Courting Chaos (Dunaway's Daughters Book 2)

by Lynne Barron

  Lilith’s guest list was just such a ball, a triviality Harry had been too busy to manage herself, too harassed by other concerns to do more than peruse before the invitations had been sent. Clearly, Lilith had allowed her only to see the middling and piddling list.

  While Harry had been pawning off baubles and trinkets for funds enough to purchase one sister’s happiness, negotiating with Wellclose Square’s version of a rake to ensure another’s future, and populating a small village with comely gentlemen to provide a third with plenty of choices, the eldest of her sisters had lobbed the ball too high.

  Aiming for an ostentatious display of support and overshooting the mark by a duke and duchess.

  “Damn and blast,” Harry muttered, even as she considered how best to catch the ball and send it back into orbit before the lot of them fell.

  “All the convoluted familial connections ought to make for lively entertainment,” Lottie said.

  “Are they all related, then?” asked the heretofore silent Miss Barthwell.

  “Aristocratic family trees are like thickets left to run rampant. The branches just twist and tangle until they’re all one big, thorny bramble with everyone related in one fashion or another.” Lottie lifted her head, her dark eyes nearly lost in her plump cheeks as she grinned up at Harry. “Why, if one were to cut a path through the gnarled limbs and coiling twigs, there’s no telling who one might find hiding in the prickly gorse and thistle at the center of the bramble.”

  Harry was too astonished by Lottie’s rather lyrical, and all too apt, description of a twisted and forever tangled thicket to form any sort of coherent response.

  “I understand the connection between the Fitzroys and Sinclairs, but where do the Duke and Duchess of Montclaire fit on the family tree?” Miss Barthwell asked.

  Lottie hesitated a moment, as if waiting for Harry to provide the missing branch of the obscene tree planted with lust and nurtured with negligence for generations. The branch Dunaway had caused to be lopped off at a grotesque angle twenty-two years previously.

  “Well now, that branch was formed by the liaison of the former duke and Bathsheba Sinclair.” Lottie came to her feet with a soft grunt and slowly walked around Miss Barthwell, flicking a speck of lint from her shoulder and straightening a seam at her back. “A liaison which resulted in the only child born to the duke. Arabella was her name, and what a beauty she was, too. Some say she ran off to Paris with a farmer. Others say she fled to Wales with a soldier.”

  Both possibilities held just enough fragments of the truth to set Harry’s nerves jangling. Lottie hadn’t been waiting for Harry to finish the tale, but rather warning her that the rumors were making the rounds.

  After all, Madame Broussard’s shop served as the epicenter of gossip.

  Thus, Harry’s weekly excursions to gather the sort of gossip one could not obtain from the newspapers, the sort of pending scandals one did not hear about from the distant rocky shoals.

  “And then there’s them who say she dallied with a scoundrel and ran away in shame when the affair was discovered.” Lottie circled around Miss Barthwell until she stood beside Harry. “However it came about, Miss Arabella never was seen again, leastwise not in London. After a time, folks stopped wondering what became of the poor girl.”

  “How dreadfully sad,” Miss Barthwell replied with a forlorn little sigh, “to be entirely forgotten that way.”

  “I don’t know as I’d say Miss Arabella was entirely forgotten,” Lottie said. “A good number of years later, the gossip surrounding Miss Arabella’s disappearance started up again when the ninth Duke of Montclaire took a young girl into his household. Bathsheba and the duke were living in near seclusion at Runnymede in those days, so the talk never rose above a faint whisper, easily dismissed when it was put about the girl was a distant relation on the Fitzroy side of the family, the orphan of a Bloomsbury merchant. When His Grace passed on, Bathsheba sent the girl off to finishing school and the last of the rumors simply died away.”

  “Do you suppose the girl was Arabella’s daughter?” Miss Barthwell asked breathlessly. “Arabella’s daughter by the scoundrel?”

  Oh, how quickly the soldier and farmer were relegated to the margins of the torrid tale.

