Intrigue (Daughters of Mannerling 2) Read Free Page A

that they were soon all helpless with laughter.
    Upstairs Miss Trumble heard that laughter and wished in her heart that all the joy and excitement were for a worthier reason.
    Two days before the ball, Miss Trumble gave up all efforts at trying to teach her overexcited charges and obtained Lady Beverley’s permission to take the carriage into the neighbouring town of Hedgefield. Barry was driving. It was another perfect day. Miss Trumble realized as they drove farther away from Brookfield House that she had been beginning to find the atmosphere of almost mad excitement very disturbing. How five intelligent and beautiful girls could suddenly decide that it was only a matter of time before they all returned to Mannerling was beyond her. If by any remote chance Harry Devers proposed to Jessica and married her, what then? How could the rest of the Beverley family take up residence, with Mr and Mrs Devers very much alive? Besides, there had been no gossip at all about young Harry planning to sell out of the army. He was home only on leave.
    ‘Is Mannerling so very beautiful?’ she asked Barry.
    ‘So people do reckon, miss,’ said Barry. ‘I can’t see it myself, having taken the place in dislike on account of what it nearly did to Miss Isabella, not to mention poor little Miss Lizzie trying to drown herself.’
    ‘Is it haunted?’
    ‘No, but ’twill be if there are any more deaths. John, an oily footman who worked for the Beverleys, then Mr Judd and who is now with the Deverses told me last market day that he had seen the ghost of Mr Judd, but he always was a silly fellow.’
    ‘Have you seen the Deverses?’ asked Miss Trumble as they began to drive into the centre of Hedgefield.
    Barry nodded. ‘They were in town last market day. Why, there they are!’ He pointed with his whip.
    A tall lady and gentleman were standing outside the Green Man, followed by a lady’s-maid and two footmen. Mrs Devers was expensively and fashionably gowned. Her husband was a miracle of good tailoring. He wore a white wig, curled and pomaded, under a high-crowned beaver. With them was a younger man, possibly in his early thirties. He was standing with his hat in his hand. His black hair was cut in a fashionable Brutus crop. He had a clever, handsome face, a proud nose, and intelligent black eyes.
    ‘That must be Mr Harry with them,’ said Barry, ‘although he’s older than I was led to believe.’
    For the first time, Miss Trumble began to have some hopes about the Deverses. Mr and Mrs Devers were pretty much what she had imagined them to be. But their son appeared intelligent, good humoured, and very, very attractive.
    Perhaps this ball might not be so bad after all.
    Jessica found herself becoming increasingly nervous about the ball. It is very easy to allow other people to put you into roles and you may end up acting that role for the rest of your life. Jessica had certainly maintained that Isabella lacked ‘bottom,’ that she should have kept her sights on Mannerling and forgotten about love, the implication being that she, Jessica, would never have been so weak. And so her sisters looked up to her as a strong character, the sister of iron, and Jessica came to believe that was exactly what she was. But when she was alone, she felt weak and vulnerable and prey to doubts. Had her parents been more loving and less proud, then perhaps Mannerling would not have been so predominant in her thoughts. As children when they long for home think of their mother and father, so Jessica thought of the cool elegant rooms of Mannerling and remembered her days there as being full of sunshine and laughter, which had not been at all the case. She forgot that her hitherto uneducated mind had made many of the days long and tedious, particularly after the long winters set in.
    So basically rather timid and shy, Jessica, like most shy people, found it easier to play the part thrust on her, and the bolder and more ‘clear-headed’ she seemed in her