Chapter Eleven

Bumbledon had every intention of sitting by Lady Madeline during Sir Rodger’s lecture. He’d planned on occasionally whispering facts he had memorized on the subject to highlight his superior intelligence. Somehow, he was sitting next to his mother instead.

It was not at all how the evening was meant to unfold. Worse, he was a few rows forward so he could not even keep Lady Madeline in view.

What was Souderton doing here? This was Ignatius Liddlington, Baron Bumbledon’s, milieu! These were his people, not the marquess’ people. Souderton’s people were the vapid inhabitants of Almack’s and White’s, they were the dandies and fops with nothing between their ears. This night was meant to be his moment to shine.

And then, for Souderton to treacherously claim that Sir Rodger was attempting to gain his attention only so the rogue could make off with Lady Madeline—it was diabolical.

That was not even the worst of it. His mother had whispered that there had been something in The Morning Post. Some ridiculous claim that Lord M was not the villain attempting to tarnish Lady Madeline’s reputation, but it had always been Lord B.

He was not such a lead-head that he could not see what was going on. Lord Souderton had put in that notice to attempt to shift the blame on him! He would not stand for it. He would challenge Souderton to a duel if he did not just now have an arm in a sling.

Maybe he should challenge him. After all, he’d never have to actually go as long as he kept his arm tied up and it was not as if one could have two duels with the same person. He was already engaged for one, why not two? It would be the spirit of the thing, rather than the doing of the thing.

He decided to put off any decisions of that nature, as his thoughts made him a little dizzy. Or maybe it was the corset. Or perhaps both.

Bumbledon had, if he were going to be honest about it, found the tight corset holding him in rather more uncomfortable than he’d thought it would be. Especially upon sitting down, which he had noticed in the carriage. It looked terrifically well, a good four inches had disappeared from him, but it dug into his ribs and made it hard to take in a full breath.

Heaving in small gasps of air, his mother leaned over and whispered, “Do not get in a lather about it. I’ve already sent a boy off to get in a late notice at The Morning Post, claiming that it was all along Lord S, not Lord M or Lord B. The world can chew on that on the morrow.”

Yes, that was a capital idea. It would point directly to Souderton. It did make him feel better about the situation. It did not, unfortunately, make him feel better about the corset that was just now choking the life out of him.

He concentrated on getting air into his lungs as Sir Rodger droned on about Shakespeare’s collaboration with George Peele on Titus Andronicus. He was usually so interested in these sorts of lectures. They were filled with facts he could trot out at another time. He was very good at remembering facts.

But just now it was hard to concentrate on Sir Rodger’s words while at the same time working to get air past the blasted corset and then back out again.

Bumbledon noticed the room dimming and wondered who was blowing out candles.

Then it went dark altogether.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Owen had spent the first half hour of Sir Rodger’s endless blathering simply enjoying Lady Madeline’s proximity. A curl of her raven hair was slowly losing a battle with gravity—bit by bit a strand escaped its pin and dropped down on her shoulder in a charming spiral of a curl. He leaned ever so slightly to the left and was certain she leaned slightly to the right, the end being they were closer together than they ought to be. He stole glances at the charming dimple in her chin. She smelled sweet, a little like apricots, like springtime.

Her delicate hands were unadorned and he supposed he ought to change that. Rundell and Bridge must certainly have no end of things on their counters that ought to be on her person. As well, the simple gold chain round her neck was vastly appropriate at the moment. At a future moment, though, she ought to have something more substantial. He suspected both rubies and sapphires would suit her coloring.

On occasion, Owen glanced up and looked at Bumbledon three rows ahead of them. He was becoming more and more certain that, on top of the calf pads that had been drifting to the wrong locations, Bumbledon had taken to applying hair powder. There were telltale specks of it on the shoulders of his coat.

Calf pads and hair powder. He never could understand the gentlemen who took to such ruses. After all, it was all going to have to come off at some point. Owen sometimes wondered about Lady Margaret’s reaction when she got a real look at Sir Andrew on their wedding day. After all the pads and cinchings and powders had been removed, what had she been left with? Whatever it was, she was stuck with it. One could not return a defective husband like one could send back a bad cut from the butcher.

Sir Rodger waxed on about Titus Andronicus and some fellow’s contribution to it. Owen had seen the play and found it dreadful—revenge, murder, severed body parts being sent by messenger all over the place—who cared how it had come about? It would have been better served to remain in someone’s deranged imagination than ever put to paper.

