A Most Tempting Plan

“Had I known it would come to this, I should have looked after Gloria a little more tenderly. It’s all my own fault, for failing to see the pain that child was in.”

Gloria’s lips quivered, piteous.

“To think she was suffering so dreadfully after losing her husband — it never once crossed my mind. If only I’d found her another match sooner, none of this wretched business would ever have…”

She caught her lip between her teeth, as though she hadn’t the strength to go on. Gloria’s odious little performance only fed the noblewomen’s fury like oil poured on a fire.

“However hard one looks, there isn’t a single fault to be laid at your door, madam. What kind of woman could do so shameless a thing? The very thought of it is monstrous!”

“Honestly, I think you did everything anyone could ask. Is there a soul among us who doesn’t know how devotedly Madam Drake cared for her widowed twin?”

The Countess Hound put the question, and as if they had only been waiting for the cue, the ladies fell to trading tales of the kindnesses Marienne had shown Gloria.

A fine porcelain tea set brought all the way from the East, to soothe the empty heart of a twin bereaved of her husband. Dear acquaintances introduced to smooth Gloria’s awkward place at the edges of society. Every last one a mark of Marienne Drake’s tender regard.

“I’ll say it now, though I held my tongue before — I was uneasy from the very moment she took the widowed Duchess into her home. The Duchess Ernst has always trailed nothing but unsavory rumors behind her.”

As the murmuring died down, the Baroness Turnel brought up Gloria’s gambling and her entanglements with men, adding that until now, seeing how fond the two sisters had seemed, she simply hadn’t had the heart to breathe a word of it.

“Baroness Turnel.”

Gloria’s voice cut in, cold.

“Even so, I would rather you didn’t run Gloria down too harshly. All of it must have come of how she was suffering.”

Gloria might have flung the name she’d fastened onto Marienne aside like so much filth, yet sitting there and listening to herself reviled to her face was more than she could easily stomach.

“I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn.”

The baroness stepped back with her apology, and only belatedly did Gloria register the drawing-room craft of it. Quick to read the room, she caught the souring mood and smoothly changed the subject.

“No, madam. If anything, it’s I who should be sorry. I’ve been so terribly on edge over the whole affair of late, that’s all. She had been finding her feet again, little by little, ever since she went back to the ducal lands — and now, to hear that she means to come up to the capital all at once…”

Gloria let the words hang a moment.

“The face that shoved me on the staircase, the voice shrieking that she was the real Marienne — they play over and over in my head without end. What if I should lose my sister for good, just like this? The fear of it grew too much for me, and so, without meaning to, I’ve gone and poured out my troubles to all of you.”

When Gloria wept and begged pardon for her own failings, the noblewomen gathered in the rose garden of the Drake estate went solemn all at once. For what was there to say to a Madam Drake who, even after so grave an outrage, still feared losing her twin?

“Truly, you are…”

The Countess Hound drew a handkerchief from her bosom and pressed it to the corners of her eyes, quite thoroughly moved, wholly taken in by Gloria’s act.

“Listen to me, being such a silly old thing. Age must be catching up with me — these days the smallest thing has me in tears. Why on earth should such a misfortune befall so good a soul as Madam Drake?”

That was when it happened.

“Madam, please don’t take it so to heart. This is in no way your fault.”

The Marchioness Dillon, at her first-ever reading circle, had done nothing until now but listen quietly; now she ventured, carefully, to speak.

“I would never in my life have done the shameless thing the Duchess Ernst did. I truly cannot fathom how anyone could do so cruel a thing to her own sister. Having no sisters of my own, ever since I was small I’ve longed for an elder sister just like you, Countess…”

All at once every senior lady’s eyes were on her, and the Marchioness Dillon, unused to such attention, began to babble.

“Ah — that is, what I mean to say is. Th-that I think the Duchess Ernst is very greatly at fault. So please, don’t blame yourself so…”

At the words of the Marchioness Dillon, who had yet to shed the air of a green young maiden, Gloria curled up the corners of her mouth where no one could see.

Easily led, loose-tongued, and with a wide circle of acquaintance, by all accounts. So she’s certain to let today’s little scene slip to every young lady she knows.

She had brought a new member into a reading circle of fixed membership because the ill fame of “Gloria Ernst” needed carrying to a great many more people. As many as possible, before Marienne’s carriage reached the capital.

I have to make it so that Herman Ernst simply cannot help but cast Marienne aside.

Marienne had never pushed herself forward in society; her acquaintances were limited to women who kept households of their own. Which was to say that, for a woman of her station, there were precious few souls to whom she could open her heart.

And so more people were needed, young ones above all, to be stirred up on cue. People exactly like the Marchioness Dillon, seated there before her.

“I understand your meaning perfectly well, Marchioness. To think you held me in such regard — I’m truly grateful.”

Gloria reached out and clasped the Marchioness Dillon’s hand in both of hers.

“If it’s all the same to you, Madam Dillon, you’re welcome to think of me as a sister.”
“…A sister?”
“Yes, a sister. All of us in the reading circle think of one another just so. Do we not?”

The Countess Hound smiled broadly, as if it went without saying.

“Just so, Madam Drake. We are the truest of families — the kind who help one another when times are hard.”

The reading-circle members agreed as one that Marienne had, if anything, grown closer to them all since she went through “that affair.”

