Page 12 of Dropping the Ball

Alden had little patience for whatever game Lady Gladys was attempting to draw Lady Bernadette into, but he would rather have licked one of his poison dart frogs than step between two ladies who looked as though they would not get along.

“Lady Bernadette came highly recommended to me by my cousin’s new wife,” he said, hoping to get the obvious out of the way and proceed to the reason for Lady Gladys’s unannounced visit. “I have full faith that she will be able to turn the parts of Lyndhurst Grove that I have, sadly, ignored into a home away from home for the guests I will host soon. In fact, I have already sent summons to several builders and tradesmen in the area, requesting their presence here as soon as this afternoon.”

“Have you?” Lady Bernadette asked, her smile returning, along with a good deal of awe.

“Have you?” Lady Gladys asked the same question, but with suspicion.

“Yes,” Alden answered them both. “I intend to host this ball before summer’s end, which means we will all need to look sharp and act lively to have the house in proper order as immediately as possible.”

Both ladies looked alarmed.

“I suppose I should have asked in more detail when you wished this ball to be,” Lady Bernadette said. “A guest list should be compiled as soon as possible and invitations sent out.”

“What, precisely, is the purpose of this ball?” Lady Gladys asked before Lady Bernadette had finished speaking. “The servants at Emery Down have been abuzz with gossip about it.”

“Ah,” Alden said.

Of course. He’d shared his early ideas about hosting a ball to find a bride with Mrs. Pettigrew, when he’d asked if she thought such a thing was possible. Mrs. Pettigrew had likely shared what Alden had told her with some of the maids, whom he knew to be particular friends of hers, and those maids were almost certainly in contact with the maids at Emery Down. Alden should have been surprised that it had taken so long for Lady Gladys to arrive on his doorstep.

“I am hosting a ball,” he began, his neck and face heating over the way everything he was about to say would likely be taken by Lady Gladys, “because I am in need of a bride.”

“A bride?” Lady Gladys asked, blinking rapidly, color slowly seeping into her face.

“Yes.” Alden glanced to Lady Bernadette for support and was pleased to find her watching him with encouragement. He focused on Lady Gladys again and said, “It is a trifling thing, really, but my uncle, Lord Gerald Godwin, Duke of Amesbury, who raised me and my brother Dunstan as his own, and we were very grateful for it–” he was blabbering and delayingon purpose. He stopped, cleared his throat, then finished with, “Uncle Gerald has declared that whichever of his sons and nephews marries last will inherit Godwin Castle and the curse that goes along with it.”

“A castle, you say?” Lady Gladys’s smile lit almost as brightly as Lady Bernadette’s naturally was.

“A cursed castle,” Alden said, his enthusiasm for the tale growing. Perhaps if Lady Gladys believed him to be cursed, she would give up whatever designs she obviously had on him. “Possession of the castle has brought terrible luck to the family for generations. Apparently, there was a woman who was scorned by one of my ancestors at the beginning of the whole thing, and she declared that tragedy would befall the family until such a time as the wrongs done to her were righted. Something along those lines.”

“How very exciting,” Lady Bernadette said. Her shoulders sagged a bit as she added, “And very sad. I am sorry that your family has had to brave so much tragedy in their history. Perhaps there is a way–”

“You plan to avoid this curse by hosting a ball?” Lady Gladys interrupted, shifting even more so that she nearly had her back to Lady Bernadette.

“Yes,” Alden said, glancing several times between both women before continuing with his answer. “The aim is that I will, with Lady Bernadette’s assistance, invite as many eligible ladies as possible to Lyndhurst Grove for a weekend, I will be introduced to them all and come to know them in a small way, and at the ball that will be held as the climax of the event, I will choose one of them to be my bride.”

A beat of silence followed, then Lady Gladys burst into peals of laughter. “My dear Alden,” she said, pressing one hand to her bosom and fanning herself with the other, “you have had many ridiculous ideas in your time, but this is perhaps the most–”

Her comment ended with a sharp scream as her eyes focused on something in the far corner of the room. Not only did she scream, she leapt out of her chair, then ran behind it, using it as a shield.

Alden leapt to his feet, as did Lady Bernadette, and both of them turned in the direction Lady Gladys was now pointing from behind her chair.

“Dragon!” she shouted. “You have a dragon in your house!”

Alden knew what must be the matter immediately and relaxed into a smile. “Has someone escaped?” he asked.

“Oh! I see it!” Lady Bernadette said, stepping tentatively toward the corner where Lady Gladys was pointing.

Alden walked with Lady Bernadette to the far end of the room where, as it turned out, one of Alden’s chameleons was doing an admirable job of blending into the brown of the curiosity cabinet in the corner. The lizard’s camouflage might have gone unnoticed for the duration of Lady Gladys’s visit if the lizard–Alden was fairly certain it was Herbert and not his brother, Farley–had not moved to chase a fly that was buzzing near the window.

“Fascinating,” Lady Bernadette said, leaning closer and squinting at Herbert once they reached the cabinet. “I can see its colors changing before my eyes.”

Indeed, the slight shift as the chameleon moved meant its coloring was changing as well to help it blend into its new background.

“Yes, there are many lizard species that have the ability to change their colors in order to blend into their surroundings,” Alden said. “Chameleons, skinks, and anoles are just a few who adapt through a process called metachrosis to–”

“I demand you dispose of that horror at once!” Lady Gladys shouted from the other side of the room. “What is it doing in the house? What is it doing in Wessex?”

“It lives here,” Alden said, forgoing what could have been a delightful lesson in herpetology for Lady Bernadette to scoop Herbert onto his arm. “He must have escaped from the terrarium when someone opened the door,” he continued, walking back towards Lady Gladys, arm and Herbert outstretched. “Really, there’s no need to worry. Chameleons are quite harmless, and–”

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