She took Miss Feathers’s hand. “Come now, Ann. Sit up, wipe the tears from your face, and tell us how this gown came to be covered in wine and why it is so tragic an accident.”
Miss Feathers pushed to a sitting position and accepted the linen Ravenna pressed into her fingers. She dabbed her nose and eyes. “I designed the gown.”
“You designed it?” Ravenna fingered the ruined white fabric. “How clever of you.”
“I studied the fashion journals and chose the fabrics and sewed the beads.” Miss Feathers sniffled. “It was . . . my princess gown,” she whispered.
Ravenna looked up at him and then at the doorway. He went across the room and with a nod to the eager audience, closed the panel.
She stroked Miss Feathers’s hair. “Your princess gown?”
The girl’s shoulders shook. “I had never had such a gown. Simple. Elegant.” Sniff. “Lovely.” She peeked up at Ravenna. “Mama likes . . .”
“Ruffles.”
“And tulle. And quantities of lace. She is ever so fond of flounces and, well, fabric.”
Ravenna nodded. “And you wished to have another sort of gown, a simpler gown. So you made it yourself.”
“Papa gave me the money, but I sewed it all. Mama and I receive few invitations, so I have a great deal of time to do what I wish.”
“You wished to feel like a princess.”
“Papa says we are rich enough that I might buy anything I like. But I heard Lady Penelope say that Papa bought his baronetcy from the king and it made me positively wretched. He is so happy to have a title, and he has worked so hard to deserve it.” She dabbed at her nose. “But your father is not a tradesman, Ravenna. Lord Vitor himself said the church is a noble profession. You are a real gentleman’s daughter, so you will tell me the truth, won’t you? Is it wrong? Should I not long for something to which I have not been born?”
Ravenna’s hand stilled on the girl’s hair. “No. For you, Ann, it is not wrong.”
“Yet I think it must be.” Miss Feathers grasped a fold of the wine-soaked gown. “Or this would not have happened.” Fresh tears leaked from her round eyes. “Oh, why did I tell Mama about the gown! I never imagined she would speak of it. But then Prince Sebastiao chose me to play Juliet and I saw it in her eyes before she even spoke the words. Then she would have me describe it in detail to everybody, how I made it and how beautiful it was. I was so content and he seemed so interested, I did not think to hide it from them. I did not even object when Mama begged the duchess to borrow Lady Iona’s maid to press it in preparation for the play today.”
Ravenna’s hand had slipped away from Miss Feathers’s hair. Her shoulders seemed to stiffen. “Ann, how did the gown come to be saturated in wine?”
“I found it in the laundry,” she said dully.
“Do you believe that Lady Iona’s maid poured wine on it?”
Miss Feathers’s lips tightened. She shook her head.
“Who,” Ravenna asked, “is ‘them’?”
Another tear sped down the girl’s cheek. “Ladies Penelope and Grace,” she whispered. “I saw them take a carafe of wine from the drawing room when we all went to bed last night. It is my punishment . . . because he chose me for Juliet.”
Ravenna’s throat worked. Beneath her gown, her breasts rose and fell in sharp breaths. She stood. “Then they must be punished for this in turn.” She marched toward him, threw open the door, and strode into the corridor.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. “Do not now do whatever it is you are thinking you must do.”
“Unhand me.” Her brow was a storm of anger yet oddly wounded, as though the prank had hurt her as well. “I will do as I wish.”
“Murder has happened in this house.” He spoke steadily, wanting only to drag her to him and wipe the distress from her eyes. “You must not court the rancor of any here. Only four days ago your life was threatened by someone that we have not yet identified. Does that not give you pause?”
“It should, I know. But I cannot put my safety before injustice toward another.”
“Injustice?” He shook his head. “It is a gown.”
“It may be a gown, but it meant everything to her. Everything.”
“We do not know what the murderer might do if you displease him. Or her.”
She stared uncomprehending at him. “Do you think they murdered Mr. Walsh? Penelope and Grace?”
“I don’t know who murdered him. But I will regret it beyond measure should you place yourself in danger by defending a friend from malicious teasing.”
“You do not understand.” She tried to pull away. He held fast.
“Ravenna, I have only your—”
She wrenched free and whispered, “You do not see. She is the bird.” She was shaking now.
“The bird?”
She swallowed jerkily and the movement of her neck was both beautiful and painful to watch. “She cannot defend herself, so I must.” She whirled around and disappeared around a corner. Miss Anders and Miss Abraccia stood in the shadow at the other end of the corridor, silent, eyes wide. They flinched as Lady Margaret swept past them.
“My lord? What are you doing by my daughter’s bedchamber in such a state? And she weeping? Ann! Ann, my dearest!” She hurtled past him into the room.
“Oh, Mama,” came the watery reply.
Vitor took up the rapier and followed Ravenna.
THROWING OPEN THE door, Ravenna found them at their toilette. Lady Penelope sat at a gilded dressing table, Lady Grace standing behind her clasping a pearl necklace about her twin’s ivory neck.
“Why did you do it?”
“Ah, Miss Caulfield.” Lady Penelope turned her head, her fingertips delicate upon the pearls. “How you do lack every trace of civility. It would be positively diverting to witness if I weren’t being obliged to do so in my own bedchamber.”
“Why did you ruin her gown? Haven’t you sufficient beautiful gowns and delicate noses and perfect lips and pale hair to satisfy you? Must you ruin another girl’s single pretension toward beauty?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea of what you speak.”
“Of course you do. The both of you—you wicked, viperous cats.”
“Good day, Lord Vitor,” Penelope said to the place behind Ravenna. “Have you come to carry away the madwoman to the attic, I hope?” She stood smoothly and moved forward. “How kind of you.”
He did not bow to the viper, for which Ravenna was grateful. She would have preferred him to not appear quite so completely virile while in Lady Penelope’s bedchamber, with his darkly shadowed jaw, triangle of hard male chest showing at his open collar, and a sword in his hand. But a hero was a hero regardless of guise, even if he had come to stop her rather than to save her—which, she supposed, could be one in the same in this case.
Lady Grace remained by the dressing table.
“Admit that you did it,” Ravenna said to her. “If you do, and then go straight off and apologize to Ann, I will not order him to cut off both your heads with his sword.”
His laughter rumbled behind her. She wasn’t quite certain she appreciated it.
Lady Penelope’s crystal eyes oozed dismay. “Oh, dear. Perhaps you should fetch Sir Beverley or Mr. Pettigrew at once, my lord. I believe she has truly lost her mind.”