Page 26 of The Siren of Sussex

“No, indeed. But she hopes to make his acquaintance very soon.”

Evelyn didn’t know what to say. Was Lady Anne in earnest? Or was she having a private laugh at Evelyn’s expense? The very idea was enough to set Evelyn’s back up. “You have me at a loss, I’m afraid.”

Lady Anne’s expression softened with sympathy. “I don’t wonder. But you’d best acclimate yourself. Mama isn’t the only devoted spiritualist hereabouts. Your uncle is as well. You must have realized.”

Evelyn’s teacup froze halfway to her mouth. “My uncle is a spiritualist?” She was dumbfounded. “But . . . I understood his passion lay with antiquities.”

“Antiquities, yes,” Lady Anne said. “The Book of the Dead, and so forth. Mama and Mr. Fielding are keen on finding evidence of spirit contact in ancient texts. Or rather, they were until very recently. The death of Prince Albert has lately consumed all of their energies. Mediums from here to America have been trying to make contact.”

“Have they? My goodness.”

Lady’s Anne’s sherry-brown eyes sparkled with sudden humor. “You really didn’t know?”

“I thought my uncle merely absentminded. I’d no notion he kept company with spiritualists and like-minded people.”

Aunt Nora had never hinted at the fact. Evelyn wondered if she knew. She’d always described Uncle Harris as a respected scholar. A bachelor recluse more concerned with his books and papers than with the welfare of his distant relations. He’d only agreed to host Evelyn because Aunt Nora had given him no other choice.

“Not altogether like-minded,” Lady Anne said. “The difference being that while your uncle might be absent by nature, my mother is ever present. To be sure, there’s only one activity in which she doesn’t shadow my every step.” She took a sip of her tea. “Is it true you enjoy riding?”

“Above all things. It’s the chief pleasure of—” Evelyn broke off, suddenly recollecting her encounter with the young woman in the park. “Forgive me, but you wouldn’t happen to be acquainted with a lady by the name of Miss Wychwood, would you?”

Lady Anne’s face brightened. “You’ve met Julia?”

“Only once, three mornings ago. I encountered her in Rotten Row. She said that she often rides with you, and with another lady. Miss Hobhouse, I believe.”

“Stella Hobhouse.” Lady Anne nodded. “We frequently make up a threesome during the fashionable hour. Or we did, anyway. Julia prefers to ride at dawn this time of year. She never could stomach the laughs and whispers once the season commences.”

Evelyn went still. “What laughs and whispers?”

“Some of the young gentlemen in town fancy themselves to be wits, and when they see the three of us trotting abreast down Rotten Row, they will call us all manner of silly names. Under their breath, naturally. They haven’t the courage to tease us to our faces.”

A flicker of unease went through Evelyn’s frame. She hesitated to ask. “What names?”

“The three Fates. The three Furies. The spinsters three.” Lady Anne grimaced. “We none of us have been very popular on the marriage mart.”

Evelyn was appalled. “What has that to do with anything?”

“Nothing at all, so long as we keep to our places. But I never could resist giving an impertinent fellow the sharp side of my tongue. And Stella won’t shrink from anyone, least of all an encroaching young jackanapes. As for Julia . . . her shyness has a power all its own.”

Evelyn remembered the way Miss Wychwood had chattered with such animation. “She didn’t appear shy to me.”

“Ah, but the two of you were mounted. Julia is much more confident on horseback—as are we all.” Lady Anne smiled wryly as she helped herself to another biscuit. “Pity one can’t ride a horse into a ballroom.”

Six

Doyle and Heppenstall’s was closed on Sunday, a fact of which Ahmad took full advantage. Seated at one of the empty worktables in the back, he finished basting together the final pieces of Miss Maltravers’s habit.

It wasn’t his only commission. Neither was it the most pressing. He had Lady Heatherton’s gowns to finish. She was expecting him to deliver the first on Wednesday morning. It was the gown she planned to wear to her first ball of the season—an event as important to Ahmad as it was to her.

Wasn’t that his dream? To have his designs worn by the fashionable elite?

And yet, he’d spent most of the last several days working not on hemming Lady Heatherton’s ice-blue evening gown, but on Evelyn Maltravers’s riding costume.

He’d cut the fabric on Friday, from a pattern of his own devising. It was a variation of the last habit he’d made. One for the infamous Miss Walters.

But this habit was different.

Not only had he adjusted for Miss Maltravers’s measurements, he’d shortened the jacket, widened the sleeves, and left ample room in the bodice and skirts for additional darts and seams.