Amanda Scott Read Free Page B

quietly, without the usual romp and rattle, but I needn’t avoid London altogether. A man must live, after all.”
    “You will do well, my dear, to be guided by me,” Lady Annis said implacably, her dark brows beetling over her small dark eyes. “Do not forget that you have a duty to your little cousin.”
    Jordan colored up to his side-whiskers, but Lady Celeste had become bored by their conversation. She cut in now firmly and in customarily brusque tones. “We should not wish to keep you longer from your bed, Annis. You are indeed looking peaked and must be longing to put off your stays. I’m persuaded they are much too tight. Pray run along if you have finished your tea. Margaret and I shall do very well on our own. Where,” she added, glaring at the double doors leading to the gallery, “do you suppose Moffatt has got to with our supper?”
    Lady Annis protested mildly that she knew her duty, but she was easily routed by the stronger-minded Lady Celeste. Jordan likewise showed a tendency to linger, but he was no match for the old lady, who told him straight out to take himself off because she’d had quite enough of his airs and affectations for one evening.
    Once they were alone Lady Celeste took the chair vacated by Lady Annis, removed her frothy bonnet, and tossed it inelegantly onto a nearby claw-footed settee, leaning back with a long sigh of relief.
    Margaret, sitting upon a Kent chair with identical clawed feet, regarded her grandaunt fondly, waiting for her to recover her equanimity. Instead, to her surprise, Lady Celeste frowned.
    “What is it, ma’am?”
    “Why are they here?” The old lady lifted her pointed little chin and straightened, gazing directly at Margaret. “What keeps them about?”
    “To be sure, ma’am, their being here is a nuisance, but perhaps if they came for the funeral and if her ladyship’s health is truly precarious—”
    “Fustian. They complain most who suffer least. There is nothing wrong with Annis Caldecourt that a little less idleness wouldn’t cure. I wish I may see her doing her duty by young Timothy. If he’s so much as laid eyes upon her, I’ll wager it was none of her doing. And who asked her to interfere, anyway?”
    “Mr. Maitland, according to Jordan,” Margaret reminded her.
    “That seems odd, very odd, indeed.”
    But Moffatt confirmed the information when he finally appeared, accompanied by Quinlan, carrying a tea service lavish enough to satisfy even Lady Celeste’s wishes. “Aye, Mr. Maitland saw fit to apprise her ladyship of the master’s death,” he said when asked. His features were once again expressionless, but there was that in his tone which told Margaret, at least, that Moffatt thought the vicar had been guilty of a great piece of impertinence.
    “But why are they still here?” demanded Lady Celeste as she helped herself from a platter of cold roast beef.
    “Her ladyship insisted that it was for young Master Timmy’s benefit,” Moffatt said, taking a basket of hot bran muffins from Quinlan’s tray and holding them out for Margaret’s examination. “She would have it that you and young Miss Margaret was fixed in Vienna and wouldn’t be able to come home.”
    “Nonsense,” Lady Celeste said, waving Quinlan’s services on to Margaret. “That woman wants something. Mark my words. She’s a schemer, always has been, and though she may disguise herself, she will not deceive the wise.”
    Margaret had been listening to her ladyship but watching Moffatt. Now she was certain he wanted to speak, but she knew he would not forget himself so far as to put forth his own ideas on any subject without having been requested to do so. “What is it, Moffatt?” she asked gently.
    Lady Celeste’s head came up sharply and she directed her piercing gaze at the butler, who seemed for once to have lost some of his aplomb. “What is it, man? Out with it. That woman is up to something.”
    “I don’t know that for certain, my lady, but I have