“I’m honored that you think so,” Fletch said. “I merely took your advice.”

“Mine?”

“You told me that it was all about the story. You were right.” A very pleasing memory of the majority of the House of Lords leaping to their collective feet came to mind.

“I’ve told that bit of wisdom to many a young man and they’ve paid me no mind. But you created a story that swept the House, Fletcher.” He clapped him on the back. “I’m thinking you might be the savior of the party. And”—he added, leaving—“that man Higgle is lucky to have you as his landlord.”

Fletch grinned out at the twilight and the snow. It was a good speech. And he already had the topic of his next one ready. It would tackle the question of the African slave trade, the dirty little secret that no one discussed and from which many profited. He saw the shape of the speech in his mind, its appeal to decency and sanity, its internal organization. Its rightness.

When he finally strolled upstairs and proceeded to read his mail in his bath, his letters were entirely satisfactory. So much so that when he wandered into the drawing room a while later he was smiling to himself. Of course, his smile might have had something to do with the drum beat in his head that kept saying to night, to night, to night.

Though that didn’t stop him from noticing the way the room fell silent as he entered.

Poppy leapt to her feet and flew toward him. For a moment he thought she was coming to his arms and just stopped himself from opening his own wide.

But she stopped short, waving a sheet of foolscap in the air. “Fletch, something horrible has happened to my mother!”

He raised an eyebrow. “She choked on her own venom and—”

“Fletch!”

His beloved, far-too-kind little wife frowned at him. “I’m serious. Something awful has happened to my mother. I have this letter from her.” She handed it to him.

Fletch took the foolscap, noticing over Poppy’s shoulder that the rest of the company was chattering with all the feverish excitement of a group of actresses after the Prince of Wales comes backstage.

“To My Daughter, Duchess of Fletcher, Countess Fulke, Baroness Ryskamp & etc.” He raised an eyebrow and Poppy interjected.

“You know my mother, Fletch. She adores all those titles. Just read the note.”

“I have suffered a great calamity. Though my soul is as innocent of this calumny as the purest flower, no impartial words can save me now. Truth’s words, like jewels, hang in the ears of anvils. Poppy, this doesn’t make any sense. An anvil is a ironmonger’s block, is it not?”

“It’s not anvils, Fletch, but angels. Truth’s words hang in the ears of angels.”

“What’s this part about the devil—oh, I see,his true foe. Who is the de vil’s foe? Your mother?” And here I would have thought she and de vil were close companions rather than enemies, he added to himself.

“I’m not sure about that,” Poppy said. “Read the next paragraph. She isn’t quite so excited and it makes more sense.”

“Gossip is a subtle knave and like the plague strikes into the brain of truth and rageth in his entrails—Um, just a guess, but could it be someone is gossiping about her?”

“Keep going!”

“Worse than the poison of a red-haired man. Now we’re getting somewhere! A red-haired man is gossiping about her?”

“No! I’m not sure what she meant by that.”

“Well, Axminster’s hair has a reddish tint,” Fletch suggested. “Course I didn’t know he was much interested in your mother since she doesn’t frequent the backstage of the Lyceum Dance Hall, but perhaps he broadened his attentions?”

“Fletch, will you be serious? Look farther down the page!”

Fletch squinted. “It looks to me as if she has retired to the country, if that’s what she means by sanctuary and impregnable defence of oppressed virtue.”

“Not the country, Fletch.”

“No?” His heart sank a little. “Truly not? She’s staying in London?”

“No, she went to a sanctuary. My mother has retired to a nunnery!”

“A nunnery? We don’t have any of those.”

“Actually there are some nunneries in Scotland I think, but she’s gone to France. You see that part about the Bishop of Meaux? He always admired her. She left, Fletch. She left for France!”

“Your mother left for France.” Fletch felt like this sometimes after having a deep swallow of the best brandy. Kind of a sweet, hot happiness that spread right down his body. “Your mother left for France.”

Jemma called to them. “Poppy, I have a letter about it as well!”

Fletch followed Poppy back to the circle, suppressing his grin.

“Listen to this,” Jemma said. “It’s from Lady Smalley. I hardly know her, which means that she must have sent a copy of this to every acquaintance she has. She adds a bit in the beginning about Lady Flora’s spotless name and how no one believes the rumors. We were seated in the Duke of Fletcher’s drawing room— now most strangely transformed with a magnificence so extreme that Lady Cooper commented that she felt she was in a royal bordello. Lady Cooper is ever humorous, of course. ”

“If one has to lose one’s reputation,” Mrs. Patton interjected, “it would be better not to do it in Lady Cooper’s presence—a sharp-tongued virago, if there ever was one.”

“Do keep reading,” Fletch said, seating himself happily. “I am all anticipation.”

Poppy shot him a glance. “You are discussing my mother, Fletch. Your mother-in-law.”

“Precisely,” he said. “Precisely.”

Jemma started reading again. “When all of a sudden a young man appeared at the door.He cut a quite attractive figure, though there was something about him that wasn’t quite of the gentleman. He hailed Lady Flora in the most tender of tones, seeming to not notice at first that we were there. For when he did recognize our presence, he fell silent and indicated in a hundred ways his distress and confusion.”

“She had a lover!” Harriet gasped. And then glanced at Poppy. “Of course, that is merely the way it looked. One can hardly believe it of such a stalwart character as Lady Flora. Why she has never shown the slightest hint of moral laxness.”

“Certainly not,” Fletch murmured.

Poppy turned mystified eyes back to Jemma. “It’s impossible,” she stated. “I know my mother. Do read on, Jemma.”

“I’ll just summarize it for you. The handsome young man hastily retreated, but the damage was done. Lady Flora appears to have been overtaken by a fit of nerves that rendered her incapable of logical conversation. Lady Cooper then took it upon herself to fetch smelling salts from the butler and naturally used the opportunity to question him closely.”

She looked at Poppy. “It truly was very bad luck that your mother happened to invite Lady Cooper to tea.”

“Lady Cooper is one of her best friends,” Poppy said. “But it doesn’t matter. This is—quite simply—impossible. Inconceivable.”

“Not according to Lady Cooper,” Jemma said. “Your own butler straight away confessed that the young man had originally visited the house in order to assist your mother in some decorating schemes and as the last months passed, he had indeed noticed that they were spending more and more time together.”