“I think he’s shy,” Susannah said. “Certainly slow to trust, but you should ask him about that. Mr. Dorning, would you excuse us for a moment? I need Della’s assistance with a sagging hem.”
Mr. Dorning was a less substantial, younger version of Willow, and his eyes were not such an intense violet. He was nonetheless a handsome fellow, and he made a pretty picture bowing over Della’s hand.
“I’m to be denied my dance again,” he said. “I’ll keep instead the memory of a stolen peach, and claim the dance another night.”
And off he went in the direction of the card room, the same direction Tresham had taken.
“Do you suppose they’ll exchange words?” Della asked. “They’re both fierce, each in his way, but Mr. Dorning has more…”
“Yes,” Susannah said. “More.” Of Della’s interest. “Would you join me on the terrace, Della?”
“What about your sagging hem?”
Susannah linked arms with her sister, and smiled blandly at the Mannering twins lurking beneath a sconce. The flickering shadows made them look like something out of a discarded scene from Hamlet.
To perdition with the both of them. The Bard would have found a better way to say it, but Susannah simply—surprisingly—no longer cared what the Mannering twins, what anybody besides her friends and family, thought of her.
Are you well? Willow had asked. Susannah was different, and perhaps even well too.
She returned Trudy Mannering’s simper with a steady gaze, not offering a cut direct, but visually conveying the utter indifference of a mastiff who knows her own strength and is on her own territory.
Trudy tried for an arch smile, which wilted around the corners then disappeared. Susannah held her gaze until Trudy looked down, studying the toes of her dancing slippers. Her sister took to inspecting some portrait or other.
“Bother my sagging hem,” Susannah said, moving along, and bending close to Della as if imparting a confidence. “I want to know what, exactly, you’re doing with Effington, because I’ve only now realized you have no intention of marrying him.”
Thirteen
“I bungled that,” Will said when he and Quimbey were both holding glasses of pink punch. Quimbey set his cup on a marble side table, took out a flask, and tipped a liberal portion into each serving.
“You were supposed to call Effington out?” Quimbey mused. “Maybe that’s what he sought. I’m surprised you didn’t interrogate him yourself about the missing dogs. Considers himself quite the authority on canines.”
Susannah had gone gamboling down that path, much like Georgette on the scent of a rabbit.
“The missing dogs are unfortunate,” Will said, “though I have no idea where they might be found. Very odd, that three dogs should go missing from wealthy households in such a short time.”
Quimbey took a sip of punch, grimaced, then set his glass aside. “Hostesses who demonstrate their wealth by heavily sugaring every dish and drink are an abomination. I wish some of the ladies were sweeter and the punch less so. You’re not attempting to locate these missing dogs?”
Will did not mistake the situation for small talk. Quimbey was genial, benevolent, and tolerant, but this was an interrogation.
“Are you concerned for Comus, sir?” Or perhaps concerned for Tresham, or some other wellborn fellow who’d taken up trafficking in dogs to cover gambling debts?
“Let’s enjoy the night air, Mr. Dorning.”
Will wanted to keep Susannah in sight, to ensure she didn’t take it upon herself to question anybody else about missing dogs or found garters. He and the duke chatted about the upcoming race meets, and who was betting on which horse, until they’d reached the garden walkways.
Smokers congregated on the downwind side of the terrace, leaving the garden to those inclined to stroll.
“The roses ought to be showing some color,” Quimbey observed.
The roses were at least three weeks from blossoming. “I do enjoy a precocious bloom,” Will said.
He and the duke admired daisies and snapped off sprigs of lavender, and still Quimbey remained merely convivial.
“Shall we sit for a moment, Mr. Dorning? Early mornings in the park take a toll on old bones, as does keeping up with a nephew new to the blandishments of Polite Society.”
Tresham likely had trouble keeping up with Quimbey, much as the old hounds could outhunt the younger fellows. Will twirled his sprig of lavender into a circlet.
“About the missing dogs,” Will began. “I’m not comfortable investigating the situation in any obvious way, but my brother Sycamore has come across a stray who might be Lady March’s missing pet. We’ve yet to lure the dog close enough to catch him, though if we do, I’ll have Cam simply adopt the dog as his own.”
Quimbey perched on a low wall, no longer the duke, but the hounds and horses man in excellent condition—for any age.