the earl this morning?”
“Exhausted,” he said. “I looked in on him after breakfast, and he bid me pull the shades, as he wanted to sleep, having suffered another long night.”
Augustine stood from the table, his belly brushing against it. He tugged down his waistcoat, which had a habit of riding up when he’d been seated, and removed his linen napkin from his collar. “If you will all excuse me?”
“Good morning, Augustine!” Grace said pleasantly.
“Good morning!” Honor called out.
She received a frown from Grace for it, who said, “All right then, Pru, Mercy, go and have your hair dressed, will you? We’ll take Mamma riding in the park after luncheon.”
Mercy hopped up from the table. “May I ride the sorrel?”
“Ask Mr. Buckley,” Grace said to them, wiggling her fingers in the direction of the door, indicating they were to go. As Mercy and Prudence went out, Grace smiled sweetly at the footman attending them this morning. “Thank you, Fitzhugh. My sister and I can manage from here.”
Fitzhugh followed the younger girls out, closing the door behind him.
When they were alone, Grace slowly turned her head and fixed a dark hazel look on Honor, who was eating hungrily from her plate and pretended not to notice.
“What did you do?” Grace asked low.
“Nothing.” But Honor couldn’t help it; a smile began to curve her lips. “All right. I bought a bonnet.” She took a bite of cheese.
“Then why is Monica so vexed?”
“I suppose...because she’d commissioned it for herself.” Honor’s smile widened.
Grace gaped at her for a moment, and then burst out laughing. “Dear God, you’re incorrigible! You will ruin us!”
“That is not true. I am very corrigible.”
“Honor!” Grace said, still laughing. “We agreed that you’d not vex her again.”
“Oh, what is one bonnet?” Honor said, putting aside her plate. “There it was, in the window of Lock and Company, and I admired it. The shop attendant was perfectly happy to tell me that even though Miss Monica Hargrove had commissioned it one month ago, she’d not come round to pay her bill. It was languishing in the window, Grace, a beautiful bonnet, and if I may be frank, the wrong palette for Monica’s pallid complexion. And the expense the poor shop had incurred in making it had gone unpaid! The attendant was quite happy to sell it to me, of course. And really, I don’t care that Monica commissioned it in the least. She is so very disagreeable! Do you know what she said to me last night?” she said, leaning slightly forward. “She said, ‘I know what you are about, Honor Cabot,’” Honor said, her voice mockingly low and menacing, “‘but it won’t do you a bit of good. Augustine and I are going to wed, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. And when we are wed, mark my words, you may find yourself in a cottage in the Cotswolds without need for fine bonnets!’” Honor sat back to let that sink in.
Grace gasped. “The Cotswolds! Why not banish us to the African desert, for it couldn’t possibly be worse! Oh, Honor, that is precisely what we fear, and now look what you’ve done!”
Honor snorted and picked up another piece of cheese. “Do you really think Monica holds so much sway with Augustine? Do you think he hasn’t a care for his sisters?”
“Yes!” Grace said emphatically. “Yes, I think she holds quite a lot of sway with him! And Augustine may care for us all very much, but when the earl dies, do you really, truly believe Monica will share Beckington House, or Longmeadow in the country, or anywhere, for that matter, with all of us?”
Honor sighed. It was a true fact in their society that a new earl and his even newer wife would not welcome his dead father’s third wife and his four stepdaughters into his household. Grace was right, but Monica was so...imperious! And so perfect, so modest, so demure, so pretty!
“Really, you can be so careless,” Grace said. “What of Prudence and Mercy, then? What of Mamma?”
It would be difficult for their mother to find a new husband who would be excited about the prospect of providing for four unmarried daughters, particularly given their rather lofty expectations for a certain way of life, as well as the demands of dowries. The Cabots had come into this marriage with only a little money, certainly not enough to dower four girls. They were entirely dependent on the earl.
Worse, it was almost a certainty that the Cabots would find themselves on the fringe of society altogether if anyone suspected what Grace and Honor knew about their mother: that she was slowly, but demonstrably, losing her mind. It had begun two years ago, after a trip to Longmeadow. Their mother had been involved in an accident when a curricle had overturned, tossing her onto the road. Physically, the countess had recovered, but since then, Honor and Grace had noticed her mind was slipping. Mostly, it was unusual memory lapses. But there were other, less subtle signs. Once, she had blithely talked of seeing her sister at Vauxhall, as if her sister were still alive. Another time, she hadn’t been able to recall the earl’s title.
Recently, however, it seemed as if their mother was getting worse. Most days, she was clearheaded and a constant presence at her husband’s side. Other days, she might ask the same question more than once or remark on the weather three or four times in the space of a few minutes. Once, when Honor had tried to speak to her mother about her increasing forgetfulness, her mother had been surprised by the suggestion and seemingly irked by it. She’d even suggested to Honor that perhaps she was the forgetful one.
“And I don’t think I need to tell you that the earl has not been out of his bed in two days,” Grace added.
“I know, I know,” Honor said sadly. She curled her feet under her on the chair. “Grace...I’ve been thinking,” she said carefully. “What if Monica did not marry Augustine—”
“Of course she will,” Grace said, cutting Honor off. “Augustine is completely besotted with her. He runs after her like a puppy.”
“But what if...what if Monica was lured away by a bigger fortune?”
“What?” Grace eyed Honor warily. “How? Why?”
“Just suppose she was lured away. It would give us a bit of time to settle things. Look here, Grace, if the earl dies, Augustine will take her to the altar as soon as he is able, and then what? But if they don’t marry as soon—”
“Are you forgetting that Augustine loves her?” Grace asked, clearly struggling to remain calm.
“I’ve not forgotten. But he is a man, isn’t he? He will soon forget her and find another.”
“Our Augustine!” Grace cried with disbelief. “Monica Hargrove is the first woman he’s ever so much as looked at, and even so, it took him several years to do it!”
“I know,” Honor said, wincing a little. “I’m only trying to think of a way to put off their marriage for a time.”
“Until what?”
“I haven’t worked that out completely,” Honor admitted.
Grace
