Valentine sat down beside his sister. “No, sorry, I’m still not seeing it. But wait, allow me a guess. Miss Wise is not a bosom chum of our Alana?”
“She barely knows her,” Kate said, chewing on her full bottom lip. “It’s Bailey she’s after.”
“Bailey? Bailey Armstrong? Alana’s getting bracketed to the Old Bailey? Sorry, that’s a weak joke, but it’s funnier if you’re half in your cups when you call him that.”
“Oh, yes, very amusing. Please excuse me if I wait until I’m alone to indulge in unladylike sniffs and snorts of hilarity. But back to the point. Yes, Bailey. The thing is, he and Miss Wise were all but declared to each other when Bailey met Alana at the book repository and the two of them took one look at each other and tumbled into love. Quite romantic, when you think about it, I suppose, which I try not to do because I find it all rather soppy.”
“And Lord knows we Redgraves are never soppy. Scandalous, but never soppy. Absurd. Reckless. Notorious. But never soppy.”
“Never mind that now. Mark my words, Valentine, Sylvia Wise is the spurned woman, and sure as check she wangled her way here to make mischief. We have to get rid of her. And since you brought her, it’s up to you to take her away again.”
Valentine sprang to his feet. “Well, why didn’t you just say so? I’ll simply nip off downstairs, toss her over my shoulder and tote her out to the coach—done and done.”
“You’re not amusing, although I’d give a five pound note to watch you do it. And I suppose she’s brought her mother along with her? Lady Wise, best known for her utter lack of sensibility.”
“Oh, good, I thought it was just me thinking that. Rather, um, rough around the edges for the widow of a baron, wouldn’t you say?”
“Common as a dirt floor. That’s what Trixie would say—and will say if those two women are still here when she arrives on Friday, Lord help us.”
Mention of their grandmother, Lady Beatrix, the dowager countess of Saltwood and one of the most outspoken women in the history of the ton, was enough to elicit both a smile and a small shiver of apprehension from Valentine.
“You’re right. I’m no coward, but we’ve got to get the ladies gone. I mean, once she’s done with them, she’ll most naturally turn on me, because I brought them. Let’s put our heads together.”
Valentine plunked himself down beside his sister, shoulder to shoulder, their chins rather resting on their chests, their legs raised to prop their feet on the low marble-topped table.
The Redgraves rarely stood on ceremony, and they believed very much that one should be allowed to be comfortable in one’s own home—and anywhere else they were, if they took it into their heads to do so. Because they were Redgraves, and who was going to gainsay them? That was the one good thing about being known for being outrageous and shockingly scandalous creatures—you could continue to be shockingly outrageous and scandalous whenever the spirit moved you. In fact, Society very nearly expected you to be and, for reasons only Society could explain, rather delighted in watching the show.
So the siblings reclined low on their spines with their feet resting on the tabletop. They both, at the same time, crossed their ankles, and then sighed. They stared at the fireplace for some moments. When Valentine next spoke, it was to inquire about Alana, who he liked very much.
“So Alana loves Bailey?”
“With all of her tender, soppy heart, yes.”
“And he loves her?”
Kate realized she was pleating her skirt into wrinkles and stopped, folding her hands together in her lap. “I’m convinced he does.”
“Then, other than the business about dirt floors, I really don’t see a problem there, at least.”
Kate shifted on the cushion. “Listen carefully. Sylvia Wise is one generation away from the shop. In her case, her mama’s father made some incredible fortune in coal, or peat, or some sort of fuel, not that it signifies, and then married her off to the baron—old and fairly deaf and probably the only person who would have her, no matter how large her fortune or dire their need of funds. Rumor has it Sylvia’s no more the baron’s daughter than she’s Prinney’s, but we’ll never know if it was the ancient fortune hunter or his valet who did the deed.”
“God, but we’re a cruel bunch, aren’t we?”
“There’s that tender heart of yours again, Valentine. It will bring you to disaster one of these days. But I’m only being honest. Yes, Society is cruel. However, as we both well know, we ignore it at our peril when the case is serious enough. At least we do if we care a rap what anyone thinks, which we Redgraves don’t happen to do very often, thank God.”
“Yes, and how is our brother Gideon?” Valentine asked, and then raised his hand to rub away his words. “I know, I know, it’s over, and we don’t talk about it. There may still be whispers, but that’s all. Water off our backs, as Trixie says, and damn everyone else.”
“But that’s us, Valentine. Alana’s different. She wouldn’t care about Society, I don’t mean that. But in this instance, she’d care. In her heart. Now, if I might continue?”
“You’re asking my permission? Have you ever done that before? I don’t seem to remember any such occasion.”
“That I will ignore. Now, the baron promptly cocked up his toes just after Sylvia was born, and the man’s courtesy title died with him, which well it should have, as he’d only gotten it, rumor has it, thanks to some nefarious thing he did to benefit one of the royal princes many years ago.”
Valentine smiled at her. “I’m impressed. I had no idea you were so well versed in gossip.”
“You’re forgetting Trixie. She keeps me knee-deep in the stuff, even when I beg her to stop. Now, Sylvia is passably pretty, odiously wealthy, ruthlessly ambitious, and she and her mother are hell-bent on marrying her off to a title that doesn’t expire upon death, for one thing, and that is connected with an old and respected family. Like Bailey’s.”
“Respected? The earl is a drunk and a wastrel, and locked up for debt at least twice, I think.” Valentine’s eyebrows rose even as he said those last words. “Oh, now I see. Or at least I think I do. Miss Wise was chasing a title, and Bailey, poor bastard—and I mean that in the God-help-the-poor-bastard sense—was chasing a fortune.”