Tina eyed the darker color around the bottom of her skirt. “Well, it can’t be helped.”
“No, miss.”
Maria met her eyes and looked away as quickly. She did know then, Tina thought. How could she not? They were like a sinking ship, all going down together.
However, there was no sign of gloom when she reached the drawing room; in fact, laughter greeted her as she opened the door.
“Tina,” cried Lady Carol, looking flushed. “Mr. Little has just been regaling us with tales from his travels. Some of the things he’s seen!”
Bewildered, Tina looked at her father, whose face was red from laughter, and at Mr. Little, who had risen to his feet and was smiling at her. Could this possibly be the same man whose company she’d endured last night? He was almost attractive when he smiled, she realized, although he was still barely an inch taller than she, and his shoulders were stooped like a man twice his age.
A comparison with Mr. Eversham popped into her head, but she pushed it firmly out again.
“I had no idea you meant to pay me a visit so soon, Mr. Little,” she said coolly, meaning to disconcert him.
“I was in the vicinity and took a chance,” he replied with his smile undimmed.
“How did you enjoy the theater, Mr. Little?”
Comically, he turned down the corners of his mouth. “It was a very dull play, Miss Smythe. I could barely stay awake.” He gave her a sideways glance, as if inviting her to share the joke, but Tina couldn’t help but feel the joke was at her expense.
Lady Carol laughed; clearly she was charmed by Mr. Little even if Tina was not.
“I was rather surprised to be invited. I’m not a close friend of Lord Horace. We have done some business together, and I happened to run into him a few days ago, so perhaps he felt obliged to ask me to his soiree. I felt a little like an imposter and was rather uncomfortable with all his . . . uh . . . noble company.”
“Ha!” scoffed Sir Thomas. “A perfectly worthless lot! It’s nice to meet a young man who works for his living.”
Tina’s father had become very opposed to the upper classes since his money troubles. Tina couldn’t remember him being so egalitarian before; in fact he’d been rather indifferent to the struggles of the poorer classes, avowing more than once that they brought their misery upon themselves through idleness. Now that he was well on the way to joining them, he’d suddenly become a strident socialist, and it could be embarrassing in company.
However, to Tina’s relief, Mr. Little didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he seemed similarly inclined. “I am most gratified that you think so, Sir Thomas. It is refreshing not to be looked down upon because I am in trade.”
“What is it that you do exactly, Mr. Little?” asked Tina.
“Mr. Little is in the manufacturing business. Tobacco,” said her father enthusiastically. “One of the most useful products of our times, I believe. The doctor put me onto it to help ease my nerves, and it has done wonders for me.”
John smiled. “I don’t actually manufacture tobacco. It grows in the Americas, and I import it and refine it locally in my factory—make it a little more palatable for the British market.”
“I wonder you can’t make it smell any better, then,” said Tina, who abhorred her father’s addiction to smoking.
John chuckled. “Believe me we do our best, Miss Smythe. Do you know, it isn’t just men who smoke tobacco, there are many women, too.”
“I have often thought of taking it up myself,” Lady Carol said, and earned herself a beaming smile from Mr. Little. “Ring for some tea, darling,” Lady Carol instructed her daughter. “You’re not in a rush are you, Mr. Little?”
Tina hoped he was, but he leaned back in the chair, completely at home in their drawing room. “Not at all, Lady Carol. I’d be delighted to join you for tea.”
John Little had been to most of the exotic places Tina had read about as well as quite a few she’d never heard of, and despite herself, she was swept up in his tales. If only Horace would call in and see her enjoying the company of another man, her morning would be complete.
Lady Carol was sipping her tea and seemed to be deep in thought. She had been rather subdued ever since she discovered just how wealthy Mr. Little was. Tina watched her uneasily, only half listening to her father speaking enthusiastically with Mr. Little. Mama was up to something, and it didn’t take long for her to discover what it was.
“We should have a dinner party! It has been such a long time. We could invite the Thompsons, Horace, Mr. Little of course and perhaps Sir Henry and Lady Isabelle? What do you think?”
Sir Thomas looked momentarily as if he’d been stuffed, as well he might. They had been dining on pigs’ trotters and cabbage all week, and his best brandy had been watered down until it hardly tasted like brandy at all. But something urgent in his wife’s fixed expression must have impressed upon him the importance of his reply, and at this point Sir Thomas would do anything in his power to please his wife.
“As you wish, my dear. A dinner party. Yes, hmm, good idea.”
“Mama,” Tina murmured, anxious to catch her mother’s attention. “Mama, there is no need—”
But Lady Carol was well away with her plans, and even Sir Thomas was becoming quite caught up in the idea.