How to Marry an Earl (A Cinderella Society 1)

Persephone grinned. That statue was as close as Mrs. Bell ever came to admitting there was a stone relief of a dancing satyr, minus the fig leaf, in the house. “Tell the servants they shall have a bowl of punch tonight and make sure they have an especially good dinner.”

“My pleasure, Ma’am. I’ll speak to Cook. Perhaps tartlets?” She loved custard tarts and the Cook loved her. Other households repeatedly tried to lure him away with promise of higher wages for his tartlets alone. But as long as Mrs. Bell stayed at Halcyon House, so did Cook.

Needless to say, they ate a lot of custard tarts.

Between Persephone’s decor and her grandmother’s antics, the tartlets might be the only thing keeping Mrs. Bell here. “Perhaps a double batch,” Persephone suggested prudently.

Equipped with a cup of strong tea and lemon biscuits, Persephone raised her teacup in salutation to the statue of Nemesis she’d had set between the two banks of windows. If she’d been born in ancient Greece, she might have left offerings of barley cakes and olive oil. Which only made her think of the marzipan offerings to the satyr and what he might have seen. He did look a bit shocked. She hastily drank more tea and tried to think of less harrowing things.

Like Conall.

She might have hoped the passing of several years would somehow make him less interesting. He’d become more polished, even more distinguished. He’d always been handsome, but he clearly wasn’t shy any more. There was a gleam to his gray eyes. And if the stories were true, he had spent the last couple of months flirting with widows and dancing and drinking champagne until dawn. He’s grown stronger now, wider in the shoulders. She could well imagine the strength of him whirling her around the dance floor in a waltz.

“Your cheeks are pink. You’re not turning prudish on me, are you, Percy?” her grandmother interrupted.

She knew full well she wasn’t turning red because of her grandmother’s antics. She was made of sterner stuff. “What if I’d been the vicar?” she asked.

“Serve that pompous windbag right.” Her grandmother reached for the last biscuit. “You don’t like him either. If I recall, you littered the church with pagan human bones.”

“I was ten years old.” And deeply upset that the old vicar had left for a new parish. She hadn’t cared for her mother’s explanation of old men retiring to be nearer to their families. She’d found bones in a barrow and when her father said they were of no particular significance, she’d used them to decorate the church. “And all the same, you’re frightening the servants.”

Only her grandmother could bring out that particular prim tone. She didn’t care for it, but nor did she care to ever see Mr. Asher’s flabby buttocks again.

“Pah. Mr. Asher’s most embarrassed. Have a care for his sensibilities, won’t you?”

Persephone would wager he wasn’t embarrassed enough not to repeat the entire process the very next time she found herself in the village for a few hours.

“You interrupted a most enjoyable afternoon, you know. ’Twas very rude.”

“I beg your pardon,” Persephone returned drily.

Her grandmother patted her hand. “Never mind. We’d run out of cupcakes anyway.”

Persephone shuddered.

“I saw that, my girl,” Lady Matilda accused.

“I am sitting in a draft,” she replied. She loved her grandmother and in fact thanked God daily that she had cupcake capers to deal with instead of a family who clung too tightly to Society, but there were limits.

She’d rather like to be able to eat cupcakes again one day.

“I suppose I ought to get ready for the afternoon’s festivities,” Lady Matilda said. “Make sure you wear something cheerful, my dear.”

“I will,” Persephone said. She was lying, of course. They both knew it. No one did sartorial cheerfulness like the Lady Matilda. It required a certain visual fortitude.

“You so rarely go into society, you want to be noticed, don’t you?”

She really, really didn’t. She’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. Three lifetimes. She’d rather live in that hole. “Yes, Grandmaman,” she said dutifully. Her grandmother wrinkled her nose before heading off to her chambers.

Persephone was on her second cup of tea and contemplating ringing for cake when Mrs. Bell entered with a letter on a silver platter. “For you, my lady. It just arrived.”

Persephone leapt for it with enough enthusiasm that Mrs. Bell jumped. “Goodness!”

“Who brought this?” she asked. The letter was still sealed but worn and creased and slightly water-damaged. Her stomach soured.

“A boy from the village,” Mrs. Bell answered, snatching her hands back as if she was afraid she might get bitten. “It fell off the mail coach and was only now found in someone’s garden hedge.”

Persephone tore into it, even as she broke into a run for the privacy of her own bedroom. “Thank you!” she shouted over her shoulder.