  “I can’t say as I can think of a single reason Bathsheba Sinclair would keep the girl’s origins secret if she was her granddaughter,” Lottie replied. “Seeing as how the family tree is littered with miscreants and their mistresses, every last one of them not only tolerated in Society but oftentimes celebrated with great fanfare.”

  “Yes, you’re quite right,” Miss Barthwell replied.

  “Still, it’s an odd thing, but those old rumors have been resurrected in the last day or two.” Lottie fiddled with the neckline of Miss Barthwell’s gown. “It seems the merchant’s daughter with a distant connection to Lord Fitzroy returned to London after she’d been polished to a high gloss at that finishing school.”

  Harry felt the ball slip through her fingers, imagined she heard it fall to the ground with a dull thud, missing her toes by a mere inch, and rolling across the floor to disappear beneath a tumble of bright blue fabric listing from a work table.

  Why, oh why, had Lilith aimed so high?

  “She’s lived a quiet life in Town,” Lottie went on with a sympathetic smile directed at Harry, “with nary a bit of tarnish attached to her name until she had the temerity to attempt to reel in this Season’s prize catch.”

  “Never say she thinks to land Viscount Knighton,” Miss Barthwell said, eyes widening. “I’ve read all about his lordship in the rag sheets and even saw him riding in Hyde Park one afternoon. He’s awfully handsome.”

  “Is that what’s being said?” Harry asked.

  “But isn’t Lord Knighton in need of… That is, isn’t he determined to marry a lady in possession of… Well, what I mean to say is…” Poor Miss Barthwell floundered about in search of a delicate euphemism for a vulgar truth.

  Lottie wasn’t the least encumbered by delicate sensibilities, most especially when it came to matters of a monetary nature. “He’s trolling for a bride with a fortune.”

  “Surely the daughter of a merchant isn’t likely to possess that particular lure,” Miss Barthwell replied, grinning at her own wit. “I heard Miss Margery Hamilton’s father has baited his hook with twenty thousand pounds to be paid upon the nuptials and additional ten thousand per annum.”

  “Oh, for pity sake, enough with the fishing metaphors,” Harry interjected before they could start in on filleting and frying the foolish man.

  Lottie let loose a cackle of laughter. “It ain’t the viscount she’s rumored to be angling to net, but a far bigger catch.”

  “If not Lord Knighton, then who?” Miss Barthwell asked.

  “The Marquess of Marchant, of course,” Lottie answered with another cackle worthy of the wickedest witch. “Seems the bet on the books in regard to the lady becoming his mistress has been altered in light of recent events.”

  “What recent events?” Miss Barthwell asked.

  But Harry knew. How could she not when it was so bloody obvious it was a wonder she hadn’t recognized it the moment Lottie started in on the guest list?

  “Why, the gathering together of the lady’s Fitzroy relations and those of the Marquess of Marchant,” Lottie answered. “Most especially his parents, the Duke and Duchess of Montclaire.”

  “Do you suppose it’s to be an engagement ball, then?” Miss Barthwell asked.

  “Were I a betting woman, I’d wager the duke and duchess will be attending to ensure an engagement doesn’t come to pass,” Lottie retorted. “In fact, might be I’ll pop into the Pickled Prince and see if himself is laying odds on the outcome.”

  “Five to one,” Harry said around a bubble of nervous laughter as she spun away. “Perfect five-to-one odds, Lottie.”

  “I’ll send around your ball gown first thing tomorrow,” Lottie called out to Harry’s retreating back. “Take a gander at them hair gewgaws in t
he cabinet in the corner. Just come in off a ship from China, along with a pair of jet earbobs and matching bracelet that’ll look right fine with your gown.”

  Harry made directly for the glass-fronted cabinet, not because she wanted to dilly-dally on the Mayfair side of Oxford Street, but because even when Lottie argued against a particularly ludicrous, overly-embellished gown, the seamstress’s flair for fashion had proven as spot on as her nose for gossip.

  Add to that the fact it was storming outside, fat drops of rain pelting the window and drowning out the idle chatter of the half dozen ladies strolling about the shop.