Just then, Owen noticed Bumbledon’s head bobbing up and down as if he were agreeing with a point. Then it kept bobbing. Then it disappeared altogether.

He clenched his jaw to stop himself from laughing. Bumbledon, the intellectual, had fallen asleep and proceeded to fall off his chair.

It did not go unnoticed.

Sir Rodger stopped talking. Heads turned. The dowager leapt to her feet. “Help! Someone help my son! Is he dead?”

“What has happened?” Lady Madeline asked.

“I am not certain,” Owen said. “Stay here for the moment.”

Owen joined the crowd surrounding Bumbledon, who was just now blinking his eyes.

“Breathe,” he gasped. “Can’t breathe.”

Sir Rodger pushed through the crowd and knelt down at Bumbledon’s side.

“Do you have a medical condition, Lord Bumbledon? Has this happened before? Is there a physician who ought to be fetched?”

It seemed Bumbledon was too out of his breath to answer. The dowager said, “He’s not got anything wrong with him that I know of.”

Sir Rodger loosened his neckcloth. “Just relax and take in deep breaths.”

“Can’t.”

Sir Rodger looked puzzled, and then less puzzled. He leaned close to Lord Bumbledon and spoke softly.

Fortunately, Owen’s hearing was very good. Sir Rodger said, “My god, man, are you wearing a corset pulled too tight?”

Bumbledon nodded.

Sir Rodger seemed to do some mental calculations. Then, much louder, he said, “Right. I’ll need the two strongest men to assist me. We will carry Lord Bumbledon to the library.”

Owen would obviously be one of the two strongest men, as most of the guests were on the elderly side of things. It was too absurd—he was to carry Bumbledon to the library because his valet had cinched him in too tight. He supposed he should have known that a man who would go in for hair powder and calf pads would not leave a corset behind.

A fellow named Mr. Kendrick stepped forward and said, “I will assist.”

Owen sighed. “As will I.”

The dowager glared at him. It was really very annoying. What would she like him to do? Allow her son to roll himself to the library, gasping all the way like a fish landed on a riverbank?

Between them, Mr. Kendrick and Owen hauled Bumbledon to his feet and helped him out of the room, the dowager on their heels.

What happened after that was something Owen would not soon forget, though he would certainly like to. Once they got Bumbledon into the library, Sir Rodger directed his corset to be loosened. The dowager claimed he was not wearing one, and had no need of one, all while sticking her hand up her son’s back and freeing him from it.

If anybody had been in doubt of whether there was or was not a corset, once Bumbledon’s middle was set free, all questions were put to rest.

He gasped in long draughts of air as his stomach inflated like a hot air balloon being filled for its inaugural journey.

Once that operation was completed, the dowager marched over to Owen and Mr. Kendrick. “Not one word of this to anybody. Swear it!”

“You have my word, my lady!” Mr. Kendrick said, stepping back from the dowager like she was a feudal warlord wielding a sword.

“You,” the dowager said, pointing at Owen. “Swear your word as a gentleman.”

“Madam, if you imagine I would find your son’s attempts at enhancement at all an interesting topic of conversation, you are much mistaken. By the by, Bumbledon, your calves have drifted to the wrong place and hair powder is on your coat.”

With that, he turned and strode from the room before the dowager could say any more about it.

He went back into the drawing room and realized he perhaps ought not to have come back so quickly. All eyes were turned toward him, searching his face for some sort of explanation.

“Just a bit of a faint,” he said, making his way back to Lady Madeline.

She had left her seat and stood with the earl at the sideboard. That gentleman had in his not very steady hand a very large glass of Canary.

“Lord Bumbledon is recovering, I presume?” the earl asked.

Owen nodded.

“These intellectuals…” the earl drifted off.

Owen got the distinct idea that the earl would like to defend Bumbledon falling off his chair and having to be helped out of the room, if he could work out how to do it.

“I fear it was a corset tied too tight, Papa,” Lady Madeline said.

Owen raised a brow. He would not confirm or deny that theory.

“Did you not notice that his, well his…middle section…was smaller than it has been?” Lady Madeline asked.

“I certainly did not,” the earl said. “Lord Bumbledon would never resort to, no, indeed.”

