doorstep. Your obedient, ladies,” he bowed, and returned to Lady Melbourne to report success.
“What a plain-looking little fellow he is,” Effie said to Daphne. “Mr. Pealing used to talk about him a good deal—said he was the height of elegance, and he with never a bit of a jewel or a thing to him.”
“But possibly with the best-cut jacket that was ever invented,” Daphne replied, admiring the departing back of the Beau.
“Yes, and a pity there isn’t more of him to fill it. Standington now; there was a gentleman that made a jacket look like something. But he has very nice manners, this Beau. I daresay it’s the manners that have put him over.”
Miss Ingleside found his manners the most objectionable part of him but grudgingly admitted he had a certain sort of wit.
Mrs. Pealing’s signal success was bruited about town. To have held Brummell’s attention for fifteen minutes set her up higher than ever, and the news eventually leaked itself back to Charles Street, where Lady Elizabeth Thyrwite heard it with mixed feelings. She took the decision that as the Leveson-Gowers and other quite unexceptionable persons were being blackmailed like herself into inviting the Pealing to their homes, she would go along. She sent off a card to an informal afternoon tea, and if the repercussions were not too violent, she would also send cards to her ball. That should buy their silence. The tea for Larry’s flirtation with the lady, and the ball for his loose lips.
During these days St. Felix spent more time thinking about Miss Ingleside than his concern for Larry’s welfare warranted. Not for one moment did he intend to let Bess knuckle under to them, yet their having crashed the barrier to Society put his sister in an untenable position. He felt some compulsion urging him back to Upper Grosvenor Square and soon found an excuse to give in to it. He would “feel them out” was the way he justified it to himself. The silence had been long and resounding since Bess had briefly acknowledged receipt of her cheque, and he was curious to know what they were planning.
For some reason unknown to himself, he did not inform his sister of this second visit, and, for a reason known very well to herself, Bess didn’t tell Dickie of the card sent to her afternoon party. Dickie would thunder and scold and call her a ninnyhammer. Easy for him. He was not about to be lampooned in an infamous book for the whole of London to titter over.
St. Felix presented himself again to Upper Grosvenor Square, and once again Mrs. Pealing declared it utterly impossible she should meet him. Miss Ingleside, on the other hand, was quite eager to cross swords with him again and point out to him that his dire warnings of ostracism had come to nought.
He noticed during the seven minutes he awaited her arrival in the Blue Saloon that the room had been refurbished and silently calculated how much the ladies had raked in. His first words when Miss Ingleside eventually entered, wearing an ironic smile, were, “I see business prospers, Ma’am.” His eyes silently pinpointed the new acquisitions.
“Indeed it does. We have instituted a few renovations to make the place more habitable, and more visitable, for some people have expressed a desire never to return.” A pert glance reminded the Duke that he was one of these. “And pleasure prospers as well, despite your fears of our being barred from it.” With a wave of her hand she indicated a newly covered chair, where he took a seat and let his eyes wander around the room. No glimmer of approval escaped those eyes, and, in fact, his face was a perfect mask of disapproval.
“I read in the paper you are to attend the Queen’s Drawing Room,” he said.
“Just so. Not everyone is so nice in her notions as you had feared. And one would have thought that if anyone would take exception to a pair of blackmailers it would be Her Majesty, who is so strict in all her ideas, but she was very understanding in
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