Magnificent Devices [5] A Lady of Resources by Shelley Adina Page A

and the St. Ives family crest. “Maggie, darling, that one is from Buckingham Palace. Do be careful. What does it say?”
    “Her Majesty the Queen requests the honor of your company at a garden party.” She peered at the date. “This afternoon.”
    “Good heavens. Really? We must send our regrets—our trunks haven’t come and unless Her Majesty wishes the honor of our raiding rigs as well, we have nothing to wear.”
    “Here’s another, Lady.” Maggie picked up a similar invitation, with a slightly smaller seal. “His Highness the Prince Consort, in his capacity of patron of the Royal Society of Engineers, requests the honor of your attendance at the investiture of the newest members of the Society. Is that like getting a knighthood?”
    Claire laughed. “No indeed. More like a stamp of approval. Who is being invested this year? There should be a list.”
    Maggie read through the names, then stumbled. “Lady Claire Trevelyan, Carrick House, London. Lady, that’s you!”
    Claire’s face flushed with pleasure. “I did receive notice of it some weeks ago, but thought I would be included next year, at the earliest. How lovely! When is it?”
    “The twentieth of July.”
    “Oh, no, Lady,” Lizzie blurted before she thought. “We’ll be at Colliford Castle still. Don’t you remember? We’ve been invited for the fifteenth to the twentieth.”
    Claire took the invitation from Maggie to read it again, and Lizzie had the distinct impression that she was not listening.
    “Lady? I said—”
    “Yes, I heard you, Lizzie.” She clasped the invitation to the embroidered bodice of her blouse in delight. “It is a dream come true, girls. I shall be a member of the Royal Society at long last—and by invitation of Prince Albert, too!” Claire laid the invitation down and smoothed her fingers over the engraving. “There will be other opportunities to visit Colliford Castle this summer, I am sure, but only one to be invested as a member of the Royal Society. Unless you would rather I wait until next year for this honor, so that you may spend a week boating with your new friends?”
    Lizzie tried not to wilt under the pleasant inquiry in her tone and the steel gray in her eyes.
    It wasn’t easy.
    “I only meant … I’m sure they would not be offended if we cut our visit a little short. Four days are almost as good as five.”
    “You are assuming that we are going to begin with. I have not yet decided.”
    “When will you decide?” Oh, she could not wait to be eighteen, when she would never need to say those words again.
    “After I confer with Davina. I would rather be part of a larger party, and not put Mr. Seacombe to the trouble of preparing his home for only three guests.”
    “Oh, there will be more than just us,” she said eagerly. Here was a point on which she could give positive information. “Claude’s friends from the Sorbonne will be coming. I don’t know how many there are, but we won’t be the only ones there.”
    “It is immaterial in any case, Lizzie. We are three unmarried women, and the Seacombes are unmarried men. We could not accept such an invitation on our own, school friends notwithstanding.”
    This had never occurred to Lizzie. “But—but Mr. Seacombe is ancient! ”
    “When it comes to propriety, age does not matter, I am afraid.” But she did not look very sad about it. “We must go in the Dunsmuirs’ company, or not at all. And really, on such short acquaintance I would prefer not at all.” At Lizzie’s indignant squeak, she went on, “At least, not until we get to know the family better. Lord Dunsmuir, for one, seemed to be of very mixed opinions on the subject.”
    “Bother Lord Dunsmuir,” Lizzie muttered.
    “I heard that. But I have my own misgivings. Does it not strike you as alarming that Mr. Seacombe concealed a bomb upon his person to wear it to a party?”
    “He brought it to show to Count von Zeppelin!”
    “I am sure he had complete confidence that it