laughingstock.”
“Your verses, m’dear sis, ain’t Byron’s. He don’t write the sort of rubbish you do about love and flowers and moonlight. He writes about Corsairs and such exciting stuff. Besides, this Sylvester fellow has already published the verses. The magazine is out. He can’t take it back.”
“He won’t publish any more if he knows I’m a lady.”
“That don’t seem fair,” Dick said, frowning. “When is he coming?” he added, with a smirk. She knew from his expression that he was thinking what a good jest it would be to lead Lord Sylvester on, behaving like a mincing, capering dandy.
“Today. This afternoon.”
“How long is he staying?”
“Only an hour or so, I should think. It is just a running visit. He mentions he is on his way home to Astonby to visit his family and will dart in to meet me. I shall ask him to tea.”
“Pity Uncle Ralph ain’t here. He can prose on for hours about iambic pentameters and sonnets and ballads. I’ll do it, but mind I can’t waste much time. I have to see my man of business in town today. You’d best show me what you’ve written again. One of the verses was about my apple trees, I recall. That reminds me, the pippins must be sprayed. I saw greenflies in the orchard yesterday.”
This speech was enough to tell Rosalind her brother wasn’t up to the job of fooling Lord Sylvester. “I wonder if I could fool him into thinking I’m a man if I wore trousers,” she said, frowning into her teacup.
“Gudgeon!” Dick said bluntly. “He’s a man, you’re a lady. You might bat your lashes at him. What do you think they’re for? And wear a decent gown, show a bit of skin. Gents like that. Feed him some of Cook’s cream tarts. I’ll serve my best claret. We’ll have him eating out of your hand.”
“I wonder if it would work,” she said. “He might be an elderly gentleman. He sounds very scholarly.”
“Dash it, he ain’t blind or dead, is he? It’s worth a try at least.”
As there was no one she could put forth as Francis Lovelace, she decided to do as Dick suggested, and try to flirt Lord Sylvester into accepting her as a female poet. She spoke to Cook about serving her finest tea, then darted abovestairs to refashion a gown that would give some suggestion of her female charms without making her blush. She also had her hair done up in papers and applied a strawberry mask to brighten her cheeks.
Rosalind was quite an adept with her needle. She chose her green sprigged muslin and lowered the neckline two inches. She took luncheon in the nursery with Sukey, as she did not wish to appear at the table with her hair in papers.
“Can I meet Sylvester?” Sukey asked, ladling a spoonful of mulligatawny into her mouth.
“You may make a brief visit, but you mustn’t call him Sylvester, Sukey. Call him Lord Sylvester, or milord.”
“I don’t call Harry Lord Harry.”
“Harry is a good friend. Actually you should call him Lord Harwell.”
Sukey paid no heed to this. “Can I have papers in my hair, Roz?”
“You don’t need them. Your hair is almost too curly already.”
“Harry didn’t bring my kitten,” Sukey said, slipping a slice of ham into her pinafore pocket for Sandy.
“He will, eventually.”
As soon as lunch was over, Rosalind bustled back to her bedchamber to fashion her toilette. At three o’clock she was sitting in state in the Green Saloon with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders to hide the daring top of her gown; her hair was artfully arranged in a loose knot of curls, with a rosebud stuck into it. She would remove the shawl if Lord Sylvester was younger than fifty, and if he seemed unhappy that she was a lady.
At a quarter after three, Dick said he could no longer delay his trip to town and left. When he returned an hour later, Lord Sylvester still had not arrived. Rosalind’s expression was tinged with ennui. The rosebud in her hair had begun to wilt.
“What, not here yet?” Dick asked. “He ain’t