“That would be lovely,” she said absently, her mind trying to reconcile what Mrs. Merriman had just said with what Mr. Fynster-Allen had told her about Ardencaple’s quest.
Mrs. Merriman gestured toward the parlor. “My aunt never married, you know, as she is something of a Bohemian and could never stay in one place for very long. She and Miss Litton remained friends all through the years, although Miss Litton refused to travel with her, as she thought cavorting about quite unbecoming a lady. For thirty years, my aunt would bring Miss Litton a treasure from her travels. When Miss Litton died,” she said, opening the door to the parlor, “I was the lucky recipient of all her treasures. I really must warn you—I’ve not quite determined what to do with it all, and I daresay my aunt’s tastes run to the extreme,” she said, and stepped aside, letting Anna pass into the parlor.
The sheer numbers of bric-a-brac and knickknacks in the room was enough to startle anyone. There were sculptures and plates and strange-looking objects Anna could not quite make out.
“I’ve been sorting through it all, trying to make some sense of it,” Mrs. Merriman sighed.
It was the most bizarre and atrocious collection of objects Anna had ever seen in her life. She turned slowly, taking in the whole room as Mrs. Merriman began to recite some of the places Lady Battenkirk had been, and as she turned toward the mantel, she saw an object that literally took her breath away.
She had forgotten it completely, had not recalled she had seen it until this very moment—but she had seen that hideous thing, one night last Season, in a dimly lit room of the Lockhart mansion in Mayfair.
In that instant, she knew what Lord Ardencaple was about.
“How do you take your tea?” Mrs. Merriman asked as she walked to a bellpull, and Anna turned her most charming smile to the woman.
“Plain, thank you,” she said, and wandered deeper into the room, her smile growing brighter as her mind raced ahead.
Eleven
A week after Anna’s visit to Mrs. Merriman, the Seatons held their annual supper party for leaders of the House of Lords. This Season, however, the supper party had taken on a new mien; it was said that the supper party would include forty of Lord Seaton’s dearest acquaintances… among them, the most desirable unmarried gentlemen of the ton, as the Seatons hoped to make a match for their daughter, Elizabeth.
And as there were so many guests invited to this intimate supper affair, the Seatons served sweet sherry in the grand salon while they waited for all their supper guests to arrive.
Miss Elizabeth Seaton took the opportunity to promenade about the room with Anna, along the edge of a large Aubusson carpet, past gilded hearths and torchères, damask-covered furniture, and ten-foot paintings of Seatons gone before them, gossiping about what she’d heard of Lord Ardencaple at the Hospital Society luncheon just Tuesday past.
“He’s in London in search of a wife,” she whispered to Anna. “His family has quite a grand fortune, and they despair of ever seeing an heir, so they have sent him to London.”
“Is that what he’s after?” Anna asked with a laugh.
“Yes!” Elizabeth exclaimed happily. “And he comes with the highest of recommendations.”
“Really? Whose, exactly?”
Elizabeth blinked. “Who? I, ah …I don’t know, exactly, but I heard Lady Paddington say so, and she’s always quite aware of these things.”
Lady Paddington also sat in her parlor making up gossip if she didn’t have it firsthand—Anna would wager her dowry that Lady Paddington didn’t know Ardencaple from her elbow and had made up every little thing, including his alleged recommendations.
But she wasn’t going to have the chance to say so, for the Lying Scotsman himself was announced that very moment by the Seatons’ butler. “His Lordship Arden-caple, Griffin MacAulay,” he articulated, bowing low. And Lord Arden-caple swept into the room, smiling charmingly. Anna groaned as the debutantes, to a girl, swooned.
Not to be left out, Elizabeth immediately let go Anna’s arm and asked to be excused, and nonchalantly made her way to the door and his exalted lordship, as did several other young women in attendance. What ridiculous creatures they were, rushing forward as if he were some prize.
All right, Anna thought as she turned away and wandered to the window, she could concede that he was indeed frightfully handsome, what with his long-styled hair, and his smoldering charm, and his dancing green eyes. And there was that lopsided smile, of course, and that lovely mouth, and all right, yes, that body, lean and hard, which naturally she could not help noticing the night he had kissed her so passionately on the veranda. And had imagined several times since.