“You speak as though Miss Donovan is a Bow Street Runner,” Lady Louisa said finally. “’Tis absurd—”
“The Duke is a Man of Science,” Rebecca interrupted, “hardly a nodcock. He had the foresight to utilize Miss Donovan’s unique skills last month. London Town will be able to rest easy; the fiend who murdered Lady Dover shall be caught.”
Lady Isabella and Lady Louisa didn’t seem to know what to say to that pronouncement. Their stares made Kendra’s neck prickle. She wasn’t sure if Rebecca’s strong advocacy had done her any favors, but decided to roll with it.
“I heard that you were at a ball on the night Lady Dover was murdered. Is that true?” Kendra asked, and waited out the awkward silence.
“The ball was hosted by our sister, Lady Frances, and her husband, Mr. Roberts,” Lady Isabella said with cool condescension. “It was a lovely evening.”
“Not for Lady Dover,” Kendra remarked drily.
Lady Louisa frowned. “We were not well acquainted with Lady Dover.”
“Really? What did you know of her?”
Lady Isabella flushed, her jaw tightening. “Everyone knew the creature was practically a lightskirt.”
“I met her, you know—a month ago, at Lady Atwood’s house party,” Kendra said. “She wasn’t a very nice woman.”
“No, she was not,” Lady Louisa agreed curtly. She looked like she was going to say something else, but a tall, thin man, carrying two glasses of lemonade, squeezed his way through the crowd to stand before them.
“I apologize for the delay, madam, but ’tis bedlam.” He offered Lady Isabella and Lady Louisa the glasses of lemonade, and then glanced curiously at Rebecca and Kendra. “Forgive me for interrupting. Will you introduce me to your friends, my dear?”
Lady Isabella’s mouth flattened into a tight, thin line. For a moment, Kendra thought she’d refuse, and wondered if they’d just invented a whole new category of getting the cut. But then she grudgingly performed the duty.
“Mr. Sedwick, this is Lady Rebecca and Miss Donovan. Lady Rebecca is Lord Blackburn’s daughter, and Miss Donovan is the Duke of Aldridge’s ward. This is my husband, Mr. Sedwick.”
“Good evening, ladies.” He wore the same practiced smile that his wife had given them earlier, the kind of smile that politicians used when they were holding babies and flashbulbs went off. It reminded Kendra instantly that the man worked for the government.
He was in his early thirties, Kendra surmised, with mouse-brown hair cut into the popular windswept Brutus style. Unfortunately, the heat of the ballroom had the curls sticking to the sweat on his forehead. The heat had also wilted his intricately tied cravat, which had probably begun the evening starched and perfectly folded.
“Would you care for some lemonade?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
“Are you certain, Miss Donovan?” Lady Isabella asked, her gaze challenging. “Being a Bow Street Runner must leave you thirsty.”
Sedwick shot his wife a puzzled look.
“Goodness—’tis warm in here!”
That laughing declaration came from a young, dark-haired woman who sailed into their group. She wore a gorgeous gown of ice green silk with a train long enough to require her to hold it in one small hand. Her other hand was tucked into the crook of an arm of a much older gentleman. She shot them all a dazzling smile that revealed even white teeth and two dimples. “The Digbys ought to crack open a door to the veranda before someone faints.”
Introductions were made once more, and Kendra learned that the woman was the third Weston sister, Lady Frances, and her escort was one Lord Ludlow. Talk turned back to the ball, and Lady Frances took a breath and fluttered her lashes at her escort, who was at least five decades her senior. “Lord Ludlow was good enough to escort me out of the mayhem. I swear my feet are ready to fall off, I’ve danced so much this evening!”
“My pleasure, Lady Frances.” The older man gave a stiff bow.
Kendra could’ve sworn she heard his bones creaking. He was dressed in the same jacket, shirt, cravat, breeches, and silk hose that the rest of the men in the ballroom wore, but he’d covered his head with a powdered periwig, an accessory that Kendra had come to learn had been abandoned by most men during this timeline, except for liveried footmen or those serving in a court of law. He could’ve been bald, Kendra supposed, and vain enough in his seventh decade to try to hide it. Yet she sensed that it wasn’t lack of hair, but a dogged commitment to dress in the style of his youth, that had him continuing to don the wig, like the sexagenarians in her era who insisted on wearing leopard-print leggings and tube tops long after they should’ve retired them.
“Lord Ludlow.” Lady Louisa stepped forward, and offered a smile that made her weak chin vanish altogether. “You are looking in excellent health. I . . . I have not seen you at recent routs.”
Lord Ludlow turned slowly—maybe it was the only way he could move, Kendra thought—to regard Lady Louisa with rheumy eyes.
“I have been busy with my estates, Lady Louisa.”
That statement resulted in a weird silence, thrumming with expectation. Lord Ludlow. The name rang a bell. Then Kendra remembered: he was the aristocrat that Lady St. James had said Lady Louisa was hoping to marry.
Holy crap.
“My sisters have abominable manners.” Lady Frances turned, and smiled at Rebecca and Kendra. “We have not been introduced. I am Lady Frances.”
As Rebecca responded, Kendra considered the oddity of genetics. Lady Frances had inherited the same dark hair and hazel eyes as her sisters, but she’d received the bounty of looks in the family. Her skin, even filmed with sweat from the overheated ballroom, was flawless. Her eyes were more green than brown. And the features in her heart-shaped face were arranged in such a way to turn heads.
“Mr. Sedwick, would you be a dear and get me a glass of lemonade?” She gave her brother-in-law a dimpled smile. “Baron Faust requested the next dance, but I’ll collapse if I don’t have something to drink!”
“We cannot have that, my lady.” He smiled and dutifully plunged back into the crowd to fight his way to the refreshment room.
“Perhaps you ought to sit out a few sets, my dear, to recover,” Lady Isabella suggested, in such a way as to make Kendra wonder if she resented Lady Frances using her husband as a servant.
“For shame, sister. I cannot disappoint Baron Faust.” Lady Frances fluttered her fan. “I do wish Lady Digby would play the waltz, though. ’Tis a glorious dance. I vow I shall introduce it at my next ball.”