Chapter One

Lady Davina Hasket’s Guide to Eavesdropping and Petty Theft

Sutton Manor, London—November 25, 1813

Davina

“Did he swallow a lemon?” Cee whispered in my ear before she wrinkled her nose at the selection of dishes lining the long mahogany table before us. 

At my questioning glance, she tipped her head toward the groom. He was a tall man—easily visible above our hiding place next to the ficus. 

The divots in Lord Grayson’s brow hadn’t abated in the hours after the ceremony. And if the way he worked his jaw was any indication, he had almost certainly ground his teeth into stumps. Not the picture of a jovial bridegroom.

“Perhaps he sampled the roast before his nuptials.” I had to lean down to reply to my eldest brother’s widow. Celine might have been years my senior, but she was several inches shorter and well-concealed between me and our potted haven. 

A flutter of lace and ruffles at the other end of the room caught my eye. Poor Miss Summers—now Lady Grayson—was not the embodiment of a blushing bride either. Her skin was flushed, unbecomingly so. The whites shone around her bright eyes, like those of a frightened doe. And her gown… that was not one of the dresses Cee and I had selected for her trousseau at the modiste a few weeks prior. This frilly, lacy thing was cut too small on the bust and dug into her flesh in a way that was clearly painful. I would be just as miserable if Mama forced me into something like that. 

Or if Mama forced me down the aisle at all. 

I had long ago decided that marriage was not for me. Fortunately, Father had the good sense to die before I reached an age where he felt the need to press the issue. Perhaps the only thing he’d ever done right in his life. 

“It does look a bit dodgy,” Cee replied, drawing my attention to the meats. The fine table overtook the oblong room and nearly sagged under the weight of pretentious floral arrangements and food. Unfortunately, not a lick of it appeared edible. “It really is too bad that the Grayson cook wasn’t asked to assist.” 

Celine accepted my half-hearted shrug as a response before tipping her closed fan at the room’s many occupants. “Can you distract them? I need to speak with Lady Grayson before we flee.”

My brow crept to my hairline. “You wish to kidnap the bride on her wedding day? What sort of distraction do you suppose is sufficient for that?”

Her gaze flitted across the room. The groom and a few gentlemen I didn’t know stood at one end. My remaining brother, Xander, propped up a wall across from them. A few feet away, a gaggle of  familiar gentlemen clustered around a poorly concealed flask, glancing to and fro—almost certainly searching for Cee.

The bride nervously fussed with her gown where she stood beside her aunt, our hostess. When I glanced back at her, Celine’s gaze was frozen directly across the table. 

My stomach dropped. 

Lady Grayson—the dowager one.

“Absolutely not. I just escaped her machinations. She had all but planned my wedding to Lord Grayson. I’m useless to her now that he’s wed and I’m quite enjoying a reprieve from her perfume.” 

“It’s not that bad,” Cee insisted. A decade’s familiarity with her tone was my only measure of her lie. “And there’s a younger son. Your reprieve would be short-lived, regardless.”

“A second son? Is he out of leading strings yet? The elder cannot be five and twenty.”

“May I remind you that you’re barely out of the schoolroom yourself? Please, Dav? I need to give the new Lady Grayson a petite talk. Certainly her aunt did as poorly with that as she did with the gown.”

“So you’ll give her a little talk but not me?”

“Of course, I’ll tell her and not you. She’s a married woman, and one in desperate need of a friend if her husband’s countenance is any indication.”

I glanced toward the wall the new Lady Grayson had been occupying. She had been joined by a shorter gentleman with dark, boyish curls. There was something familiar about his countenance, but I couldn’t place him.

“Apparently she has a friend,” I retorted, nodding toward them.

Cee cursed in French under her breath before rounding the ficus with determination. Abandoning me to my perennial friend, she strode toward the bride. She managed but a few steps before she was intercepted by a gentleman I didn’t recognize. Served her right. 

A quick gaze in the other direction showed Xander momentarily distracted by what was surely a titillating conversation with the dour groom. My brother would be by my side in a flash if he noticed that I’d escaped my chaperone. 

Another glance at Cee confirmed that she had managed to discourage the first suitor only to find another in his place, Mr. Parker. She loathed him—good. Perhaps she could give her little talk to him. He was almost certainly well-versed in the topic. She shot my brother a desperate glance that he missed entirely. 

Before her pathetic expression could move me to a rescue, I felt the beady gaze of the elder Lady Grayson on my person from across the table. Damn, I should’ve tucked deeper into the ficus when Cee left. One needn’t be a mind reader to know she was sizing me up for her second most impressive offspring. 

Celine would have to rescue herself. I needed an escape of my own. She was more than capable of summoning a less objectionable suitor to free herself from Parker’s clutches. 