“But Papa, here he comes. Look how much bigger it looks now.”

Owen pinched his palm lest he roar with laughter.

Sir Rodger, in an overly cheerful voice, said, “All is well. Just a small interlude. Let us take our seats and carry on.”

A small interlude. That was one way to explain it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mr. Penny was entirely flummoxed. For the past few days he had been terrified of what new consequences might arise from submitting the supposed correction blaming Lord B, rather than Lord M, for the line of men who had arrived outside of the house.

It had all begun so simply! Lady Madeline had made a mistake and The League had stepped in to protect her from its possible adverse effects. They had put the notice in the newspaper that the mysterious Lord M was to blame for it. Then somehow the marquess had been blamed. Then they’d put in another notice that it was actually Lord B, not Lord M. They’d hoped to accomplish two things there—get the blame off the marquess and put it on Lord Bumbledon to drive him away from Lady Madeline.

Now, this very morning, there was another notice in The Morning Post, and he did not know where it came from!

Astute readers – the real truth must now come out. You have been led astray. In the matter of Lady M, it is Lord S to blame.

Who was Lord S? Was it Lord Souderton again? They had just got him off the hook, how was he back on it again? How had they gone from M to B to S? Who wrote it?

The League were the only people meant to be putting notices in the newspaper. Now somebody else was doing it too.

As for Lord Souderton, was he continuing his investigation regarding who put the first two notices in? Was he getting any closer to becoming very much surprised that it had been Lady Madeline’s butler responsible?

As if that were not enough to fret over, Lady Madeline and the earl were having some sort of disagreement over Lord Bumbledon in a corset. At least, Lady Madeline claimed he’d worn one and that it was so tight it made him faint. The earl was very troubled by this assessment. More troubled than seemed necessary. Why was the earl so intent on buoying up Lord Bumbledon? What did he see in that gentleman?

Mr. Penny was shaken up enough with recent events, then the anonymous note came for Lady Madeline. No, it was not even a note. It was simply a piece of The Morning Post, carefully cut out. That piece that blamed Lord S as the culprit.

As he’d fussed around with various items on a shelf in the drawing room, pretending to examine the work of the housemaids, Lady Madeline and the countess had a long discussion about that scrap of paper. They did not know who was behind it either, though they concluded that it was not necessary to mention it to the earl. After all, as the countess pointed out, whoever the lords M, B, and S were meant to be, who they were not was Lady Madeline Cole. She ought to stay silent and steer well clear of it.

This evening, they would go to Lord Souderton’s house for dinner. What would they face there? Was Lord Souderton, even now, seething with outrage that somehow he’d been implicated? Implicated for the second time, no less. Might that not cause him to redouble his efforts at discovering who was behind it? Would he be at all mollified to know that John H. Penny was only behind the first two notices in the newspaper? Would he be happy to know that it was someone else who put in the third? It did not feel like much of a hope to hang onto!

From across the room, Lady Madeline said, “Mr. Mandrake, do not be so naughty. Stop chewing on Mr. Penny’s pant leg this instant.”

Mr. Penny gave a little shake to his leg and the diabolical Pomeranian let go. That was at least one bright spot in his life. In prior years, he would not have got the dog off his pants so easily.

Mr. Mandrake was fast running out of steam. Unfortunately, Mr. Penny was running out of steam too.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Madeline felt as if the past twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind, though they had not been meant to be. Before it began, she had looked at it as a period of time that must be trudged through. She was only to accompany her father to Sir Rodger’s dreary lecture, to smile and pretend she enjoyed it, to act pleasant to Lord Bumbledon, and that would be that.

That had not been that. Lord Souderton had come, which had been a lovely surprise. Lord Bumbledon had fainted, which if she were honest, was a rather ludicrous surprise. Despite her father’s denials, she knew very well that Lord Bumbledon had been the victim of a corset tied too tight. She was embarrassed for him, and also could not help laughing about it.

What would possess a man to go to such lengths? What could he mean by it? Was he attempting to look the dashing young buck, if only for a few hours?

As she considered that, she got a sinking feeling. Lord Bumbledon had made clear his interest, but then she was certain she’d made clear her disinterest. Did he not comprehend it? Had his suddenly trimmer waist and suddenly fuller hair on his head been meant to impress her?

