Chapter 23

Andromeda wanted to sink into the mattress. She wanted to throw herself back into a deep and dreamless sleep where life was not so… prickly, and the future was not so… plagued with shadows.

No shadows outside the window this morning, though. The sun had risen right on time and with the full brightness of a cloudless day. It mocked her. There should at least be clouds if not a wind-raging storm, complete with thunder and lightning for what she must do this day.

Tell her family those things Lady Eldridge planned to tell the ton, prepare them.

The door of her bedchamber flew open and hit the wall, and Lottie strode, chin high and hands on her hips, into the room. "No more moping."

"I'm not moping." Andromeda hugged the pillow to her chest.

"You were moping when I left the bed this morning, and over an hour later, you still are. Up."

Andromeda tossed the pillow to the side and slung her feet to the floor. "You're right. I was moping."

"I do not see why." Lottie pulled the bell to summon their lady's maid. "You're engaged to marry a man who very clearly thinks you're the only person worth knowing in the entire world. I saw him snub at least five people on his way to you across the ballroom the other night. He simply does not care. Except about you and that brother of his." Lottie shivered. "I might marry if a man would look at me like that."

"If Lord Noble would look at you like that?"

Lottie snorted, dipped her gaze, and pulled the ribbon tied just beneath her breasts through her fingers. "Any man. I've decided to be done with Lord Noble. You've inspired me. No more being stuck."

"That's excellent news."

The door opened, and their maid bustled in.

"Good morning, Maria," Andromeda said.

Maria disappeared without a word into the dressing room, and Andromeda wandered carefully toward Lottie.

"Is there a particular reason you've decided to give up on the viscount?" she asked.

"He's a scoundrel. And unkind. And I deserve better, I think. I deserve a man who will travel to the edges of the known world to have me."

"Tristan only traveled to the edge of England."

"It's all the same. He is dedicated to you, and I will find someone dedicated to me."

Andromeda hugged her sister. "I hope you do." It felt deliriously good to find a man like that, one who would pull the stars from heaven for you.

What would she do for him, though?

"Off with that shift, Lady Andromeda," Maria said, reappearing. "You'll need a new one." She snapped the gown draped across one arm over a nearby chair. Pink lace, high-necked, innocent.

"Not that one today, Maria." Andromeda moved into the dressing room. She needed to appear confident and mature, the captain that Tristan called her. "The navy one, I think. With the braiding and gold buttons."

Maria frowned.

Andromeda smiled.

And Andromeda won. No easy feat with Maria, who nudged Andromeda out of the dressing room and flung open a trunk with a snort.

She dressed quickly, and Lottie paced the room.

"Is something amiss?" Sitting before the looking glass as Maria fixed her hair, Andromeda watched her sister's restless reflection.

Lottie nodded. "It's why I woke you up. I have news. From a certain lady."

Andromeda gasped and spun around, and Maria pushed her to face forward once more.

"I think my hair is done, Maria."

Maria plucked a curl and watched it bounce back into shape. "Now you're done." She curtsied and left them alone.

Lottie rushed to Andromeda's side, pulling a bit of folded paper from her pocket. "It's a letter. Read it."

Andromeda unfolded it, but hesitated. "Should we find Prudence? The twins?"

"We must."

They ran out of the room together to find their sisters gathered in their mother's parlor, reading. Andromeda held the letter up, holding her breath, the scrap of creamy paper a coal in her hand.

"It's from Lady Aphrodite," Lottie said.

Prudence gasped and jumped to her feet.

Imogen paled and clasped her hands in her lap. "I'm nervous. I don't want to give this up."

Isabella shrugged. "Then don't. I'm not. I've already decided."

"What do you mean?" Andromeda sank onto a couch near her sisters, though Lottie continued her pacing.

"I do not see why I cannot work with Lady Aphrodite. She seems a good sort, and she'll need help. The same help you and Lottie have needed. She might need more help, even. I know our system better than she does, and I have ideas for improvement as well."

Lottie stopped and scowled. "Do not put your name and face behind the endeavor. You will only make yourself a target."

Andromeda's stomach lurched. A true warning.

"I don't need notoriety," Isabella said. "I prefer the shadows. What about you Imogen? If she agrees to take on the books, the library, will you help her? And you, Prudence?"

"Perhaps," Prudence said, quirking her mouth to the side.

"I certainly will," Imogen said. The twins squeezed each other's hands.

"I'm opening it." And Andromeda did, very carefully, cracking the wax, unfolding the paper, and scanning the neat, looping lines of script written there. "She writes that she is honored that we have asked her."

"A good start, that," Imogen said, her face falling.