Desperately seeking a reprieve, I caught sight of the gentleman beside Lady Grayson as he grabbed her hand and pulled her out the nearby door.

There it was—by far the most interesting, and least objectionable, option. Decision made, I dipped behind a passing gentleman and along the wall through the same door.

The corridor was empty and clearly decorated by the same woman who had selected Lady Grayson’s wedding gown. Lace and tulle adorned every available surface as an accent. She’d looped it around the frame of an appalling painting, a placid, uninspired landscape that Xander would have sneered at. More fabric was knotted into half-hearted bows on the sconces. Worse still, Her Grace had tied it between the prongs on the chandelier—surely that was a fire hazard. 

My mother loved lace, tulle, and ribbons more than a reasonable amount. But at least hers were tastefully chosen, or—if not strictly tasteful—elegant in their pretension. 

Her Grace had even seen fit to weave the peachy tulle into the potpourri bowl on what should have been a fine end table. There was nothing elegant about that. Nor the ribbon woven around the legs of the table. And certainly not the bit wrapped around the delicate golden snuffbox atop it. 

This wasn’t even a main hall. And wasn’t that a horrifying thought—that this wasn’t a wedding decoration but rather something that was left out all the time. 

I was contemplating the absurdity when I heard it—a low, grumbly, masculine voice pouring through the cracked door beside me.

“You don’t have to do this, Katie. It’s not too late, I can get you out of this.”

The only response was a delicate, feminine sniff. 

I shifted, silently, two little shuffles to the left. Through the hinged edge of the elegantly carved door, I caught sight of fluffy peach Lady Grayson, her face buried in the strange man’s chest. He stroked her overly baubled hair gently in the equally peach-and-paisley-walled sitting room.

“Please, Katie. Let me take you home.”

Her unmistakable reply of, “I can’t,” was muffled into the fabric of his waistcoat. 

“I’ll get you an annulment. I swear it.”

She pulled her head free. “I’m compromised.” 

“I don’t care. Mother won’t care. Father won’t care. I do not want to leave you with these people.” 

Oh, not a lover. Her brother. 

And Miss Sum—Lady Grayson—had been compromised? How had Xander and Cee kept that intelligence from me? And they wondered why I got into such mischief. If they simply kept me informed, I wouldn’t have to sneak about for interesting tidbits. 

I must have shifted, though I didn’t intend to, because the floor creaked beneath me. It was a quiet sound, not even worthy of a nail’s repair. But the sound was enough to have the gentleman’s gaze snagging mine through the crack between the door and frame. Clear, dark brown eyes surrounded by even darker lashes were framed by an unkempt, furrowed brow. Was every man at this wedding surly?

Lady Grayson pulled free from his arms and swept around the door to greet me. She brushed her cheeks with a surreptitious hand.

“Oh, Lady Davina!” she exclaimed, voice tight. “I am so pleased you and Lady Rycliffe were able to attend today.”

“This area isn’t open to guests,” the man, who was presumably Mr. Summers, added before I could reply. Well, that confirmed my horrifying suspicion about the decorations. 

“Kit!” Lady Grayson scolded, her tone less strained with the reprimand.

“Apologies, I was just looking for Cee—” My gaze floundered for a moment before landing on the table. “Cee’s snuffbox.” I grabbed the fine, bejeweled thing, freeing it from the tulle prison. “She asked me to fetch it.”

Mr. Summers raised a skeptical brow. “It is strange that Lady Rycliffe’s snuffbox has resided in my aunt’s house for as long as I can recall.”

“Kit…” Lady Grayson warned again.

“What an odd coincidence,” he finished between gritted teeth. “Perhaps we should all rejoin the festivities.“

“Yes, let’s,” Lady Grayson agreed with feigned enthusiasm. 

Mr. Summers eyed me warily as I untied my beaded reticule and slipped the snuffbox inside before tugging it closed. The new addition clinked softly against my pin money and my late brother’s dice. 

If a hand gesture could convey sarcasm, Mr. Summers’ hand gesturing me toward the door would have dripped with it. 

Lady Grayson chose to lead us out, with Mr. Summers bringing up the rear. He was, no doubt, determined to ensure that all other bits and bobs remained out of my reticule. I, on the other hand, bit my lower lip to keep from laughing at the absurdity of the situation as he all but marched me back into the dining room. 

A mere step into the wedding breakfast found Xander summoning me, arms outstretched. With a sigh, I made my way to him and the gentleman beside him. I had no idea who he was, but his limbs were much too long for the rest of him. 

“You summoned?” I asked my brother, allowing him a bit of a scolding before he shooed me out of the house and into the carriage—but not until he handed off my pilfered snuffbox to the little cricket of a man gaping beside him.

My brother was such a spoilsport.