A Treacherous Performance by Lynn Messina

Author:Lynn Messina
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2019-11-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Bea tended to think of her cousin Flora as a pretty ninnyhammer, but the girl was actually quite astute and her suspicions of the former Miss Brougham were well founded.

“She is not your usual style,” Flora said the next morning as the two women sat in the front parlor engaged in separate occupations.

In between her cousin’s interruptions, Bea was trying to read the biography of Kepler she had got from the lending library so that she could hold an intelligent conversation with her uncle. Flora, who deeply resented being excluded from yesterday’s shopping expedition to Madame Bélanger’s by her mother, was flipping though the most recent issue of La Belle Assemblée. She was determined to gain her mother’s approval for a new gown and wanted to be prepared with the latest style.

Ordinarily, Bea would never bet against her aunt’s frugality, but lately Flora had figured out an approach that seemed to be truly infallible: drawing attention to a minor imperfection in her dress—a pulled thread or a tiny stain—and wondering aloud what the Dowager Duchess of Kesgrave would think. Then she would dismiss her own concern. “I’m being silly, of course. She will never notice. Her eye for detail is not that highly developed.”

Flora had enacted this very scene at least twice a day since the fracas in the breakfast room following Lord Stirling’s ball.

Having observed the performance on multiple occasions, Bea was genuinely impressed by her ingenuity.

Now she tilted her head at her cousin, considered her remark regarding Mrs. Norton and said, “I don’t have a style, usual or otherwise.”

“Well, yes, darling, that is true,” Flora conceded. “But if you did have a style, it would not be Mrs. Norton. She is snide and sycophantic.”

Bea, who would have added selfish to the list of character traits, said, “All right.”

“And she is no admirer of yours,” added Flora, who was too young to know anything about her cousin’s sordid history with the society matron. Her proclamations were based on more recent transgressions. “On the night of your engagement, at the Larkwell ball, I overheard her telling Lady Marsham that you were too drab to be a duchess. Then she called you the duchess of drab and laughed wildly as if it were the cleverest sally.”

It required very little imagination for Bea to picture the exchange, and she agreed with her cousin’s assessment of Mrs. Norton’s wit. “I am sure she was just disappointed because she hoped he would make a match of it with Lady Victoria.”

Flora scoffed at this explanation, for it would necessitate the woman to care about someone who was not herself. “And given how very beautiful Lady Victoria is, I find it quite hard to believe that Mrs. Norton was worried about her welfare.”

“Perhaps she was worried about the duke’s welfare,” Bea pointed out. “Many seem to feel I have done him a rotten turn by consenting to be his wife.”

Affronted on her cousin’s behalf, Flora tossed the magazine to the side—a dramatic but sincere indication of her affection—slid across the settee and wrapped her arms around Bea.

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