  The hair gewgaws were chopsticks, intricately carved with characters from the Chinese alphabet and liberally painted with shiny black lacquer. Combined with the jet earbobs and bracelet, the chopsticks would look quite smart poking out from her customary coil of braids, and tie her ensemble together neater than any row of pink bows or amethyst broach had ever done before.

  Madame Broussard asked an absurd sum for the set, just as Harry had expected. In fact, she would have been patently disappointed had the modiste asked for so much as a penny less.

  Harry was in the mood for a good negotiation, to settle her nerves and provide the illusion she was in control of some aspect of her life. A life that had been perfectly manageable, precisely scheduled and routinely organized until she’d danced onto the white line chalked across the floor and offered the illusive Mr. King a gander at her bosom. From the moment Phineas had whipped his head around, his honey-gold eyes alight with deviltry and his lips lifting into a rather lopsided smile, her entire life had gone topsy-turvy.

  Harry very much feared she’d never find her balance again.

  “Ten pounds, seven shillings for the set,” Madame Broussard proclaimed in her heavily accented English.

  “One would think the beads are black diamonds at that price,” Harry replied. “Six pounds, five shillings.”

  “For the earbobs alone, perhaps,” the modiste replied disdainfully. “Eight, three for the set.”

  “Seven, six, and you throw in the silk fan.” It was a delicate piece, fragile and altogether frivolous for a woman who rarely made use of fans, no matter she had dozens tucked into a drawer in her armoire.

  “The fan alone is worth three pounds.”

  “No lady of sense would purchase the fan alone,” Harry countered, “as it completes the proverb written on the chopsticks.”

  “Do you read Mandarin, then?”

  Perhaps had Madame Broussard not halted their haggling to ponder the possibility, or had Harry tossed out another quick fib and a counteroffer, there wouldn’t have followed a moment of silence perfectly timed to be interrupted by the dulcet tones of a young lady barely out of the schoolroom.

  “Good afternoon, Miss O’Connell.”

  And where one particular young lady barely out of the schoolroom went, there was bound to be a second.

  “Oh, it is you. We weren’t at all certain.”

  There was nothing for it but to turn and face the Misses Griffith.

  Both ladies smiled in greeting as they dropped synchronized curtsies Harry made no attempt to reciprocate. She could only stare at them with something like horror.

  “Miss O’Connell, is something amiss?” Eloise asked with a frown.

  “You appear quite pale,” Evelyn added with an almost identical expression.

  Harry looked past their worried faces to the window. Beyond the water streaming down the panes, she could just make out a carriage pulled up to the curb and a man standing beside it holding an umbrella over his head.

  Lord Knighton believes it would be best for all concerned if your visits no longer coincided with those of his sisters.

  The same Lord Knighton who had the power to fill in the holes, connect the dots and unravel the mystery of her origins. She had given the careless scoundrel that power, handed it to him with no more thought than she might have expended handing him a butter knife. He could, and likely would, make mincemeat of what little remained of her perfectly manageable, precisely scheduled and routinely organized life.

  Accidentally, incidentally, intentionally or otherwise.

  And she was not only in Mayfair, but standing two feet away from the sisters he deemed in need of protecting from her nefarious influence.

  It went against Harry’s nature to ignore the two girls, but ignore them she did, resolutely returning her attention to Madame Broussard. “Eight pounds, three shillings it is.”

  “Oui, but of course,” Madame Broussard replied, clearly surprised by her ready capitulation. Perhaps even disappointed. “I’ll include the fan, oui?”

  Harry withdrew the required coins from her reticule and placed them on the counter. “Thank you. Please send my purchases with Mrs. Moore when she delivers my gown.”

  “Until next week, then,” Madame Broussard said by way of farewell.

  Harry offered up a smile that undoubtedly resembled a grimace and scooted around the Misses Griffith.

  “Oh, but you aren’t leaving, are you?” Evelyn asked with something very much like panic in her voice.

  “You can’t leave yet,” Eloise cried. “We’ve only just arrived.”

  “We thought to invite you to tea.”

  Harry ignored them to march through the shop and yank open the door.

  Bells jingled overhead, and rain spattered the walkway and the hem of her skirts, while the awning overhead saved the rest of her dress from a thorough dousing.

