the entire way down to land in an undignified heap at the bottom. The picture she presented when she had righted herself was only slightly less undignified. Her hem torn, her hair falling down with the ribbon trailing down her back, and one blue kid slipper in her hand, she looked up to bid good morning to her guest, only to be greeted with a loud “Harrumph!” from her future mother-in-law.
“Oh! Lady Crenshaw. I had not expected it to be you” Ginny thrust the hand holding the shoe behind her and attempted to get it reunited with her foot without anyone the wiser. “That is to say, I had not expected you! At least, not so early in the morning.” Oh, dear! She was making mice feet of the whole affair, and just when she most needed to be all that was irreproachable.
“You were doubtless expecting my son,” Lady Crenshaw announced as she sailed down the hall to the parlor without the aid of the butler, who had wisely decamped. “However, after the debacle of last night, he has once again been summoned to the duke’s side.”
Ginny, feeling her boat was well and truly sunk, followed sedately along behind. In a no doubt fruitless bid at decorum, she pulled the green ribbon from her hair and left it on the hall table as she passed. Anthony, should he ever arrive, would have to admire the gray-green of her eyes without it.
“Well!” Lady Crenshaw exclaimed upon pushing open the door and glancing around the parlor, “I can see she has done nothing to improve this room since last I was here” She sat gingerly on the edge of the sofa, almost as if its being a few years past the crack of fashion were contagious. “I generously informed her how this gold brocade would never do, but she isn’t one who cherishes the opinions of others, do you not agree?”
Ginny most assuredly did. She felt Anthony’s mother was cut from the same bolt of cloth as Grandaunt but knew it would not help her case to open her budget on the subject.
“Lady Crenshaw, I am so surprised, ah, honored at your visit. Have you breakfasted?” Ginny would be shocked to learn that she had. In London, no one who was anyone rose much before noon during the season, Grandaunt included, and it was still early for even those who were meant to wait on their betters.
“No, I have not, and I lay the fault entirely in your dish!” Lady Crenshaw retorted. “I haven’t had a morsel or slept a wink since I had news from certain persons about the scandal you put into motion last night.”
Ginny swallowed a hot retort of her own, but her empty stomach was having none of it. “I am sorry to hear you have been so ill. Perhaps the fault would be better assigned to those persons who so thoughtlessly carried this exaggerated news to you,” she suggested as she rang the bell for refreshments to be served.
Lady Crenshaw sat back and raised her eyebrows in scorn. “I had the news of Lady Derby herself, last night at the Seftons’ rout. I have no reason to believe she spoke an untrue word. Her description of you making eyes at my son, dancing all night with him, and causing a literal scandal on the dance floor is exactly the kind of behavior I would have expected of one such as you!”
Ginny was too angry to formulate a reply to any but one of the charges. “We had but one dance. We were only under Mrs. Hadley’s roof together for a matter of minutes. Surely not even Lady Derby could construe that to mean we were together all night. I-“
“Tut-tut!” Lady Crenshaw interrupted. “Why, you make it sound as if Lady Derby is stirring up trouble merely to make things difficult!”
Ginny knew the case to be exactly that but feared any reply she made would only further ruin any chance she had at pleasing Lady Crenshaw. She was momentarily saved by the arrival of the tea tray and a cart bearing breakfast food. Sadly, Ginny had lost her appetite and could only watch as Lady Crenshaw loaded her plate with buttered toast, bacon, scones, and clotted
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