Deception (Daughters of Mannerling 3) Read Free Page A

fire.
    ‘What are you doing?’ demanded Lady Beverley. ‘You are putting a month’s coal ration on that fire.’
    ‘A ton of coal arrived this morning as a present from an unknown benefactor,’ said Barry.
    ‘Oh, how nice!’ Lady Beverley looked delighted at this unexpected largess for which she did not have to pay.
    ‘Dear me,’ said Miss Trumble, putting down a piece of sewing she had been working on, ‘I would have thought you might have considered it a trifle humiliating, my lady.’
    ‘How so?’
    ‘As the girls go nowhere socially and have no admirers, the gift was obviously prompted by charity.’
    ‘Charity!’ Abigail looked shocked.
    ‘Well, you know how it is.’ Miss Trumble bent her head over her sewing again. ‘Shopkeepers will gossip, and to their betters, too. It is well known that this household buys the cheapest of everything – the cheapest cuts of meat, tallow candles, things like that. So it has got about how very poor we are.’
    ‘We are not poor!’ Lady Beverley looked outraged. ‘Merely thrifty.’ She fumbled for her smelling salts.
    ‘Of course, my lady,’ murmured Miss Trumble.
    Barry suppressed a smile as he left the room.
    A few moments later, he popped his head round the door. ‘Footman coming up the drive, my lady.’
    ‘Mannerling!’ cried Abigail. ‘It is an invitation to Mannerling.’
    Miss Trumble walked to the window and looked out. ‘It is not the Mannerling livery,’ she said quietly. Then she turned and looked thoughtfully at Abigail, who blushed a miserable red, suddenly aware that she had betrayed herself to this sharp-eyed governess.
    Now there’s going to be trouble, thought Rachel, feeling suddenly guilty and wishing she had never encouraged Abigail to talk about Harry Devers.
    The maid, Betty, came in, dropped a curtsy, and handed Lady Beverley a pile of invitations. ‘Dear me,’ said Lady Beverley, ‘Lady Evans has invited us all to a ball at Hursley Park next month at the full moon. How extraordinary! There is even an invitation for Miss Trumble as well. How odd to invite a mere servant.’
    ‘Lady Evans was a friend of one of my previous employers,’ said Miss Trumble quietly. ‘I took the liberty of calling on her yesterday. If you but remember, my lady. I told you I was going. The girls are in need of new ball gowns. Of course, if they go in their old ones, perhaps someone else in the neighbourhood will decide to honour us with some more charity.’
    ‘That is enough,’ said Lady Beverley sharply. ‘My girls shall have the best. Gowns must be ordered for them, and from London, too.’
    The next couple of days were a bustle of activity. Their measurements had to be carefully made and dummies of the girls prepared in wood by the local carpenter. Where Miss Trumble had managed to secure all the latest fashion magazines from was a mystery, but the girls were too happy and excited to ask. Fashions were chosen, and then Barry had to load up the dummies, complete with a letter of instructions to take to the mail coach, where they would be hurtled up to the dressmaker in London.
    In all the excitement, Abigail had hoped that Miss Trumble had forgotten that cry of ‘Mannerling,’ but no sooner had Barry rumbled off in the little open carriage with the wooden dummies lurching crazily in the back that Miss Trumble said, ‘Abigail, Rachel. A word, if you please.’
    Both looked to their mother, hoping she would delay them, but Lady Beverley was bent over the household accounts again, her lips moving soundlessly.
    Reluctantly they followed their governess out of the room. ‘My room, I think,’ said Miss Trumble, leading the way upstairs. The room was neat and clean, with a large fire blazing in the hearth. ‘Draw up chairs by the fire,’ commanded Miss Trumble. When the girls were seated, she said, ‘I was disturbed at your eagerness, Abigail, to believe that footman was from Mannerling. You ought not to have been considering any invitation