“Don’t feel any burden over it — think of it however comes easiest to you, Marchioness Dillon.”

Gloria crinkled her eyes into a smile, and the tears caught on her lashes glittered.

The renown that had once had Marienne and Gloria called “the Golden Roses of Baltaheim” had clearly gone nowhere at all. The Marchioness Dillon gazed at Gloria’s face as if struck by the sight of an angel, then nodded.

“Yes. From now on, I shall be sure to do just that.”

The “Marienne Drake” before her was every bit a rose given human form, as though the garden’s finest blooms had been gathered into a single shape.

“Well? How did it go?”

The moment the gathering broke up, Cedric came bounding over and pressed Gloria without mercy.

“It seems to be going just as we planned.”
“Truly?”
“Of course. Who do you take me for?”

Gloria let down the hair she’d bound up so uncomfortably tight, kicked off the shoes she’d been wearing every which way, and sprawled across the plush couch, launching into her tale of triumph in her own true voice.

“Fooling a pack of women who haven’t the faintest idea is easier than breathing, for me. So easy I even started to feel a bit bored halfway through.”

Cedric watched her slumped there limp as wet washing and let out a thin sigh. However few eyes were on them here, Marienne would never have let herself go so unkempt. He worried that some such trifling habit might come leaping out in public without even Gloria herself noticing.

“Still, do be careful. Marienne isn’t the sort to go to a gathering and pour out her sorrows, is she? The sharp-eyed among them could well think it strange.”
“Ugh, Cedric.”
“I know. You don’t want to hear it. But if anyone were so much as to catch a glimpse of you as you are now, it’s only a matter of time before we’re found out—”
“Enough, already!”

At Cedric’s nagging, which showed no sign of ending, Gloria stamped her foot in irritation.

“When a woman’s been through something that dreadful, she’s entitled to a bit of complaining. It’s precisely a woman who never used to behave so, turning all frail and faint-hearted out of nowhere, that tugs the harder at people’s hearts.”

“All right. If you say so, then I suppose that’s how it is.”

For a moment Cedric looked abashed, but he shook off the sting with a toss of his forelock. Then he drew close to Gloria’s side, tender now, and lightly turned the subject.

“Even so, I truly can’t make out what Herman Ernst is thinking. What does he stand to gain, hauling Marienne all the way to the capital?”

Turning his own question over in his mind, Cedric hit upon one possibility.

“Don’t tell me — he doesn’t mean to go through with the divorce after all?”

That could never be allowed to happen.

By rights, Marienne, now turned into “Gloria Ernst,” should have had no power whatever to bring the truth to light. There was precious little a widow long shut out of society could do, after all.

But now that “Herman Ernst” had come back alive, the situation could only be different from before. One careless slip, and their crime might be laid bare before all the world.

“As if there’s any chance of that.”

Gloria let out a snort at so preposterous a notion.

“With society’s mood where it stands now, Herman Ernst won’t be able to help but cast Marienne aside.”

Herman Ernst, unable to help but cast Marienne aside…

“Ah.”

Cedric, who had been chewing the words over a moment, cried out, his face lighting up.

“Yes — Ria. You’re right.”
“Hm?”
“If society’s mood alone won’t do it, then we’ve only to manufacture something that leaves Herman Ernst no choice but to cast Marienne off.”

And with that he pulled Gloria to him by the arm and gathered her full into his embrace, pressing a kiss to her brow with the look of a man fit to burst with pride at his own cleverness.

“As I thought — you’re the only woman alive who can rouse me like this.”
“And just what is it you mean to do?”
“Here — listen.”

Cedric whispered his plan into Gloria’s ear.

“Well? What do you say, Gloria.”
“Why, you — are you a genius?”

Having heard the whole of it out in silence, Gloria declared that she liked it enormously.

Cedric found her so ready to grant him her wholehearted approval over a little thing like this, and thought her unbearably lovely. Unable to hold back in the end, he gave the lobe of her ear a sharp little nip.

“Ah, Cedric. What’s come over you all of a sudden?”
“It’s no use. You’re far too lovely just now.”
“…Surely you don’t mean to do it right here?”
“I’ll be quick. Please — just once.”

With his worries lifted, an ache had settled low in him, a kind of recompense for all the unease he’d been carrying this while. Cedric wanted, quite simply and without a thought in his head, to feel the warmth of Gloria’s body.

Cedric had just lifted one of Gloria’s legs.

— Knock, knock.

“Master.”

The butler rapped at the door, calling for Cedric, whose expression hardened at once; he made no attempt to hide his annoyance.

“Has he forgotten already? I’m quite certain I told him that when a husband and wife are together, everyone about them is to be cleared away.”

Cedric stayed sharply on guard, wary that the butler might have overheard the couple’s conversation. But what the butler raised was something he could never have anticipated, and in an instant it rendered his fury moot.

“My apologies. It’s only that the Dowager Countess has this very moment arrived at the manor and is asking for you, Master.”

“!”

Gloria, who a moment ago had had no mind to stir from the couch, shot bolt upright, alarm all over her face.

“The Dowager Countess? Don’t tell me he means your mother?”

What was that old crone doing here, so suddenly? Gloria hurriedly set her clothes to rights and gathered her wits about her.

The Dowager Countess Drake had arrived, sudden and utterly beyond imagining.