Page 25 of A Lady's Guide to Scandal

‘Ten years that I am reliably informed have been very kind to me,’ Aunt Dorothy told her severely. ‘It is just as well my hair is black now, not red – there is a reason I avoid these sorts of people, Kitty. And as for you, you look the spitting image of your mother! You had best write back to Lady Radcliffe and let her know we cannot attend.’

‘And give up?’ Kitty raised her chin in defiance. ‘No, I shall find out all we need to know – we are going to that dinner party!’

True to her word, Kitty gamely set out that afternoon on an information-gathering expedition. Her destination, Cecily in tow, was the library, for Cecily had often spoken of the conduct books they were given at the Seminary, which taught them of maidenly virtues. Kitty was to be disappointed, however. To her disgust, even the most academic of these volumes held only the barest and most useless of instructions. How was such nonsense as ‘have a sacred regard to truth’ and ‘possess dignity without pride’ to help her at a dinner party? They left empty-handed, and Kitty avoided Aunt Dorothy’s eye that evening.

By mutual agreement, they did not speak upon the subject again that night, all retiring to bed early, though Kitty did not sleep. She had grown used, in the days since arriving in London, to the semi-constant noise the city made, but she was not yet fully comfortable with how much sound still filtered in through the window even in darkness. At home, at Netley, when either she or Beatrice couldn’t sleep, they would whisper confidences to each other under the covers, sharing their secrets and fears until they belonged more to each other than to just one alone. And while there were some secrets Kitty had not told Beatrice – the true extent of their debts and the full story of their parents’ courtship had been burdens she alone had carried – she had grown very used to being able to lean on Beatrice in her uncertain moments. Especially in the years since their mother had passed when Kitty had felt so desperately lonely, to have Beatrice there had been the greatest reassurance she could have asked for.

And now she was without it.

‘Cecy?’ Kitty whispered into the dark. But a soft snore told her that Cecy was already fast asleep.

Kitty wished she had thought to speak to her father about the etiquette of the beau monde while he was alive. There had been so many chances to do so – but how could she have known how important the knowledge would become? One of the worst things about losing one’s parents, for Kitty, had not come in the first few, raw and shocking days of grief. It had come later: it sneaked up on her daily in the frequent instances where she thought of a question to ask them – something she might have always vaguely wondered, but never thought to voice, something inane or something important – only to realise a second later that, of course, they were no longer there to ask. And now more than ever, Kitty would have traded almost anything to ask either one of her parents the questions now circling her mind. To ask Papa about high society – yes, that was one – but also to ask whether she was even doing the right thing at all. Should she listen to Aunt Dorothy, or trust her own instincts? Would they be all right? Lord, to be told everything would all right again, to have the comforting press of a parental hand upon her brow just once more.

Cecily let out a hiccough in the darkness, and Kitty shook her head, clearing it. What she actually needed – practically speaking – was to speak to someone who knew this world like the back of their hand, who knew all the little rules and rituals she would not recognise. Someone who would know exactly how the insiders identified outsiders and – crucially – someone she could speak honestly with, without fear of what her ignorance might reveal to them. It was not until the purple sky had faded to ink black that Kitty admitted to herself that there was really only one person she could speak to.

Lord Radcliffe’s butler, Beaverton, was surprised to open the front door of Radcliffe’s town house upon St James’s Place at 10 o’clock the following morning, to find Miss Talbot and a housemaid staring expectantly up at him from the top step. The proper response to this irregular occurrence was, no doubt, to inform the ladies that his lordship was not receiving visitors and send them on their way. Except, without quite knowing how it was brought about, Beaverton found himself instead delivering the ladies into the library and heading upstairs to break the news to Lord Radcliffe.

‘Miss Talbot?’ Radcliffe asked incredulously from the depths of his darkened bedchamber. ‘Here? Now? What the devil …?’

He extricated himself with difficulty and arrived in the library not fifteen minutes later, somewhat more dishevelled than he would normally like to present himself to visitors. He stood in the doorway, staring blankly at Miss Talbot. Incomprehensible though it seemed, she was indeed here now.

‘Miss Talbot,’ he said at last, without bowing. When he said nothing else, Miss Talbot perceived that while he had risen, his manners had not.

‘Perhaps we could take some refreshment?’ she suggested, feeling that he was in need of some guidance. Radcliffe pressed his lips together, but directed his manservant accordingly and invited her to sit down.

‘I was not expecting your call, Miss Talbot,’ he ventured, recovering some equilibrium. ‘It is also rather earlier than I would expect to receive any call, even expected ones.’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘But it is past ten already!’ she objected. ‘Were you not already awake?’

‘Never mind,’ he said, with great forbearance. ‘Why have you come? I am sure I cannot think we have anything further to discuss, given you no doubt received my mother’s invitation yesterday. Unless you wish to renege on our deal …?’

‘Oh, not at all.’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘I mean to keep to my end – you need not worry, Archie is in no danger from me any more. But I should like to ask you some questions.’

He cut his eyes to where Sally was perched on a chair by the door, then back to Kitty – a question. She waved him off again. ‘Oh, Sally knows the full, don’t worry. She won’t breathe a word of it.’

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘You will forgive me if I do not share your confidence. Perhaps she could await us in the hall. Unless you fear I might have designs upon your person?’

He added this with a touch of irony that suggested the idea was ridiculous; she tried not to feel offended. Once the door had closed behind Sally, some of Radcliffe’s hauteur left him.

‘I had rather thought that I had upheld my side of the bargain,’ he said briskly. ‘To see to your introduction and then for you to take it from there.’

‘Surely you didn’t think it as simple as all that?’ she said critically, quite forgetting that she, also, had thought it as simple as all that before Aunt Dorothy had informed her otherwise.

‘Pray forgive me, but – yes.’

‘There is much I need to know about Lady Radcliffe’s event, much that could go wrong, you know.’

‘There is?’ he said, thinking longingly of his bed.

‘Yes indeed. Your mother deemed me an outsider within seconds of our meeting. I must ensure that does not happen again.’

‘And your first thought was to ask me for help?’ he asked, incredulously. ‘Yesterday, each of us tried to blackmail the other.’

‘My first thought,’ she corrected, ‘was to try the library – but I might as well have read the Bible for all the good those silly etiquette books did me. Besides, it is not so strange for me to ask you. I should imagine you would like me to be successful. We do have a deal, you know.’

‘A deal I regret making more with each passing moment,’ Radcliffe said, rubbing his hands over his face and wishing that he had thought to ask for coffee, not tea.

Kitty ignored this. ‘Who shall be in attendance this evening?’ she asked.