Page 29 of Whiskers and Wiles

“What has happened?” Bernadette asked. “The two of you were dancing so beautifully, and you seemed to be getting along so well.”

Kat huffed a laugh, sniffing so that she would not cry. “Lord Waldorf was called away on a matter of great importance,” she said mockingly.

“Oh?” Minerva asked curiously. “What sort of importance?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Kat said, gesturing too exuberantly as her emotions ran high. “Whatever sort of thing men with ridiculous facial hair discuss. Likely combs and grooming cream and?—”

The truth hit her so swiftly that she froze with her mouth hanging open. A man with whiskers similar to Waldorf’s. Lord Pollock had them, too. As did the other man who had passed them in the hall. All of those men were relatively young and handsome. None appeared at first glance to be the sort who would deny fashion for the sake of hair.

Waldorf had said to her outright that people were concerned about appearance because they could not, at a glance, determine someone’s wit or intelligence. Just as they could not determine whether someone was a good person or a bad person, a friend of a foe, at a single glance. But if, for example, members of a brotherhood of espionage all adjusted their appearances in an unusual way so that they would be easily recognizable to each other on sight, then they would do something foolish with their appearance.

“I must go,” Kat said with a gasp, starting forward.

“Kat, whatever are you on about?” Minerva asked as Kat marched off.

She did not have time to pause to explain to her friends that she had just deciphered a sort of code among spies. She needed to act and act swiftly. She refused to let a group of ridiculous men who were obviously in collusion with each other destroy what she and so many others had worked so long for. She would discover what the counter-plan was, and she would end it before any harm could be done.

Nine

As much asit frustrated him to leave Kat when she most definitely had her nose out of joint for some baffling reason, Waldorf felt a thrill of excitement when he entered the third gaming room to find the most perfect combination of men he could have hoped for already present.

Already seated at the table were Lord Pollock and a gentleman Waldorf was almost certain was Lord Angus MacLeod, the most influential minister from the Kingdom of Scotland. MacLeod had a large following of younger ministers who hung on his every word. They revered him for the outstanding role he’d played in the prior decade’s battles against Napoleon. The youngsters would vote however MacLeod told them to vote in the Joint Parliament.

Standing around the room, looking as if they would either play cards or enjoy some of the refreshments that had been provided to the room while watching the game were several other key ministers of Joint Parliament. Lord David Gruffudd of the Kingdom of Wales was among them, as was Lord Percival Blackthorne of Northumbria. Mr. Richard Goodall was there as well. The man had just recently been elected as a minister forLondon, and though Waldorf knew the man vaguely through his export dealings with Cedric, no one was quite certain where he fell on the question of the Mercian Plan.

“Gentlemen,” Waldorf greeted the assembled party, gazing deliberately at the card table and rubbing his hands together, as if to signal his eagerness to perhaps earn a few guineas that evening. “It is a pleasure to see you all this evening.”

“Ah, Lord Waldorf,” Lord Pollock said, reaching for the deck of cards on the table. “So glad you could join us. And you’re just in time to settle a dispute I’ve been having with Lord MacLeod here.”

“Am I?” Waldorf said, feigning utter innocence as he took a seat at the table across from MacLeod.

MacLeod laughed openly, hinting that he was in a jovial mood. “This lad here thinks he can convince me that women make better barristers than men.”

Waldorf pretended to be surprised, but inwardly he was deeply proud of Pollock’s angle of attack. “Women as barristers,” he said, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his chin with one hand. “What an intriguing thought.”

The other gentlemen seemed to take Waldorf’s arrival as a signal to find seats of their own so that the game might begin. Indeed, Goodall pulled out his wallet and counted out a few bills to set on the table as indication he was ready to bet and to win.

“The idea of women accomplishing anything outside the home is absurd,” Lord Blackthorne said with a snort as he, too, placed money on the table for the game. A great deal of money.

Waldorf fought not to choke. He’d known he would have to bring a substantial amount of money with him to take part in the game, but he hadn’t accounted for the amounts the other gentlemen were presenting.

“Women are capable of working outside the home,” Goodall said, seemingly surprised that Blackthorne would make thestatement he’d made. “We’ve more than a few working at the offices of Goodall, Osment, and Bitters.”

“In what capacity?” Gruffudd asked as Pollock began to deal the cards.

Goodall shrugged as he began to gather his cards up for the game. “We’ve a few that have taken on clerical duties. Women that were educated for the task at Oxford University, in fact. Their penmanship is superb, and they are better able to recall minute details than many of the male clerks we’ve employed.”

Waldorf allowed his brow to go up in surprise. He was genuinely surprised by Goodall’s statement, and the expression helped him to appear on the outside of the matter rather than looking like he was colluding with Pollock, which he was.

Instead of being impressed, however, MacLeod barked a laugh. “Oxford. Those Oxford Society ladies will be the death of us all one day.”

“How so?” Waldorf asked, picking up his cards as they were dealt. No one had said as of yet, but he gathered by the number of cards dealt to him that they were playing the game that had recently become a novelty among London society, Mad Eights.

MacLeod snorted. “They upset the natural order of things, sir,” he said, shuffling his cards in his hand and smiling. “They disrupt the natural female inclination to marry and raise bairns by thinking they should partake in things such as commerce and the law.” He nodded to Goodall as he spoke.

“I see no reason why women of enterprise should not delay marriage for a year or two,” Goodall said. “Is it any more important for a woman to give birth to seven or more children instead of three or four?”

“What if some of those should die?” Lord Gruffudd said, looking so unaccountably sad that Waldorf feared the man had lost a child of his own. “They often do, poor things.”

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