Talk of the Ton (Free Fellows League 5)

Lady Southbridge smiled broadly at that, her cheeks balling up like two lumps of dough. “What a thoughtful dear you are!” she cried. “When who comes out?”

“When I’ve come out,” Emily said again, but louder.

“Really, you must practice your enunciation, Miss Forsythe. You’ve an awful habit of mumbling! Oh, I adore callers, and you are the perfect antidote to an otherwise dreary afternoon! I’ll just ring for tea,” she said and picked up the little bell next to her day couch.

The sun was shining for the first time this week, but Emily smiled nonetheless and put her hands in her lap as Lady Southbridge rang for her butler.

They chatted over tea, gossiping about all the debutantes, with Emily professing a dislike for most of them. Lady Southbridge was accommodating in that—if Emily professed a dislike for another debutante, her ladyship was quick to offer up a juicy little tidbit about the offending young woman.

But when Emily had been in her company for three-quarters of an hour, she was

growing desperate to plant the next seed to detach Montgomery from the widow. Fortunately, Lady Southbridge gave her the opening she needed.

The old woman was really something of a remarkable windbag, and she was droning on and on about someone, a friend’s sister by marriage, some such relation, and that she’d done the most awful thing by consorting with a high-ranking official in the House of Commons. “Her reputation is ruined,” Lady Southbridge said with disgust as she examined the biscuits. “She shan’t show her face in London again, mark me. It was all really quite scandalous,” she said with a shake of her head as she selected another biscuit.

“I should think not as scandalous as consorting with a vicar’s wife,” Emily quickly interjected.

“Eh? What’s that?” Lady Southbridge asked, her head snapping up so quickly that Emily briefly feared she might choke on the biscuit she’d just shoved in her mouth.

“I said, I should think not as scandalous as a vicar’s wife!” Emily shouted.

“For goodness sake, I heard you, dear! What I mean to understand is which vicar’s wife?”

“Oh,” Emily said and coyly sipped her tea. “I shouldn’t have uttered a word, Lady Southbridge. I’m certain I’m quite wrong, and I should just as soon cut out my tongue as speak ill of anyone—”

“Yes, yes, but who?” Lady Southbridge insisted.

Emily put her teacup down. “All right then. But please, you must give me your word you won’t repeat what I’m to say to another living soul.”

That earned a groan and a roll of Lady Southbridge’s eyes as she fell back against her day couch. “I should be insulted, were I not as old and wise as I am, for I am hardly the sort to wag my tongue!” she exclaimed heatedly.

“I beg your pardon; I never meant to imply that you were, mu’um. It’s just that . . . it’s so scandalous, that I scarcely believe it, and I should perish away if anyone were to credit me with having suggested anything so morally despicable!”

Lady Southbridge’s tiny eyes widened, and she sat up, pushed her two dogs off the day couch in one sweeping movement that left them whimpering, shoved her legs off the side, and leaned forward, so that she was almost nose to nose with Emily. “What on earth are you saying? That our vicar’s wife has done something morally despicable?”

“No, not our vicar’s wife,” Emily quickly assured her, wondering how Lady Southbridge could believe that a woman nearly seventy years of age was doing something despicable. “The former vicar’s wife,” she said, and leaned in to whisper, “The Widow Becket.”

Lady Southbridge gasped; her mouth formed a tight little bud as her eyes narrowed. “Mrs. Becket!” she cried in disbelief. “That sweet angel! What possibly might she have done?”

Emily was starting to feel a bit warm beneath her collar. “I, ah . . . I can’t say for certain that she’s done anything, my lady. But one would think a woman of her precarious position would be far more careful in comporting herself than to spend time, unescorted, with a high-ranking lord. But perhaps . . . perhaps that is just the way of the Methodists.”

Lady Southbridge’s gasp was so audible and forceful that Emily felt pushed back by it. But she held her ground, nodded solemnly as Lady Southbridge’s little eyes got bigger and bigger. “A Methodist?” she squealed.

“She is indeed,” Emily said apologetically.

The old woman put her hands to her knees, leaned even closer to Emily. “Which lord is it?”

Emily glanced over her shoulder, saw nothing but the two dogs wanting out, and leaned close to Lady Southbridge’s ear. “Lord Montgomery,” she whispered.

Lady Southbridge instantly reared back, and her eyes were crinkling. “Oh dear,” she said, but she looked quite delighted by the news. She daintily picked up her teacup. “Finished with your tea, dear? Oh, I do thank you for calling, Miss Forsythe. I hope you shall call again, and very soon. It’s been so lovely chatting with you.”

Emily recognized her cue to leave, and carefully stood up, thanked Lady Southbridge profusely for receiving her, and with her back to the grand dame of rumor and innuendo, she smiled. Her mission was complete. Lord Montgomery would soon be forced by untoward talk to rid himself of the pesky widow. And then he’d be one step closer to seeing his way to making an offer for her.

An hour later, after Lady Southbridge had finished off what was left of the biscuits, she asked her butler to round up her coach, and gave the driver the direction of Lady Marlton, her dear old friend. She knew that Martha would be as interested as she was to learn that the old scoundrel Lord Connery, who happened to be married to Martha’s cousin, had failed once again to keep his trousers securely fastened, and was up to his old tricks in seducing the vicar’s widow.

Chapter Five

At his gentlemen’s club a few days later, Darien heard the rumor about Lord Connery—a scoundrel by anyone’s measure—and the Widow Becket from his friend Freddie, who relayed the news to him, having just come from a card table where, he lamented, he had lost forty pounds.