Nor his interest in wooing Miss York. This unusual attack of nerves was solely due to not having a pseudonym to hide behind. What if they recognized her? What if they didn’t?
When it was Chloe’s turn to alight from her carriage, she took a deep breath before striding up the path to the open door.
As on previous visits, Mrs. York bounced beside the butler, excitably welcoming guests through the door and into her home.
Beside her stood Philippa, draped from head to toe in frills and lace, her peaches-and-cream face a perfect mask of ennui. She looked like a bored but beautiful doily.
“Did you bring a blanket…er…Miss?” Mrs. York asked Chloe, despite being obviously unable to place her name. As hostess, she would not want to admit her failure.
“I brought two.” Chloe pulled them from the basket and surreptitiously flicked off a few stray Tiglet hairs before handing the blankets over.
All six Wynchester siblings had gamely spent the night quilting. Chloe had brought the two most middling attempts—hers and Graham’s—and would donate the other four separately during her weekly visit to the orphanage where she’d once lived.
“Thank you, thank you,” Mrs. York gushed, handing Chloe off to her daughter to greet the next guest. “Oh, Gracie, how marvelous to see you! Never say you made this ravishing blanket yourself.”
Just like that: forgotten.
Excellent. Chloe straightened her spine. That made things easier.
“Miss York,” she said to Philippa in hushed tones, leading her off to one side. “This is distressingly awkward, but I do hope you can help me. At the last reading circle, a guest called me by the wrong name. I didn’t correct her because I didn’t want her to feel poorly, but I thought you might remind the others privately in case anyone else is confused?”
“Of…course.” Miss York’s halting tone suggested she could not place the name, either. “What did they call you?”
“‘Jane Brown,’ if you can believe it.” Chloe gave a light, trilling laugh as if the mix-up was just so amusing. “‘Brown’ couldn’t be further from ‘Wynchester,’ of course, but ‘Jane’ is a fair guess, being such a common name. I’d likely try the same thing, were I ever in those shoes.”
“Wynchester?” It was the quietest screech Chloe had ever heard, and it came from the shocked face of Mrs. York, who had apparently tiptoed behind them to eavesdrop. “Philippa, darling, you cannot possibly have invited a Wynchester into our home. If tomorrow’s papers contain a caricature of my parlor—”
“Mind the door, Mother,” Miss York interrupted without changing expression. She looked as bored now as she had when Chloe had first entered the room. “Here comes Lady Eunice with a blanket.”
Mrs. York let out an indignant squeak but rushed back to her post next to the butler.
Chloe took a longer look at Philippa. She’d handled her panicking mother with practiced skill, as if some random Wynchester elbowing into her charity tea uninvited was the least interesting thing to happen all day.
“Don’t mind her,” Philippa said. “Her cousin is a caricaturist, and he’s never found anything Mother does to be interesting enough to sketch. Or me, for that matter. My reading circle isn’t the least bit respectable, and we get on fine.”
Chloe hid a smile. Perhaps it had been a mistake for the floor not to speak to the chandelier. Philippa seemed someone Chloe might like.
Before they could speak further, Mrs. York’s pale hand flashed out to grab her daughter by the arm and tug her ignominiously to one side.
“He’s here,” Mrs. York hissed, in a whisper that surely carried to every witness in the entranceway. “Pinch your cheeks for color.”
Philippa ignored this advice and successfully dodged her mother’s attempts to do it for her.
However, Chloe glimpsed several other unwed young ladies furtively pinching their cheeks and adjusting their bodices before pushing forward.
She was outraged on Philippa’s behalf—weren’t these “ladies” angling for Philippa’s duke supposed to be her friends?—but also intrigued by the idea nothing was final until the marriage contract made it so.
Banns had not been read; Faircliffe had not yet asked official permission from Philippa’s father. Until then, Chloe supposed every young lady was well within her rights to do as best she could for her future. Of course, she had no wayward temptation to pinch her own cheeks for color.
She gripped the handle of her basket in both hands as the duke approached.
The sunlight cast his eyes in shadow, but she knew their blueness by heart. As endless as the sky, and as sharp as fine crystal.