suggested Cook. “And see that she doesn’t take up with a fortune hunter, or worse! Drink your tea, my lady. And wipe your face, if you please!” It was Cook’s private opinion that Lady Tess was wasted in this bucolic setting. For all the mistress’s lameness, she was far from an invalid. Sure and wasn’t the Countess of Lansbury the finest horsewoman this countryside had ever seen?
Lady Tess swiped ineffectively at the offending flour with her apron, then laughed. “How absurd you all are— for I must assume you are hinting at the same thing, Daffy! If truth be told, I have little more notion than Clio of how to go on in Society.”
“No,” agreed Delphine, then added, with the assurance of one whose parents had been so high in the domestic hierarchy that they had gone willingly with their aristocratic master to the guillotine, “but I do. There’s nothing for it, ma cocotte, but that Mistress Clio shall have her trip to London, and we shall accompany her. Else you will have the little wretch running away.”
Since London was equated in Tess’s mind with the accident that had left her lame, it is little wonder that she greeted her abigail’s announcement with less than enthusiasm. “You have a damnable habit, Daffy, of hitting the nail on the head. I suppose I must allow Clio her debut.” The countess propped her elbows on the table and dropped her chin into her hands. “I will admit to you, my friends, that the prospect fills me with dread!”
It was a prospect, judging from her sour expression, that inspired the abigail with little more enthusiasm. Not so the little kitchenmaid, whose somewhat hazy notions of the metropolis included such disparate elements as jewel-encrusted aristocrats and pumpkin-shaped coaches and circus elephants. “London! What larks!” she breathed.
Chapter 2
Bellamy House was a typical London town house,rising five stories high into the soot-clouded air, an edifice of gray brick enlivened by crimson window-arches and roofs. Steep, dark staircases led from the gloomy basement kitchens into the cramped and crowded servants’ quarters on the uppermost floor.
Not only the attics were crowded. Into the front drawing-room were crammed long and narrow gilt-framed looking glasses of baroque style; a couple of sofas, curved and carved in flower designs; several smaller ones, vaguely Empire in shape; armchairs and side chairs to match, constructed of rosewood and upholstered in dark red; and numerous additional chairs and tables of indistinctive character. An Aubusson carpet with superlative roses lay on the floor. From brass poles with enormous china flowers at the ends descended heavy velvet drapes and curtains of Nottingham lace. Presiding over this impressive chamber was the Dowager Duchess of Bellamy, a white-haired old woman with a malevolent countenance and the beaklike nose that had once been referred to by the irreverent Beau Brummell as “the Bellamy curse.” This feature branded irrefutably the duchess’s offspring, all of whom attended her, and all of whom looked to some degree uncomfortable.
The dowager duchess grinned. “How nice of you,” she said with heavy sarcasm, “to attend me so promptly! ‘Twill be to your edification, I vow, for I’ve news of a singularly wonderful nature to impart.”
There was little reaction to this promise, which sounded very much like a threat to those acquainted with the duchess’s little ways. Sapphira, her spirits rendered ebullient by a double dose of opium, surveyed her family. Disappointing, the bunch of them. With a fine sense of drama, she settled back into her Bath chair to wait.
The dowager duchess was not long required to hold her tongue. “Well?” demanded Drusilla, second of her children, a lovely brown-haired woman with a bitter voice. “What is this news? Witness us tremble with breathless anticipation!”
Sapphira awarded this temerity with a look of sharp dislike. “You continue to drink far more
Lady Tess swiped ineffectively at the offending flour with her apron, then laughed. “How absurd you all are— for I must assume you are hinting at the same thing, Daffy! If truth be told, I have little more notion than Clio of how to go on in Society.”
“No,” agreed Delphine, then added, with the assurance of one whose parents had been so high in the domestic hierarchy that they had gone willingly with their aristocratic master to the guillotine, “but I do. There’s nothing for it, ma cocotte, but that Mistress Clio shall have her trip to London, and we shall accompany her. Else you will have the little wretch running away.”
Since London was equated in Tess’s mind with the accident that had left her lame, it is little wonder that she greeted her abigail’s announcement with less than enthusiasm. “You have a damnable habit, Daffy, of hitting the nail on the head. I suppose I must allow Clio her debut.” The countess propped her elbows on the table and dropped her chin into her hands. “I will admit to you, my friends, that the prospect fills me with dread!”
It was a prospect, judging from her sour expression, that inspired the abigail with little more enthusiasm. Not so the little kitchenmaid, whose somewhat hazy notions of the metropolis included such disparate elements as jewel-encrusted aristocrats and pumpkin-shaped coaches and circus elephants. “London! What larks!” she breathed.
Chapter 2
Bellamy House was a typical London town house,rising five stories high into the soot-clouded air, an edifice of gray brick enlivened by crimson window-arches and roofs. Steep, dark staircases led from the gloomy basement kitchens into the cramped and crowded servants’ quarters on the uppermost floor.
Not only the attics were crowded. Into the front drawing-room were crammed long and narrow gilt-framed looking glasses of baroque style; a couple of sofas, curved and carved in flower designs; several smaller ones, vaguely Empire in shape; armchairs and side chairs to match, constructed of rosewood and upholstered in dark red; and numerous additional chairs and tables of indistinctive character. An Aubusson carpet with superlative roses lay on the floor. From brass poles with enormous china flowers at the ends descended heavy velvet drapes and curtains of Nottingham lace. Presiding over this impressive chamber was the Dowager Duchess of Bellamy, a white-haired old woman with a malevolent countenance and the beaklike nose that had once been referred to by the irreverent Beau Brummell as “the Bellamy curse.” This feature branded irrefutably the duchess’s offspring, all of whom attended her, and all of whom looked to some degree uncomfortable.
The dowager duchess grinned. “How nice of you,” she said with heavy sarcasm, “to attend me so promptly! ‘Twill be to your edification, I vow, for I’ve news of a singularly wonderful nature to impart.”
There was little reaction to this promise, which sounded very much like a threat to those acquainted with the duchess’s little ways. Sapphira, her spirits rendered ebullient by a double dose of opium, surveyed her family. Disappointing, the bunch of them. With a fine sense of drama, she settled back into her Bath chair to wait.
The dowager duchess was not long required to hold her tongue. “Well?” demanded Drusilla, second of her children, a lovely brown-haired woman with a bitter voice. “What is this news? Witness us tremble with breathless anticipation!”
Sapphira awarded this temerity with a look of sharp dislike. “You continue to drink far more
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