LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Dany asked her sister as she peered through the semidarkness in the bedchamber, as all the draperies had been pulled tightly shut.

      She probably should have asked that of the pair of maids collapsed on chairs, mounds of toweling at their feet, one still holding a horsehair brush in one hand. Both scrambled to their feet when Dany spoke, gathering up the toweling and hastening from the room, probably to beg the housekeeper for restorative cups of tea and buttered biscuits.

      “No, I’m not all right,” the countess answered sourly from the bed. “Only you could ask such a ridiculous question, Daniella. My head aches from all the repeated washings, my face is still covered in splotches and I have all but begged someone to bring me some cucumber pickles in cream and no one has paid me the least amount of attention. Where have you been?”

      “You said you didn’t care where I went,” Dany reminded her as she hopped up onto the bed. “Your hair looks much better, Mari. And it definitely smells better in here.”

      “I will not consume chicken again, not for the remainder of my life!”

      “Yes, fowl creatures,” Dany agreed, although she knew she was the only one who would appreciate her small joke. “But you’re all right? I mean, in general? With the baby and all?”

      Mari pulled a pink lace bed jacket more closely around her. “You certainly are persistent today. Yes, I’m fine. Has the baron recovered my letters as yet? Is that where you were? With the baron? Where did you go?”

      There wasn’t much that could be circumspect in Dany’s answer, not if she answered truthfully. So she summoned a lie.

      “We took a stroll along Bond Street and then another in Green Park, where his lordship took my hand and we disappeared into the trees so that he could kiss me. Twice, if you can imagine.”

      “Oh, you did not. The baron would never so compromise you, not when he has no real plans of wedding you. Nor you him? Dany, you aren’t getting any foolish ideas, are you? I appreciate what you’re doing, but I don’t want you hurt. You are my sister.”

      “No, no, of course I won’t be hurt. Yes, I was fibbing, silly. As if he’d kiss me. I wanted to be certain you were paying attention. You often don’t, you know. I don’t know why Mama thought you’d be a good chaperone.”

      Mari burst into tears, which was the very last thing Dany wanted.

      “I’m so, so sorry,” the countess said, taking Dany’s hands in hers. “I’m a wretched sister. I’ve set a poor example, I make silly mistakes and now I’ve confined myself to my room until these nasty, horrid splotches go away, and the Little Season will be over before we know it. What can I do to make it up to you?”

      “Well, um, I’m sure I can’t know. I mean, really, Mari, you’re the best of sisters, and I’m so delighted that I am to have a niece or nephew in a few months, and I truly love being here in London in any case, even if I don’t attend another ball or musical party. Although...”

      Mari squeezed her hands. “Yes, yes? What is it? Honestly, Dany, unless you want to do something totally outrageous, I’m sure I can approve. Will I approve?”

      “Oliver is still traveling?” Dany asked, getting down from the bed. “He won’t come strolling in the door in the next four and twenty hours?”

      “No, no. I counted out on my fingers, from the day he first said he’d return. It will be at least another three days. I simply have to be healed by then. Mrs. Timmerly said I will be, using the cream she said her mother swore by, and her mother before that. Why? Isn’t that enough time for the baron to retrieve the letters? Tell me the truth, Dany. I must know the truth. You said he knew the identity of the blackmailer.”

      “True enough, but he wouldn’t tell me. Aren’t you simply itching to know?”

      Mari shrugged. “I suppose so. I may have to meet him in Society at some point.” Now she shivered. “Can’t the baron just shoot him or some such thing? After he retrieves my letters, I mean.”

      So much for diverting her, Dany thought, smiling inwardly. Now we’re back, as always, to Mari’s favorite subject. Herself.

      “You’d ask a near-stranger to sacrifice his freedom in order to retrieve your silly letters?”

      The countess sank back against the pillows. “Not for me, Dany. For the child.”

      “Oh, yes, of course. The child. How could I have been so silly. Babies need fathers, don’t they? Fathers and being named the heir without any niggling little questions as to just who that father might be.”

      “You know very well I would never— Oh, Dany, this has to work. It just has to!”

      Ah, and now, finally, they were where Dany wanted to be.

      “I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I wanted to be certain you were all right. Because the duchess has asked me to dinner, and possibly to spend the night, as she believes her guest, Miss Clarice Goodfellow of the Virginia Goodfellows, you understand, is pining for home and could use some female company more her own age. Are you certain you’d be all right here, on your own?”

      “I’m surrounded by people, Dany,” her sister said, actually sounding reasonable. “Besides, how does one, especially one with no prospects or dowry of any import, turn down an invitation from a duchess? No, no, that’s not possible.”

      Dany was already heading for the door. “Are you certain?”

      Mrs. Timmerly herself entered the chamber, carrying a silver tray holding a china bowl filled to the brim with pickled cucumbers in cream sauce.

      Mari sat up, all excitement, and fairly shook in anticipation of her treat.

      “What? Oh, yes, yes. I’m sure. Just go. Ahhh,” she said, all attention turned to the tray placed in front of her, employing her fingers to lift one round slice and hold it in front of her eyes. “Heaven.”

      Dany didn’t wait to see the dripping thing disappear into her sister’s mouth. As far as she could remember, Mari didn’t even like pickled cucumbers.

      Within an hour, fresh from her bath, her short hair hopefully attractively mussed and blessedly dry, a stuffed bandbox already handed over to a footman—and assuring herself that Harry was resting in the servants’ quarters—she was standing in the foyer, awaiting the arrival of the earl’s town coach.

      “Miss Foster?”

      She turned about, to see Timmerly descending the staircase, a worried look on his face and a folded letter in his hand.

      “Yes? Does my sister want to see me?”

      The butler shook his head. “No, Mrs. Timmerly is with her. I don’t know if you are aware, Miss Foster, but longtime retainers, such as myself, are privy to information one might think withheld from them. Such...such is the case with her ladyship’s current dilemma. Not that I would say that I...snoop, but there are moments when it may be necessary to...”

      Dany had been watching Timmerly’s hand, and the broken seal on the letter he held in that hand. “Give it to me.”

      “Oh, thank you, miss. It arrived this morning, but Mrs. Timmerly said her ladyship is already too overset to...”

      “‘My dearest wife,’” Dany read out loud, holding out her hand for silence. “‘I’ve left my luggage and the others to follow, frustrated by their slow pace when

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