Another excerpt post. This one is from The Flavour of Our Deeds, novel 5 of the Golden Redepennings. Kitty has taken refuge with her godmother, the Duchess of Haverford, and they are out for the afternoon.

Afterwards, Her Grace ordered the open carriage to stop at Gunter’s for ices, sending a footman in to make the order, and eating the delicious confections in the carriage.

It was a sunny afternoon, and many other people had had the same idea. All four ladies were hailed by friends and acquaintances, many of whom came to chat for a time. Not all of them were welcome.

One of younger ladies who persisted in regarding Kitty as a rival to be brought low asked Kitty, “Is it true that your brother’s gamekeeper has been arrested for murder?”

Kitty opened her eyes as widely as she could. “Goodness, Miss Fairburn, who is spreading such a story?”

Miss Fairburn blushed. “I heard it somewhere.” She looked up and past Kitty’s shoulder. “I wondered if it was true.”

Kitty frowned, and shook her head slightly. “It does not sound likely,” she said. “I wonder which gamekeeper, and who he might be supposed to have murdered? And why?”

Lady Juliana Meredith leaned closer. “I heard that you were at the house when the man was arrested, and that the constable tried to arrest you, Lady Catherine.”

Kitty answered that perfectly true statement with a burst of laughter. The Duchess of Haverford broke from her conversation with a couple of matrons to say, “I can assure you that no constables have attempted to arrest a lady staying in my house, Lady Juliana.” She finished with a harrumphing sound that indicated her opinion of any constable foolish enough to try.

One could depend upon Miss Fairburn and her cronies to repeat juicy gossip, and to add speculation to make it more inflammatory. One could hope that the disapproval of the duchess might help to button their lips.

When Aunt Eleanor turned away again, Miss Fairburn changed the subject. “Such a pretty dress, Lady Catherine. Are you hoping to bring back the sleeve style from last Season?” She batted her eyelashes at the rest of the group as if hoping for applause.

Kitty chuckled again. “I am happy to leave the pursuit of fashion to you young ladies, Miss Fairburn. This is a gown from last Season. For some reason, I barely wore it, though I like it very much.” She lifted one arm. “The sleeves are particularly pretty, do you not think?”

“You were very polite to her,” Jessica said, after the group made their farewells and excuses, and moved away. “I wanted to scratch her eyes out, and she wasn’t even addressing her nasty comments to me!”

Kitty smiled again. “My niece’s nanny, Hannah, always said, A soft answer turneth away wrath. In my experience, a soft answer drives one’s would-be persecutors wild with rage. Their barbs have failed to pierce my armour, and yet, I have said nothing to which they can take offence.”

Jessica chuckled. “I shall remember that.” Jessica knew all about barbs from the likes of Miss Fairburn. She and her sisters Matilda and Frances had been raised and luxury and given every advantage, but in the eyes of Society’s high sticklers, nothing could wipe out the stain of their birth. They were all three daughters of the Duke of Haverford by different mistresses.

“Lady Catherine! Lady Catherine!” The voice, a man’s tenor blemished by a shrill nasal whine, could come from only one man. Kitty turned to look, suppressing the inevitable sigh.

Sure enough, Hardwicke-Chalmers came rushing through the crowd, oblivious to the child he nearly stepped on and the waiter whose tray of ices nearly flew up into his face. The waiter performed an aerobatic masterpiece of a maneuver, and continued on his way as Hardwicke-Chalmers skidded to a stop beside the landau and looked up into Kitty’s face with a delighted smile, sure of his welcome.

“You need to tell your brother to dismiss his butler, Lady Catherine. They told me at your house you were not in town.,” he said.

Her Grace answered the man while Kitty was still gasping at his impertinence. “I daresay, Mr Hardwicke-Chalmers, that they said she was not at home. And no more she is. Lady Catherine is my guest at Haverford House.”

Hardwicke-Chalmers gaped at the duchess as if surprised to find her there, then blinked hard and gulped. “That would be it, Your Grace,” he agreed.

He then turned to Kitty and asked what entertainments she was attending, as he wished to reserve as many dances as she would grant him, and if she was planning on taking in a musicale, he wished to claim the great honour of sitting beside her.

Kitty could scarcely believe the affrontery of the man, ignoring the existence of the duchess’s two wards and even the duchess herself. “I must defer to Her Grace,” she said, pointedly, who has been kind enough to chaperone me, along with her wards, Miss Grenford and Miss Jessica Grenford. The choice of invitations is entirely over to Her Grace.”

Hardwicke-Chalmers looked at the two Grenford girls, at the duchess, and then back at Kitty. “Awkward,” he said. “I will have to think about this.”

With that remark, he walked away. Even for Hardwicke-Chalmers, that was extraordinarily bad manners.

“Have you known Mr Hardly-Charming for long?” Jessica asked. The nickname fitted perfectly. Kitty giggled at the apposite mangling of the oaf’s name even as she answered.

“He has been pursuing me all Season. He seems to think that I am too old to be selective. What is awkward? And what does he have to think about?”

“Us,” Matilda provided. “If you are chaperoned by our guardian, he can hardly dance with you and refuse to dance with us.”

Kitty was quick to say, “Surely not. Would he say such a thing in front of you if that is what he meant?” Yes, she answered her own question. He is that crass and dense.

“A foolish and conceited young man, with little justification for either” the duchess said. “I believe him to have sufficient native wit if he cared to apply it, but instead, he depends on his mother to do it for him.”

Kitty was surprised, for the Duchess of Haverford seldom spoke ill of anyone.

“Have a care, dear Kitty,” Her Grace added. “Honoria Hardwicke-Chalmers’ sense of ethics is bound up with her own self-importance. If she has set her sights on your dowry to drag her family out of River Tick, she will not hesitate to be underhanded in her methods.”

“I will not give him the opportunity to stage a compromise,” Kitty promised, adding, “and I would not, in any case, marry a man who tried to force my consent, even if it meant giving up Society. Living without invitations is much preferable to living with a tyrant and a liar.”

She would have caught back the last sentence had she thought them through before she spoke them. The Duke of Haverford was both tyrant and liar, as well as erratic and a rakehell.

However, the duchess merely commented, “Very wise, my dear, but best avoid the need to make such a choice.