Page 15 of Bad Luck Bride

Two thousand pounds. Devlin had given her up, deserted her, and sold her love for two thousand pounds.

From out of nowhere, a sob rose up. She tried to catch it back, pressing a gloved hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

“Kay, darling, what is it?” Magdelene asked, turning on the velvet settee to look at her. “Are you all right?”

“Of course,” she said at once, trying to regain the numbness she’d felt in the cab with Jo, but it was too late for that, so the onlything to do was invent an excuse. “I have a bit of a headache, Mama. That’s all.”

Fortunately, Magdelene accepted this explanation without question. “So that’s why you’ve been so quiet and diffident this afternoon,” she said with a nod. “I knew something was wrong.”

Magdelene, of course, had no idea of the cause. In the cab on the way to Mrs. Carte’s office, Kay and Jo had agreed not to tell their mother about the encounter with Devlin. Upon hearing of it, Magdelene would have given in to her innate need for drama and collapsed in a faint. Upon being revived with smelling salts, she’d have then wailed about That Horrible Man, cried about Kay’s past shame and disgrace, and made dire predictions that all her good work to restore Kay’s reputation would surely be undone by some nefarious deed on Devlin’s part. Not wanting to endure any of that, Kay and Jo had decided to let Mama find out from someone else that Devlin Sharpe was back in town.

“Yes,” Kay agreed, putting a hand to her head and wincing in what she hoped was a convincing show of pain. “I really could do with a phenacetin powder and a cold compress.”

“Oh, my dear! I do hope you’ll be all right by this evening.”

“This evening?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? Dear Wilson is taking us to the opera at Covent Garden tonight. He told us about it yesterday when he arrived back from New York.”

Since admitting the fact that she’d forgotten her own fiancé had just returned after a three-month absence would probably earn her a disappointed look and a lecture, she knew dissembling was her best course. “Silly Mama, of course I haven’t forgotten,” she lied,pasting on a wan smile. “It’s just this beastly headache making me woolly-headed. I’m sure I’ll be fine by tonight, if I could just lie down for a bit. Perhaps—”

She paused, looking at her mother in a way she hoped was appropriately apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mama, but I really think I must return to the hotel and have a rest.”

“Of course.” Magdelene rose. “I shall fetch Josephine, and we’ll go at once.”

Magdelene started to move toward the changing rooms, but Kay put a hand on her arm, stopping her. She couldn’t bear any more of her mother’s unceasing stream of repetitive conversation. Not just now. She badly wanted to be alone.

“Oh, no, Mama, there’s no need for that,” she said. “What with the wedding and her first season coming, Josephine needs so many gowns. We’ll never have them all chosen in time if we delay. No, you stay here with her, and I will take a hansom back to the Savoy. Don’t fuss, Mama,” she added as her mother started to protest. “I’ll go straight back, and it’s barely a ten-minute carriage ride. Besides, I very much doubt Delilah Dawlish is skulking about the Savoy lobby waiting to catch me out. Thanks to your good work, of course.”

Mollified, Magdelene consented with a nod. “Very well. But go straight up to your room when you arrive. No dillydallying.”

Fortunately, Kay had already turned away and started for the door, so her mother didn’t hear her sigh. “Of course,” she called back. “I am in no mood for dillydallying, I promise you.”

Despite that assurance, Kay did not take a cab back to the hotel. Instead, she chose to walk. It was a fine spring afternoon, and by the time she reached the Savoy, the cool, crisp air had done much to restore her equilibrium.

Out from under Mama’s watchful eye, with no desire to sit in her room nursing a fictional headache, Kay instead took a stroll through the hotel. She passed the American Bar, noting the men sipping cocktails there with both envy and curiosity. She’d never had a cocktail. Given Wilson’s rather domineering personality and old-fashioned ideas, she doubted she ever would.

Still, a glance into the dining room on her way to the front desk to fetch her letters reminded her that many freedoms would be accorded her once she was married that even Wilson wouldn’t blink an eye at. Lingering over afternoon tea in an elegant restaurant with her friends, for one.

Thoughts of marriage brought thoughts of the wedding, reminding her that they still had nowhere to hold the wedding banquet. If they didn’t find something soon, they’d have no choice but to pare down the guest list. Given Mama’s conversation with Mrs. Carte, that possibility seemed more likely than ever, and Kay knew it might be wise to take a second look at some of the Savoy’s smaller banqueting rooms.

Tucking her letters into her handbag, Kay left the front desk and retraced her steps through the lobby and past the American Bar, then turned down the corridor of banqueting rooms that were reserved for the private parties of those who could afford them.

Not the Mikado, she realized, with one look through the doorway. Even if she cut her guest list to the absolute minimum and used both the banqueting room itself and its adjoining reception room to seat everyone, there would still not be enough space. Kay gave up on the Mikado and moved on, but she was soon forced to discard both the Penzance and the Gondoliers for the same reason. Just as she’d feared, all these rooms were just too small.

As she passed the Pinafore Room, she stopped, staring through the doorway of the reception room to the banqueting room beyond with a hint of wistful longing. Pointless, she knew, to wish for what might have been, and yet…

Irresistibly drawn, she stepped through the doorway into the Pinafore’s reception room. Plenty of space for guests coming from the church to mingle here before the meal. Standing here, she could picture many of those who had once judged and condemned her happily sipping champagne punch from pewter cups and sherry from slim cordial glasses, gladly toasting the bride and groom, magnanimously forgiving Kay for her past sins. People adored stories of redemption.

Kay moved to the adjoining room, where waiters were setting tables for some big affair that evening, and as she watched them, she imagined them serving the twelve delicious and elegant courses she had planned so carefully with the Savoy’s head chef.

Such a meal would have been a shining triumph, the perfect way to close the door on a decade of shame, the perfect entrée into her new role, the role every girl dreamed of and all parents of a daughter hoped for: that of the married woman.

Perfect, she thought with a pang as she fingered one of the precisely folded napkins. This room would have been so perfect.

“Lady Kay?”

She looked over her shoulder to find the maître d’hôtel standing nearby, watching her in some perplexity. “Can I be of help, my lady?” he asked.

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