Page 21 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

They went straight to the parlor reserved for the Spinsters. There were no stuffy rules of decorum here, often no shoes, sometimes only dressing gowns. There was tea, baskets of pastries, whisky on the sideboard. This was where they rested, where they planned and plotted.

Priya sat by the window, her dark, glossy hair pinned in a simple twist at her nape and the gold bangles she always wore gleaming at her wrists. A bronze statue of an elephant-headed man sat behind her with his jovial expression. Someone had left a plate of boiled sweets in front of him.

Matilda and Emmeline were curled close together on the settee. Matilda had long kicked off her shoes, which were always the very height of fashion and the very devil to wear. Peony sat on the floor like the hoyden she was, and Sybil would have joined her, but she had worn a proper gown in deference to her father’s birthday and it was too narrow at the hem. She ducked under a fern that had no business being as big as it was and sat in a gold velvet chair with a cushion shaped like a lemon instead. “Good morning, all.”

Priya glanced up from the betting book. “Do I need to tell you that you were too reckless and there might be consequences?”

Sybil snorted. “As I have to attend the Willoughby ball tonight in order to eat crow, no. No, you don’t.”

“Oh good, because I really, really wanted to get my hands on this book.”

They exchanged a grin.

“Have cake with that crow,” Priya added. “You deserve it.”

“You’re not going to tell me I should have been resting?”

“I dislike stating the obvious.”

“I’ve never been inside a gentlemen’s club,” Matilda said. “What was it like?”

“It smelled of port and pipe smoke and honestly was not worth the fuss.”

“I thought as much.”

“Lord Bentley is already in high dudgeon over the theft. He all but accused me over my father’s breakfast plate.”

“That’s remarkably rude,” Matilda said, blinking.

“He was rather overset,” Sybil said. “And I admit, perhaps, it was not my best move to be so obviously seen the same night the book mysteriously went missing.” She shrugged. “Too late now.”

“As your father is the soul of kindness, I hope your mother made him cry. Just a little.”

“She forced him to introduce himself and will no doubt continue to exact her revenge.” Sybil grinned. “The Courteous Cut. Death by a thousand social paper cuts.”

Sybil thought of Keir, of the way he had risen from his chair, all coiled violence. Not at all the stoic marquess who barely looked at her when there were others around. The man who exemplified duty and responsibility, nonchalant even at the point of a sword. He had become that sword between one blink and the next.

Cold, sharp. Menacing.

Delicious.

It surely said something distasteful about Sybil’s character that she thought so.

Ah well. She could add it to her already long list of flaws.

“Is Bentley in the book? Protecting himself, is he?” she asked.

“Yes, if I recall,” Priya said. “But nothing out of the ordinary that I could see. Just the usual peccadilloes. I expect his pride is stinging more than anything.”

“And why must you eat crow?” Emmeline asked over her cup of coffee. It was thick and strong, and no one else could even abide a single sip. She had been banned from making it for the rest of the household.

Sybil wrinkled her nose. “I may have announced to all and sundry that Lord Blackburn was courting me.”

“But he is courting Lady Violetta Pontefract,” Matilda said.

“Yes.” Not even Sybil’s closest friends knew what happened between her and Keir when they could not help themselves.

“Ah.”