Mr. Cavendish, I Presume by Julia Quinn

she heard a noise in the hall.
    “The dowager?” Elizabeth whispered to Grace with a grimace. It was so lovely when the dowager did not join them for tea.
    “I don’t think so,” Grace replied. “She was still abed 56 Julia
    Quinn
    when I came down. She was rather . . . ehrm . . . distraught.”
    “I should think so,” Elizabeth remarked. Then she gasped. “Did they make away with her emeralds?”
    Grace shook her head. “We hid them. Under the seat cushions.”
    “Oh, how clever!” Elizabeth said approvingly.
    “Amelia, wouldn’t you agree . . . ”
    But Amelia wasn’t listening. It had become apparent that the movements in the hall belonged to a more sure-footed individual than the dowager, and sure enough, Wyndham walked past the open doorway.
    Conversation stopped. Elizabeth looked at Grace, and Grace looked at Amelia, and Amelia just kept looking at the now empty doorway. After a moment of held breath, Elizabeth turned to her sister and said, “I think he does not realize we are here.”
    “I don’t care,” Amelia declared, which wasn’t quite the truth.
    “I wonder where he went,” Grace murmured.
    And then, like a trio of idiots (in Amelia’s opinion), they sat motionless, heads turned dumbly toward the doorway. A moment later they heard a grunt and a crash, and as one they rose (but still did not otherwise move) and watched.
    “Bloody hell,” they heard the duke snap.
    Elizabeth’s eyes widened. Amelia was rather warmed by the outburst. She approved of anything that indicated he was not in complete control of a situation.
    “Careful with that,” they heard him say.

    Mr. Cavendish, I Presume
    57
    A rather large painting moved past the doorway, two footmen struggling to keep it perpendicular to the ground. It was a singularly odd sight. The painting was a portrait—life-sized, which explained the difficulty in balancing it—and it was of a man, quite a handsome one, actually, standing with his foot on a large rock, looking very noble and proud.
    Except for the fact that he was now tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, and—from Amelia’s vantage point—appeared to be bobbing up and down as he floated past. Which cut away significantly at noble and proud.
    “Who was that?” she asked, once the painting had disappeared from sight.
    “The dowager’s middle son,” Grace replied distract-edly. “He died twenty-nine years ago.”
    Amelia thought it odd that Grace knew so precisely the date of his death. “Why are they moving the portrait?”
    “The dowager wants it upstairs,” Grace murmured.
    Amelia thought to ask why, but who knew why the dowager did anything? And besides, Wyndham chose that moment to walk past the doorway once again.
    The three ladies watched in silence, and then, as if time were playing in reverse, he backed up a step and looked in. He was, as always, impeccably dressed, his shirt a crisp, snowy white, his waistcoat a marvelous brocade of deep blue. “Ladies,” he said.
    They all three bobbed immediate curtsies.
    He nodded curtly. “Pardon.” And was gone.

    58 Julia
    Quinn
    “Well,” Elizabeth said, which was a good thing, because no one else seemed to have anything to fill the silence.
    Amelia blinked, trying to figure out just what, precisely, she thought of this. She did not consider herself knowledgeable in the etiquette of kisses, or of the appropriate behavior after the event, but surely after what had happened the previous evening, she warranted more than a “pardon.”
    “Perhaps we should leave,” Elizabeth said.
    “No, you can’t,” Grace replied. “Not yet. The dowager wants to see Amelia.”
    Amelia groaned.
    “I’m sorry,” Grace said, and it was quite clear that she meant it. The dowager positively reveled in picking Amelia to pieces. If it wasn’t her posture, then it was her expression, and if it wasn’t her expression, then it was the new freckle on her nose.
    And if it wasn’t the new freckle, then it was the freckle she was