palm.
Dorothy’s eyes went wide. “Oh, right.” She lifted a finger up in a dawning understanding. “I have it.”
Humming happily to herself, she fetched her reticule from the place beside her and fished around inside the bag.
“Oh, would you hurry?” Althea pressed.
“Here we are.” Dorothy brandished three envelopes and passed one to Althea and one to Lydia.
Turning the envelope over in her hands, Lydia stared on with consternation at the ink-black seal. Two serpents twisted and coiled, forming a heart and feasting upon an apple between them.
Sliding her finger under that outrageously dark and wicked mark, Lydia unfolded the note.
Nay, not a note.
An invitation.
She lifted her head and found both friends staring expectantly back. “What is this?”
“It is an invitation,” Dorothy squealed, clapping excitedly.
“I… Yes, I see that.” Lydia glanced down once again and this time read the entire thing through.
celebramus vitae
Hosted by
Lord Mardel
Sinners Need Attend
Only Sinners
Come One. Come All.
Come.
Friday, 13th April 1804
Lydia strangled on her amusement. “Come o-one? Come All. C—” Except, she couldn’t even manage to utter the remainder of those words. The over-the-top, outrageously written invitation was alternately horrifying and hilarious for how ridiculous it was.
“Of course, Mowbray’s son, would be the host,” Althea muttered. “As wicked as his father has always been. Throwing a party on the thirteenth of Friday is bad form.”
“I know,” Dorothy whispered, shifting closer. “I said that. Very ominous stuff.”
Lydia couldn’t help it. She dissolved further into a state of hilarity.
Her friends both gave her odd looks. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” And oddly, for the first time in a long time, she was. Perfectly distracted by her friends and this silliest of pages. “I’m just attempting to sort out why you’re focused on the date and not on the fact that—”
“Mowbray’s son overused the word ‘come’?” Althea supplied. “Because it should be entirely obvious by now, with how silly and obsessive all men are with their body parts and using them, that it shouldn’t merit so much as another glance.” She paused. “Now, the date, on the other hand…”
“What of it?” Lydia asked when it became apparent her friend expected those unfinished words to be all that was needed for Lydia to make sense of the matter.
Althea tossed her arms up in exasperation even as, at her side, Dorothy pointed her eyes skyward. Because of Lydia?
“It is superstitious. The thirteenth of Friday,” Althea said in the same manner she would use with a child. “It is a day of darkness and ill-fortune and black magic.”
“They are trying to be too clever, and”—Lydia tossed the invitation down—“wicked, and now it would seem, in their selection of the date, dangerous, too.”
“I don’t disagree,” Althea quickly added. “What I will agree with is you going out of your way to attend.”
Lydia’s jaw slipped, and she attempted to get words out. It took several tries. “Let me see if I understand this correctly. You are thinking this most ridiculous of events, with this even more ludicrous invitation to a wicked ball held on a day purported to be filled with ill-luck, is one I”—nay, that wasn’t right—“we,” she amended, gesturing between the three of them, “should attend?”
There was a brief pause and then nods. “Yes, I think you have the whole of it,” Althea said, lifting her nose a fraction.
Lydia dissolved into another fit of amusement, another round of great, big, gasping, heaving laughs that caused a stitch in her side. Doubling over, she clutched at her waist and collapsed against Dorothy.
“She’s smiling again,” the baroness cried happily and proceeded to clap once more.
“She’s laughing at us, you silly twit.” Thump, thump. Althea glared. “I take offense to your making light of my plans for us, Lydia.”
That immediately cleared up all amusement. Oh, dear. She swiped the floral kerchief Dorothy dangled before her face and brushed away the tears of amusement she’d cried. “You are… serious.”
“Deadly so.”
Lydia glanced down at the invitation upon her table. “I… cannot go to something like this. It’s… It’s…”
“Yes?” both women pressed at the same time, their bodies rolling like a wave toward her.
“It’s ridiculous. I am a widow, and this event”—she motioned once again to the invitation—“is being hosted by a gentleman whose father is our age. A young man we are some twenty years older than.”
“In fairness,” Althea ventured tentatively, “I have it on authority that widows are the ones who tend to pay attendance on these affairs.” The other woman beamed. “As such, we will be in like company.”
“Very well. An old widow, then,” Lydia allowed.
Althea immediately brought