Isabella's nose wrinkled. "Anytime anyone says they're honored that means they only have bad news to give after that."

Andromeda waved her sisters into silence. "Let me finish. She's honored we thought of her, and she's never organized or run such an endeavor before."

Prudence snorted. "Naturally."

"But." Andromeda rushed ahead, refusing to be distracted. "She's keen to try. She wants a temporary start, a trial run to see if she likes it."

"Very well." Lottie held her hand before her mouth, lightly curled, and tapped the tip of her nose with her index finger. Then she dropped her hand to her side with a sigh. "Well then, how should we do this?"

"Quickly," Andromeda said.

"Why is that?" Lottie tilted her head to the side, and every gaze in the room riveted to Andromeda.

"Because I'm about to bring much scandal down on our heads, and we don't want to add to it. If at all possible."

The room went quiet.

"Explain," Lottie said, her voice hard.

And she did—Tristan's rather eager courtship, Lady Eldridge's spying ways, and her own potential problem after a night of passion in Tristan's arm. When she'd told all, she fisted her hands in her skirts and watched them until they seemed foreign things, entirely unconnected to herself. "And that's it. And I do not know what to do because it is not merely my name that will be ruined, but your futures. I thought only to step into my own, to finally live the life I've always wanted. You must believe I did not think I would destroy your futures in the process. And I… I must tell Samuel now before he hears it elsewhere."

Silence, as there had been throughout her story.

Then Imogen cleared her throat. "What, exactly, did you get up to with Mr. Kingston in the wine cellar?"

Isabella nodded, her curls bouncing. "There are so many different things that can be done between a man and a woman, after all. One does not know where to begin."

"Really," Prudence added, "you've told us very little. Did he bend you over a barrel?"

"Or did he have you take his shaft in hand?" Imogen asked, blinking.

"Or perhaps he put his mouth on your—"

"Please stop," Andromeda pleaded. Really. The heat of her cheeks might rival that of the summer sun.

Lottie shrugged. "Do not be embarrassed, Annie. Though I am ready to leave our enterprise behind, I am glad we had it. Glad we had the books. Why shouldn't we have such knowledge? Why shouldn't Prudence, Im, and Is have it? I'm convinced Mother meant to show us once we married. And during the ball, I ran into Miss Adams in the retiring room. She'd been crying, poor thing. She'd danced twice with her betrothed, and he'd made several comments about the wedding night that she did not understand. He'd scared her silly, and if she'd had even a little bit of knowledge, she would not have been in tears. I would not have had to comfort her by explaining things her mother should already have explained. And she is not the only woman suffering thusly. How many times have I had to watch ladies our own age look on in wide-eyed confusion and pretend ignorance with them? When my knowledge has saved me from error, helped me make choices, and their ignorance has—" She swallowed, looked away. "They would have been better served by knowing more. I am not ashamed of the books, Annie. There's just more to life beyond our little library."

Andromeda's jaw tightened. "Not if Lady Eldridge unleashes a deluge of very true rumors into the greedy ears of the ton. Then there will be no life but ruination. We'll all be sent to the country or married off to whomever will still have us."

"Samuel wouldn't!" Imogen cried.

Prudence waved away the concern. "But what was it like? With Mr. Kingston? Whatever you did together, was it good?"

Four pairs of eyes stared at her as if she held the keys to heaven.

She cleared her throat. "Quite, quite good. Excellent even. Better, I believe, than the books prepared me for."

All four of her sisters melted into the backs of their chairs with sighs.

"I knew it," Imogen whispered.

"It is hardly of import, though," Andromeda said. "We must focus on finding a solution."

"First," Lottie said, jumping to her feet, "we hand the books off to Lady Aphrodite. I do not know if it will help, but it could not hurt. I will write to her immediately and—"

"We should call an emergency meeting of the patrons." Prudence bounced to her feet, too. "To inform them there is to be a change of hands."

"I'll do that," Isabella said. "I know how to get the information in their ears without any damning paper trail." Isabella always knew exactly who to talk to about things that needed to be kept quiet. Andromeda did not know how, but since it had always benefited her, she did not question it.

They dispersed, and as Andromeda and Lottie sat down to draft the letter to Lady Aphrodite, the others disappeared to do their own work, contacting the ladies they most needed to speak to in whatever secretive ways they could.

"Should I tell Samuel yet?" Andromeda looked up from the letter she penned. "About the coming scandal?"

"Not yet," Lottie replied. "Let us be done with the books first, and then we'll let him know what he needs to know."

Andromeda nodded, finished the letter, and put it in Maria's hands to be delivered.

