Page 36 of Dropping the Ball

“Lady Gladys,” Alden said, already feeling a headache forming behind his eyes at the woman’s presence. Apparently, she had finished greeting his guests as if they were her own–although a great many of them were–and had come to begin whatever designs she had on him.

“What a startling crush you have on your hands this morning,” she said, stopping close enough to converse with him, but far enough away to keep her distance from the snake. “Whoever planned these arrivals seems to be woefully incompetent.”

And there it was. Alden was almost certain that Lady Gladys had orchestrated the mess they were dealing with now as a way to undermine Bernadette.

“A mere oversight of scheduling,” Alden said with a shrug. Phyllis was restless in his arms, and he was losing patience himself, so he searched around until he spotted one of his trusted footman, arriving to help usher the guests around. “Anthony, could you take Phyllis back to the terrarium, please?”

“Yes, my lord,” Anthony said. He shifted directions and came right away to take the snake without any qualms.

Alden was relieved once that was taken care of, but that relief only lasted a moment.

“Dearest Lord Alden, let me introduce you to some of your guests,” Lady Gladys said, moving in as soon as the snake was gone to take his arm.

Alden sent a look to Cedric and Lawrence as Lady Gladys tugged him away–he had no idea where Waldorf had gone, but Waldorf always had had a way of disappearing when no one waswatching him–and resigned himself to whatever Lady Gladys wanted of him.

“Allow me to introduce you to some of the fine young ladies that your planner has invited to your ball,” Lady Gladys said, her words as sweet as honey and her eyes sharp with venom.

Alden needed to be introduced anyhow, so he smiled back and said, “Thank you, that would be useful.”

The front hallway had already emptied quite a bit. The flow of guests who were not walking up the stairs, led by the footmen or some of the maids, was making its way down the western hall to the doorway letting out into the rose garden. Lady Gladys moved Alden slowly in that direction.

“My dearest Lord Alden, I would like you to meet Lady Madeline Frome and her daughter, Lady Wendine,” Lady Gladys made the first introduction.

“How do you do?” Alden bowed graciously to the two women. He would have taken one of both of their hands, but Lady Gladys had such a grip on his arm that he doubted he would be able to break away from her if he tried.

“My lord,” Lady Madeline curtsied as if he were the king. A terrified Lady Wendine did the same. “It is such a great honor to be invited into your home. Tales of your adventures abroad have entertained us many a cold winter’s night.”

“I am honored that you have heard anything about my expeditions at all,” Alden said, feeling a bit better, knowing his reputation had preceded him and hoping that meant the terrarium and its inhabitants wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. “I have hopes of speaking to my guests about my years abroad and giving a tour of the terrarium, where the creatures I brought back to Wessex with me are housed.”

Lady Madeline seemed to give a small shiver, but kept her smile. “That would be lovely,” she said. “Would that not be lovely, Wendine?” She tugged on her daughter’s arm.

Lady Wendine was clutching her mother as if she were a tree in a storm, but she managed a nod.

After a few more words, Lady Gladys pulled Alden on toward the hallway leading out to the garden. “Lady Wendine is terribly timid,” she said quietly to Alden as they approached another pair of mother and daughter. “She has such a weak constitution as well. I am certain childbirth would not agree with her at all.”

Alden frowned slightly at the grim appraisal, but he did not have time to question why Lady Gladys would say such a thing before they’d met the next ladies halfway down the hall.

“Lord Alden, might I introduce you to Lady Aubrey Cranbourne and her daughter, Lady Ursula?”

“How do you do?” Alden repeated his act of bowing to the two women and welcoming them to his home.

The conversation progressed nearly identically to the one with Lady Madeline and Lady Wendine. Lady Ursula turned out to be the more forward of the two women that time around, but the conversation was still short and perfunctory.

“Lady Ursula has a terrible temper,” Lady Gladys whispered to Alden as they walked on. “She browbeats her mother so. If you ask me, Lady Aubrey is trying to palm the shrew off on someone else so that she might have peace in her own house at last.”

Alden frowned again, particularly as Lady Gladys wore a bright smile the entire time she said disagreeable things about the ladies.

“And here we have Lady Olivia Blandford and her daughter, Lady Bianca,” Lady Gladys went right into the next introduction, barely taking a breath.

The introductions were all the same, but the pattern that emerged that Alden truly noticed was everything Lady Gladys said once they’d moved on to the next guests.

“Lady Bianca is sweet but as vacant and vapid as a cloud. I do not think she even knows how to read.”

“Lady Natalie is renowned for being two-faced. She has hardly any friends left, since she’s cheated each one out of something or another.”

“Lady Hermione is a lovely girl, but her cleanliness is wanting. She wears copious amounts of scent to cover up her own rancid one.”

“Lady Ravenna is ravenous, as her name implies. She stuffs herself as if she is a bird to be roasted. She will not maintain her slim figure for much longer.”

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