, and his French-born wife had been visiting in France at the outbreak of the revolution twenty-two years earlier. They and their three children had been reported dead, killed by the mob. This spring, at the beginning of the Season, an American woman had shown up in London and had somehow proved that she was in reality Lord Chilton’s youngest child. It had ended with the long-lost heiress marrying Lord Thorpe. The whole story, in Lambeth’s opinion, sounded like something out of a lurid novel of the sort Penelope professed to enjoy.
Lambeth’s purpose in persuading Buckminster to call on Penelope and her family had been accomplished. He had not found out the secretive Mrs. Cotterwood’s location, but he had discovered all that was to be gotten out of Penelope. It would be enough, he reasoned. A book lover—not what he had expected of that redheaded temptress—would return to the same lending library. A servant set to watch the place would soon find out where she lived.
Accordingly, Lambeth took his leave, having no wish to endure Lady Ursula’s presence any longer than was absolutely necessary. As soon as the front door closed behind him and Lord Buckminster, Lady Ursula turned on her daughter, scowling.
“Really, Penelope! Did you have to go on about those silly novels? One would think you could have made a little effort to impress Lord Lambeth.”
“Oh, Mama, Lord Lambeth has no interest in me,” Penelope replied, flushing with embarrassment. “I wish you would not say such things.”
Lady Ursula sighed. “Sometimes I quite despair of you, Penelope. Any other girl would have at least made a push to be appealing.”
“What nonsense, Ursula,” the Countess put in. “Lord Lambeth and Penelope would not suit at all. I wonder you can even think of such a match.”
“Would not suit? How could a marquess with a family back to the Invasion and barrels full of money possibly not suit?”
“I am sure I would not suit him, Mama. Everyone says he will eventually marry Cecilia Winborne, and even if he did not, well, I am sure that I am hardly his style.”
“Who a man flirts with and who he marries are two entirely different things,” Lady Ursula said pedantically. “Our family is as old and genteel as one could hope to find—the equal of Lord Lambeth’s and certainly better than the Winbornes, I should hope.”
Penelope gave up the struggle. She had found out long ago that it was useless to try to make her mother see reason. Her grandmother spoke quickly to forestall Ursula, who was gathering herself for another attack.
“Of course we are,” Lady Exmoor said. “Indeed, I wonder that you should think a Montford should marry an upstart like the Duke of Storbridge’s son.”
Ursula turned a startled gaze to her mother, then grimaced as she saw the twinkle in the Countess’s eyes. “Really, Mother, this is scarcely something to joke about.”
“I think it is precisely the sort of the thing to joke about. As if Penelope would want to marry Lord Lambeth. Do let us stop talking such nonsense.” She turned back to Penelope. “I have had a report from the Runner I set on finding Marie Anne.”
“Did he have any luck?” Penelope asked eagerly.
Lady Exmoor sighed. “Partially. I had told you that he found an orphanage outside London where a child named Mary Chilton had been taken, and it was the right time. When he went there, he found that the matron was retired, but one of her assistants still worked there, and she remembered the child. ‘Redheaded spitfire,’ was the way she put it.” A smile trembled on the older woman’s lips, and Penelope saw moisture in her eyes. “That sounds like Marie. He managed to worm out of them where the child went when she left the orphanage.”
The Countess paused and swallowed hard before she could continue. “She went into service at a local house.”
“Oh, no!” Penelope cried, reaching out and taking her grandmother’s hand. Lady Exmoor squeezed it hard, pressing her lips together to stop their trembling. “That’s awful! I mean, well, to think of my cousin having to scrub and clean.”
“Yes. For nobodies like those Quartermaines,” Lady Ursula added, her indignation roused by the slight on the family. “I’ve never even heard of them.”
“Local gentry,” Lady Exmoor explained. “Still, I don’t suppose it really matters who they are. The real problem is that she left there a few years later, and no one seems to know where she went.