A few hours later, their guests began to arrive, pouring in with concerned looks, raised eyebrows, and pinched lips. When everyone was seated around the parlor, Lady Templeton rapped her knuckles on a nearby table.

"What is this all about?" she demanded. "What sort of thing could be urgent enough that you risk everything to bring us here?"

Grumbles of agreement throughout the room.

Lottie stood and folded her hands before her. Her chin held high, she waited for the grumbling to subside before speaking. "We have decided that we will no longer run the lending library."

If they'd grumbled before, they rioted now, ricocheting to their feet, bonnets flying backward and dangling down their backs from limp bonnet strings.

"No!"

"You can't!"

"But what will we do?"

"Why?"

Each objection louder than the last.

Andromeda put her fingers between her lips and whistled. Loudly.

The riot stopped.

"Now," Andromeda said, "if you would listen patiently and quietly, we will explain everything to your satisfaction."

"I can't be satisfied," Mrs. Garrison grumbled, "if I don't have my books."

"I know," Andromeda assured her. "We are not leaving you without that which you so clearly desire."

Lottie stepped forward. "The woman you know as Lady Aphrodite has agreed to take charge of our collection and the dissemination of it."

If they'd reacted with startled shouts earlier, they offered nothing but silence now. They seemed stone but for the occasional blinking of their eyes.

"Lady Aphrodite? Truly?" Lady Templeton asked.

Lottie nodded.

"But why must you stop?" Lady Macintosh spoke with narrowed eyes, head slightly tilted. Unconvinced, she was. "Why do something so drastic? So sudden? Why, when you have gone along as your mother used to all these years?"

"It was time." An easy thing for Andromeda to say now, a freeing thing that left her light and airy as finely spun lace. "It is time for us to find our own way instead of our mother's." She looked at Lottie, took a steadying breath. "And… there's a scandal brewing."

The silence that descended like a cloud of fog felt like censure, felt like danger, felt like she'd accidentally threatened a dragon's precious hoard. Because these women were dragons, and they hoarded their reputation like gold. For them, more precious than gold. And Andromeda was their secret keeper these many years.

"I think," Lottie said out of the side of her mouth, "you should be more specific. Otherwise, they might tear our arms off."

"Not your reputations," Andromeda barked. "I doubt Lady Eldridge would do a thing to harm your reputations."

"Explain," Lady Templeton demanded.

"I am engaged to marry Mr. Kingston."

Lady Templeton preened. "I knew it was a good match."

"I saw them in the park together," Lady Macintosh said. "Thought I saw a spark there."

The comments came from every corner and all at once, no clear way to tell one voice from the other.

"He's a fine catch."

"Wrong side of the blanket."

"With a man as successful as Mr. Kingston, that can be… overlooked."

"You mean with a man as handsome as Mr. Kingston."

"Father's an earl."

"No idea about the mother."

"Has a fine arse."

"I like a muscular leg."

"Odd match for our Andromeda."

"Perfect match if you ask me."

"I like his hair."

"Have you seen his… carrot?"

Chuckles, curious gazes settling on Andromeda as the comments rolled to a quick stop like boiling water taken off the fire.

"Why is that the first thing everyone wants to know?" Andromeda searched for patience, found none, so drove forward with frustration as her restless companion.

"Because everyone wants you happy," Mrs. Garrison said.

Oh. Oh, that made her eyes burn. She blinked away the water blurring her vision.

"Just as long as it's not with your sons?" Lottie mumbled, glaring at Lady Templeton.

"If I had a son, you'd be welcome to him," Lady Prickles said.

Lady Templeton snorted and wiggled in her seat. "No need to bring Wally into it."

"No need to bring Wally into anything," Lottie replied.

Lady Templeton's mouth dropped open, and Mrs. Garrison snapped it shut for her, nudging her chin up with a gloved hand until Lady Templeton's teeth clicked.

"You mentioned a scandal?" Mrs. Garrison said. "I'd like to hear more about that if you please. If it has nothing to do with us, then why are we here? And what's Lady Eldridge to do with it?"

"Yes. The scandal. Thank you for refocusing us," Andromeda said. "Lady Eldridge is Mr. Kingston's aunt, as some of you might know, and the night of the ball here, she discovered something I would rather her have… not."

"What was it?" Lady Templeton had scooted to the edge of her seat. She leaned so precariously forward, she barely balanced on its edge. A fall seemed imminent.

"She overheard a heated… liaison between me and Mr. Kingston. May have seen a bit of it, too."

A lady near the back whistled. "Didn't think you had it in you, Lady Andromeda."

"She has seen his carrot," another woman said.

