As insults went, it was just preposterous enough not to bother him. “I believe I can manage, yes,” he said dryly.
“Good. It’s over there,” she said, waving her hand toward a table at the side of the room. “And Honoria is just through that door.” She pointed toward the back.
“Just Honoria?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Of course not. It’s a quartet.” And with that, she was off, directing the footmen, interrogating the maids, and generally attempting to supervise what appeared to be, in Marcus’s opinion, a rather smoothly run affair.
He walked over to one of the refreshment tables and picked up a pitcher of lemonade. There didn’t seem to be any glasses set out yet, which did make him wonder if Lady Winstead meant for him to pour the lemonade down the girls’ throats.
He smiled. It was an entertaining image.
Pitcher in hand, he made his way through the door Lady Winstead had indicated, moving quietly so as not to disturb whatever rehearsal might be underway.
There was no rehearsal.
Instead, he saw four women arguing as if the fate of Great Britain depended on it. Well, no, actually, only three of the women were arguing. The one at the piano, whom he assumed was the governess, was wisely staying out of it.
What was remarkable was that the three Smythe-Smiths managed to do it all without raising their voices, a tacit agreement, he assumed, in light of the guests they knew must be arriving soon in the next room.
“If you would just smile, Iris,” Honoria snapped, “it would make it all so much easier.”
“For whom? For you? Because I assure you, it won’t make it easier for me.”
“I don’t care if she smiles,” the other one said. “I don’t care if she ever smiles. She’s evil.”
“Daisy!” Honoria exclaimed.
Daisy narrowed her eyes and glared at Iris. “You’re evil.”
“And you’re an idiot.”
Marcus glanced over at the governess. She was resting her head against the pianoforte, which led him to wonder how long the three Smythe-Smiths had been at it.
“Can you try to smile?” Honoria asked wearily.
Iris stretched her lips into an expression so frightening that Marcus almost left the room.
“Good God, never mind,” Honoria muttered. “Don’t do that.”
“It is difficult to feign good humor when all I wish is to throw myself through the window.”
“The window is closed,” Daisy said officiously.
Iris’s stare was pure venom. “Precisely.”
“Please,” Honoria begged. “Can’t we all just get along?”
“I think we sound wonderful,” Daisy said with a sniff. “No one would know we’d only had six hours to practice with Anne.”
The governess looked up at the sound of her name, then back down when it became clear she need not reply.
Iris turned on her sister with something bordering malevolence. “You wouldn’t know good— Euf! Honoria!”
“Sorry. Was that my elbow?”
“In my ribs.”
Honoria hissed something at Iris that Marcus supposed only she was meant to hear, but it was clearly about Daisy, because Iris gave her younger sister a disparaging glance, then rolled her eyes and said, “Fine.”
He looked back over at the governess. She appeared to be counting spots on the ceiling.
“Shall we try it one last time?” Honoria said with weary determination.
“I can’t imagine what good it might do.” This came from Iris, naturally.
Daisy gave her a withering stare and snipped, “Practice makes perfect.”
Marcus thought he saw the governess try to stifle a laugh. She finally looked up and saw him standing there with his pitcher of lemonade. He put his finger to his lips, and she gave a little nod and smile and turned back to the piano.
“Are we ready?” Honoria asked.
The violinists lifted their instruments.
The governess’s hands hovered over the keys of her pianoforte.
Iris let out a miserable groan but nonetheless put her bow to her cello.
And then the horror began.
Chapter Twenty
Marcus could not possibly have described the sound that came forth from the four instruments in the Smythe-Smith rehearsal room. He was not sure there were words that would be accurate, at least not in polite company. He was loath to call it music; in all honesty, it was more of a weapon than anything else.
In turn, he looked at each of the women. The governess seemed a little frantic, her head bobbing back and forth between the keys and her music. Daisy had her eyes closed and was weaving and bobbing, as if she were caught up in the glory of the—well, he supposed he had to call it music. Iris looked as if she wanted to cry. Or possibly murder Daisy.