Society’s rules were all well and good. They often smoothed the way ahead and ensured that nobody was insulted. And yet, they were a bother too. It would be so much more straightforward if she could just outright say, “Lord Bumbledon, you waste your time looking in my direction. Do look elsewhere.”

She could not say that, though. A lady must wait until a gentleman came right out and declared his feelings before she could send him on his way. All she had in her arsenal were hints and demeanor to send her messages. It seemed rather cruel to all involved and she prayed Lord Bumbledon would never say anything in that direction.

That had been much to think over and discuss with her mother, as that lady had not been invited to Sir Rodger’s lecture. Not that her mother was at all sorry about it beforehand. She had expected it to be a deadly dull evening. She was rather sorry to miss it after hearing what had transpired though. It might be usual that one encountered some aging dandy in a corset, but not every day that one fainted from its effects.

The countess was of the opinion that the earl was so enthusiastic about a match between his daughter and Lord Bumbledon because he’d known the gentleman’s father nearly all his life. It was a terrifying thing for a father to give over a daughter to a gentleman and the earl must take comfort in understanding that family's character. It would have blinded him to other less attractive qualities regarding Lord Bumbledon’s person.

As for Lord Souderton, the countess was very interested to hear that he’d turned up to Sir Rodger’s lecture and maneuvered Madeline to sit next to him. She would be even more interested to see how he conducted himself at the dinner this evening.

After all of that had been satisfactorily discussed, the cut-out from the newspaper had arrived unsigned. Another notice had been put in, this time claiming it was all along Lord S that was the villain. Who was putting these things in the newspaper? Why had it been sent to her? Who wished to be certain she saw it?

The countess had advised putting it out of her mind, and she was determined to do just that. Whatever went on with all these newspaper notices, it was as murky as a still pond—there was no point attempting to see to the bottom of it. All she could pray for was that Lord Souderton's father had not seen the newspaper. She could hope Lord Souderton would be as goodhumored about it as he had so far proved himself. She had no such hopes for the duke.

At least her father had not seen it, as he had not said anything about it. If he had seen it, he would have said plenty.

The carriage trotted through the darkened streets on its way to Portland Place. It had rained earlier and the light from the oil lamps illuminating the streets shined and reflected on the wet stones. London never looked better than when the sun had set and she was freshly washed.

Madeline had chosen to wear her very best dress, the one the modiste had pronounced le summum de la mode. The one the modiste said only a girl with dark hair and dark eyes could manage creditably.

It was a claret silk with small and evenly matched pearls along the bodice and then running in a line of twos down to her waist, the skirt overlayed in a same color net with seed pearls sewn in. She wore her pearl necklace with it and a modest pearl ring from her mother’s jewel case.

She did not like to compliment herself very much or grow conceited, but when she’d looked in the glass, she’d felt rather regal in the dress.

“You are looking very well this evening, Madeline,” the countess said. “I suppose Lord Souderton will notice it.”

“Should he, in particular, notice it?” the earl asked.

“Yes, my darling, I do think he will in particular notice,” the countess said.

“So that’s to be it, is it? Poor Lord Bumbledon is beat to the punch by a marquess?”

The countess smiled. “Nothing has been said, so there is no cause for opinions. Perhaps there is cause for hope, though. And I must point out, a marquess would hardly be a step down.”

“Oh, I know Bumbledon is only a baron. But his family is so well known. That is what I like about him. His father was a very fine man.”

Madeline felt that they had come to the moment when all hope of a match with Lord Bumbledon must come to an end. “Papa, the titles of the gentlemen do not sway me in the slightest. If their titles were reversed, I would still feel the same.”

“You are certain?” the earl asked.

Madeline nodded vigorously. “Really, Papa, Lord Bumbledon is too ridiculous. He wore a corset, and I am certain he wore hair powder too. Even if that had not been the case, I do not like him. He is a braggart and a blowhard, and his mother was not particularly likeable either.”

The earl sat back, seeming stunned by all these opinions. “That is rather strong.”

“I am sorry, I know you like him,” Madeline said, “but I really do not like him.”

The earl nodded, seeming resigned. “I had thought, but perhaps I allowed my hopes to run away with me. Well, I suppose we’ll see what this young marquess has to say for himself.”

Madeline patted his hand. She did not know what Lord Souderton would have to say for himself, but she was confident he would not be wearing a corset and there would be no fainting involved!