Ignoring carrots and all discussion thereof, Andromeda barreled onward. "Lady Eldridge means to take guardianship of the young Earl of Avelford away from Mr. Kingston. I tell you only because there is a risk for the library. My character will be attacked, and those patrons of our library not so close to my mother may not feel loyal enough to keep secrets. But no matter what sins are laid at my door, I will be loyal to you all. You were all dear friends to my mother. You are my dear friends as well, and—"

"Bollocks!" Lady Macintosh jumped to her feet.

"Pardon me?" Lottie's voice balanced the precipice between polite calm and wild danger. "You doubt our loyalty?"

"No!" Lady Macintosh, in her plaid gown and gray sausage curls, wore the expression of a woman ready for battle. "I say bollocks to Lady Eldridge!"

A rumble of agreement swept through the room.

Mrs. Garrison rose to feet. "Georgette is right. We will not let Lady Eldridge abuse you like this. Come along, ladies." She wound her arm through Lady Macintosh's, and they marched toward the door.

The others stood and streamed after them, lining up two by two, a regiment of determination and muslin.

Andromeda and Lottie rushed after them, swung in front of them just before they reached the door, and threw their arms out wide.

"What are you doing?" Andromeda did not know if she could keep the women from marching right over her on their way to… whatever they planned to do, but she could try.

"Move." Mrs. Garrison was surprisingly tall. How had Andromeda never noticed? And she looked at Andromeda as if she were a misbehaving soldier. Had she learned that military bearing, that air of command, from her admiral husband? Or… just possibly… had he learned it from her? Seemed entirely likely at the moment. If Mrs. Garrison said stand on your hands, Andromeda would have tried.

But Andromeda was a captain, so said Tristan, so she pulled herself up tall and held a palm out flat. "We're not moving until you tell us what machinations are moving through your mind."

"Nothing much." Mrs. Garrison rolled her hand. "I just intend to make sure Lady Eldridge understands a few key facts."

"Just so." Lady Macintosh sniffed, then grinned, revealing slightly sharp teeth. Did they… glint? Surely not. "Let's remind her of how things are."

"How are things?" Lottie asked, eyes wide.

Lady Templeton strode to the front of the queue. "We must be organized about this, ladies. Not all of us can march right up to her doorstep."

"Why not?" Mrs. Garrison wanted to know. "I say a show of force is necessary."

"I'm so very surprised." Lady Templeton rolled her eyes. "Subtlety, Lavinia. Subtlety is what we need. Two of us will approach Lady Eldridge now, and—"

"What?" Andromeda's voice may have cracked like that of a young boy coming of age. "You cannot approach Lady Eldridge."

"Th-that would be—" Lottie stammered, "that would be—"

"Entirely necessary," Mrs. Garrison assured her.

"You and I, Lavinia, will visit Lady Eldridge." Lady Templeton elbowed her way between Lottie and Andromeda to gain the freedom of the hallway behind them. "The rest of you will return home to write letters rescinding any invitations issued to her. She is to understand in no uncertain terms that should she continue with her nefarious plans, she will be punished."

"I still say the lot of us marching up to her front door will have a greater impact," Mrs. Garrison grumbled.

"Please do not." Andromeda did not think anything she could say could stop them, and though she really should try… she did not want to stop them. Discomfort skittered up her spine at the notion of owing these women, owing anyone, yet they were protecting her with the sharpest weapon in their arsenal—social power. She'd never imagined… yet she was thankful. "You do not have to do this, any of this. It is my problem. I should have been more careful, and—"

"Nonsense." Lady Macintosh patted Andromeda's shoulder as she swept into the hall. "Your mother was one of us, a dear friend. And we will not allow you to suffer. Who is Lady Eldridge against all of us? Who would have the courage to go against all of us in favor of her?"

"No one," Lady Prickles said with a snort.

More assertive grumbles and snorts rose around them.

"Come along then, ladies," Lady Templeton said with a wave of her arm. "Let us take care of this matter quickly."

Everyone followed her down the hall, filing out of the townhouse like soldiers. When the front door shut behind the last one, Andromeda collapsed against Lottie, who wrapped her arms around her and squeezed, exhaling loudly.

"That was unexpected," Lottie said.

"Do you think it will work?" Could the women really… bully Lady Eldridge into silence? Would an army of the ton's outwardly starchiest but secretly scandalous matrons and widows be able to defeat a woman who wielded secrets like weapons?

"It will be a mighty battle," Lottie said.

"Mm. Epic proportions." Andromeda popped out of Lottie's embrace. "What should we do?"

"Wait."

Her hands felt empty without clear purpose. And if she felt drained of all control, how did Tristan feel? She must speak with him. Now.