“Who’s masquerading as a gentleman of the ton.” James met his eyes. “Exactly.”
After agreeing to share anything they thought of or learned that might help identify Henrietta’s would-be murderer, they parted, Simon sauntering off to see if he could locate Lady Marchmain and inveigle her guest list from her, while Charlie strode off to keep an appointment with his barber.
James headed back to George Street, strolling and wracking his brains, trying to think of what more he could do.
That afternoon, Henrietta was the toast of an impromptu gathering of all the Cynster ladies and the family’s close female connections presently in London. Eschewing the more formal setting of the St. Ives House drawing room, the ladies, one and all, crowded into the more comfortable back parlor, into which footmen had ferried additional chairs, love seats, and sofas.
Every seat was taken, because everyone was there—from Louisa, the young daughter of the house, still in pigtails, to Louisa’s grandmother, Helena, and her even older bosom-bow, Therese Osbaldestone. The younger ladies, Henrietta included, stood chatting in groups wherever there was space between the chairs and occasional tables and behind the sofas. Their elders frequently engaged those standing, especially Henrietta, who was passed from group to group, each clutch of ladies wanting to hear her story—how she came to have decided on and enticed James Glossup to the point of him offering for her hand—directly from her lips.
Although Henrietta normally found such gatherings wearying, to her very real surprise she discovered she enjoyed being caught up in the hubbub of excitement engendered by the news of her unexpected engagement, and the even greater excitement provoked by the demands of organizing her engagement ball and then her wedding, all at such short notice.
Not that she harbored the slightest anxiety on that score; she’d seen these same ladies in action many times before. She had every confidence her engagement ball and her wedding would pass off without a hitch; her mother, her aunts, Helena, Horatia, and Celia, let alone her cousins’ wives, would simply not allow anything else.
Of her cousins’ wives, Honoria, Patience, and Alathea were presently in London, but letters had already been dispatched to all the others, and their ranks would swell as soon as those others could get their horses hitched to their carriages. Henrietta’s sister-in-law, Simon’s wife, Portia, was presently standing by Henrietta’s side, beaming with delight.
Beaming almost as much as Mary, but, viewing her sister as she stood chatting with Louisa, Henrietta honestly didn’t think anyone could possibly be more ecstatic than Mary.
Studying her sister, and wonde
ring yet again which gentleman Mary had in her sights, Henrietta became aware of the necklace about her throat, felt the pendant touching the sensitive skin above her décolletage.
She hadn’t believed in the necklace, but she had worn it, and . . . here she was, betrothed to James and planning her engagement ball and her wedding.
After a moment’s hesitation, she excused herself from Portia and Caro Anstruther-Wetherby, with whom she’d been chatting about the latest style in veils, and made her way across the room to Mary.
Louisa had just been summoned by her mother, which, Henrietta reflected, was just as well; after Mary, the necklace was due to return north to Scotland, and she had no idea whether it would come south again—that was in The Lady’s hands.
Mary turned to Henrietta, and her smile grew brighter. “How are you holding up?”
Henrietta arched her brows. “Surprisingly well.”
“I daresay it’s different when it’s your engagement, your wedding, and you at center stage.” Mary’s tone suggested that while she didn’t begrudge Henrietta the position, she was nevertheless looking forward to the day when it would be her turn to stand in the glow.
“I thought,” Henrietta said as she drew the necklace free of the modest neckline of her day gown, “that as we have reached this stage—me betrothed, with Mama and the others arguing about how many musicians should play at my wedding breakfast—then perhaps it’s time for me to give you this.” She let the pendant dangle from her fingers, swinging before Mary’s gaze, which had fixed on the rose-quartz crystal.
Covetousness shone clearly in Mary’s cornflower blue eyes, but her lips slowly firmed, then pressed into a line, and, slowly, she shook her head; Henrietta got the distinct impression that it took effort for Mary to force herself to do the latter.
Then Mary dragged in a breath and tipped up her head. “No. I want it—obviously—but it has to be right. It has to be passed on to me exactly as it’s supposed to be—as Angelica passed it on to you—at your engagement ball. If I don’t get it in exactly the right way, it might not work as it’s supposed to, and what use will it be to me then?”
An unanswerable question. Henrietta sighed and tucked the necklace back inside her bodice. “In that case, seven evenings from tonight.” She hesitated, then asked, “Why are you so impatient to have it? Why now?”
Mary’s gaze had drifted past Henrietta; looking over the room, she replied, “I told you and Mama this morning. I want to start searching properly for my own hero.”
Henrietta narrowed her eyes on Mary’s face. “But you’ve already started searching, haven’t you? Just without the necklace. So you’re impatient to get the necklace now because—”
“I might have started searching, but I’m not going to say anything more at this point—so don’t ask.” Mary shot her a warning glance.
Henrietta held up her hand. “Very well—seven nights from tonight, the necklace will be yours, and then . . .”
Mary nodded in her usual determined fashion. “And then we’ll see.”
Henrietta saw Honoria waving, trying to get her attention. Quitting Mary’s side, she picked her way across the room to where Honoria, Duchess of St. Ives and wife of the head of the family, Devil Cynster, sat flanked by Patience, Vane Cynster’s wife, and Alathea, the wife of Gabriel Cynster. Now in their forties, all three were stylish matrons accustomed to wielding significant social and familial power, yet to Henrietta they were nearly as close as her older sisters, the twins, Amanda and Amelia, both of whom had yet to reach town. Since their marriages over ten years before, the twins had spent much of their time on their husbands’ estates, administering to said husbands and their bountiful broods. Henrietta frequently visited both households, but Honoria, Patience, and Alathea were usually in London, and usually attended the same entertainments Henrietta did, so they had in large part become her “London sisters”; certainly, that they viewed her in the light of a younger sister was not in any doubt.
Consequently, she wasn’t the least surprised when Alathea caught her hand, tugged her down to sit on a footstool they’d commandeered and had placed before them, then, when Henrietta had settled, stated, “It’s time to tell us the best part—how he proposed.”
When she hesitated, Patience chuckled. “You don’t need to tell us the setting—just give us the words.”
Fighting to straighten her lips, Henrietta said, “Just let me think, so I remember it properly . . . oh, that’s right. He asked if he shouldn’t wait and ask for Papa’s approval first.”