  Harry glanced down at her white half-boots, so new they still pinched her toes a tad. There was nothing for it but to brave the rake, the rain and the mud long enough to reach the boundary of Marylebone on the opposite side of Oxford Street.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Phin scrubbed a hand over his face and down along his jaw, scratching at the skin beneath three days growth of whiskers. He would have liked to have taken time to shave and bathe away the sweat and dirt accumulated during his journey, but he’d been afraid he would arrive too late. After tearing open the letter that had been awaiting him upon his return from Wales, it had been all he could do to dunk his head in a bowl of water, clean his teeth, don a fresh cravat, order the baking of currant scones and roust Eloise and Evelyn from their embroidery looms.

  It wasn’t at all gentlemanly, using his sisters to soften Miss Harry O’Connell’s disposition. But in light of the fiasco at the museum—which Evelyn and Eloise had been only too happy to recount in horrifying, painful detail between bouts of berating him for his stupidity—and the well-deserved set down Harry had handed to him at the House of Lords, Phin had decided it might be best to employ a bit of subtlety.

  He’d come to a pretty pass indeed, when the subtlest maneuver he could come up with involved the help of two termagants.

  But he’d bungled nearly every encounter with the lady thus far. He was damn well not going to bungle this one.

  Phin peered through the rain to see his sisters standing before the counter engaged in conversation with the shop’s buxom proprietress and a skinny girl adorned in drab colors and a simple straw bonnet. Perhaps Evelyn and Eloise were merely greeting a friend from school before they ventured forth to find Harry. So long as they didn’t dawdle.

  He’d allotted five minutes for Evelyn and Eloise to greet Harry, compliment whichever outrageous bonnet she’d donned for the day, exchange pleasantries and soften her up for his arrival in the dressmaker’s shop.

  He might have waited in the carriage, but after travelling for the better part of a week, he preferred a good dousing to even five more minutes confined to the tight space.

  Glancing down at his watch, he saw that only perhaps twenty seconds had elapsed since he’d sent his sisters into the shop with extensive instructions on how to proceed.

  Bells jangled as the door was wrenched open. A woman dressed in a faded yellow gown and spencer came hurrying out. The drab waif paused a moment under the awning, head down as if debating the wisdom of venturing out into the rain. Decision a
pparently made, she stepped out into the downpour and dropped a quick curtsy right there on the muddy walkway.

  Afterward, when he had time to replay the day’s events in his mind, Phin would be unable to comprehend how he recognized Miss Harry O’Connell in the dowdy creature. Perhaps it was the relevance effect at work, his mind sorting through dozens of images to find their significance. The slender curve of her hip, the angle of her rather square jaw beneath the shadow of the bonnet, the long, pale fingers clutching her skirts to hold the fabric above the mud, the faint hint of citrus floating on the wet breeze.

  Whatever it was, Phin recognized Harry two seconds too late.

  She had already risen from her obeisance and turned away. Hiking her skirts up to her knees, she leaped over a puddle, landing as gracefully as any ballerina Phin had ever seen on the stage. Dodging to the right, she avoided another puddle and hopped over a trickle of water running across the walkway from the gutter of the shop next door.

  “Harry, wait,” Phin called as he took off after her.

  But Harry was astonishingly nimble and quick, darting around two matrons before circling around behind Phin’s carriage and skipping into the muck that was Oxford Street.

  Phin spared a single glance over his shoulder to the shop where his sisters were no doubt watching through the window. He hadn’t time to pop inside to tell them to wait. Already, Harry was in the middle of the street, stopping a beer cart with no more than an imperious lift of one hand. Ignoring the driver’s curses, she hurried toward the other side.

  Phin raced after her, sidling around and behind the beer cart as it started forward again, plowing through all manner of mud and manure, until he reached the north side of Oxford Street.

  He glanced west, then east, finally spotting a plain straw bonnet decorated by a single pale blue ribbon bobbing and weaving through the crowd of pedestrians rushing about in hopes of reaching their carriages or finding an empty hack for hire.