“My goodness, Kate,” said Minerva, adjusting her spectacles. “You’ve been busy.”
Kate laughed at the absurdity of the statement, and it felt so good. This was what she’d been needing—her best, closest friends to listen and help her see everything clear. Susanna and Minerva would not be on Thorne’s side, or the Gramercys’ side.
They were on her side, unequivocally.
“I always knew that someday you’d have your fairy tale,” Susanna said. She called in the nursemaid and handed her the now-sleeping babe. “I didn’t predict this, of course. But we all adored you so. I knew you couldn’t go unnoticed for long.”
“I never did go unnoticed,” she said. “Not really.”
Samuel had noticed her, even that very first day in the Bull and Blossom, when she pulled her India shawl tight around her shoulders and turned the other way. He’d always been looking out for her, asking nothing in return.
She cast a wistful glance at the darkened windowpane. Where was he now?
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Samuel has vanished. The Gramercys are depending on me to save them all. Evan wants to know whether he can introduce me as Lady Kate or his soon-to-be Lady Gramercy. Meanwhile, I feel like a maid who pilfered her mistress’s gown and stole into the ball. I don’t know how I’ll manage as a lady of any sort.”
“The same way we do,” Minerva said. “Look at Susanna and me. A year ago we were confirmed spinsters, never the belle of any ball. Now she is Lady Rycliff and I am Lady Payne. And we may be a bit awkward in the roles, but society will just have to struggle on despite it.”
“We’ll form our own club, Kate. The League of Unlikely Ladies.” Susanna came to sit beside her. “As for what you should do . . . I’m certain you already know, in your heart.”
Of course she did. She loved Samuel and wanted nothing more than to be his wife. But if at all possible, she must find some way to help the Gramercys, too. They were her family, and she couldn’t abandon them.
Minerva bent over and stared Kate in the bosom. “I’m admiring your pendant.”
“Do you know what sort of stone it is?” Kate asked eagerly. “I’ve been wondering, but I’d never seen its like.”
“This is an easy identification.” After peering for a moment through her spectacles, Minerva released the teardrop-shaped stone. “It’s called blue john. A form of fluorite. Quite a rare formation, only found in one small area of Derbyshire.”
Kate clutched the pendant. “It was my mother’s. She was from Derbyshire. She must have worn it always to remind herself of home.”
How strange, then, that Elinor would have left it behind at Ambervale. Perhaps she’d worried it would be lost during travel.
Minerva patted her arm. “Kate, I don’t think you should worry overmuch. I have a strong suspicion your problems will work themselves out, and in hasty fashion.”
“I hope you’re right,” Kate said. But despite her natural bent for optimism, this was one situation where she had a difficult time seeing an easy solution.
“Well,” Susanna said, standing. “I suppose we’ve hidden ourselves up here as long as we dare. We had better go find our men before they create some mischief.”
“This is a Summerfield ball,” Kate agreed. “There seems to be something in the ratafia that makes male passions . . . explosive.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Thorne’s patience was nearing the end of its fuse.
Tucked away in the Egyptian-themed library of Sir Lewis Finch, he paced a small square of carpet, patrolling back and forth. His new boots pinched his feet. His starched cuffs chafed his wrists. Sheer agony was his companion.
And the agony had a name: Colin Sandhurst, Viscount Payne.
“Let me give you a bit of advice,” Payne said.
“I don’t want any more of your advice. Not on this.”
“You don’t want to admit you want it,” Payne replied smoothly. “But I shall talk to myself, and you can merely be nearby, not listening.”
Thorne rolled his eyes. He’d spent the better part of the past several days “nearby, not listening” to Payne. Through shopping trips, appointments with solicitors, lessons on . . . an activity Thorne hated to acknowledge in thought, let alone speak aloud.
Payne tossed back a swallow of his drink and propped one boot on an inscribed sarcophagus. “Before I found Minerva, I’d passed nights with more than my share of women.”
Thorne groaned. Don’t. Just don’t.
“I’ve passed time with duchesses and farm girls, and it doesn’t matter whether their skirts are silk or homespun. Once you get them bare—”
Thorne drew up short. “If you start in on rivers of silk and alabaster orbs, I will have to hit you.”
“Easy, Cinderella,” Payne said, holding up his hands. “All I meant to say is this. Beneath the trappings, all women crave the same thing.”
Thorne made a fist and clenched it until his knuckles cracked.