The Romance Read Free Page A

surely that was the one you said was a fop.’
    ‘He is a trifle foppish, I agree,’ said Belinda. ‘But he is very agreeable.’ Belinda was now so determined to secure Lord St. Clair as a husband that she was eager to find virtues in him that did not exist. ‘He is very merry and light-hearted.’
    ‘He is young.’ Lizzie nodded wisely. ‘What if the owner of Mannerling had turned out to be some horrible old man like the one we saw atthe church?’
    Belinda gave a mock shudder. ‘Lord Saint Clair is to be at the rout next evening. Let us hope Mama is well again, for if Miss Trumble comes with us, she will no doubt make sure I do not get a chance to speak to him. Goodness knows,’ said Belinda with a world-weary air, ‘it is hard enough to talk comfortably to anyone at a London rout.’
    ‘Who was that very handsome man with him?’
    ‘That is the Marquess of Gyre.’
    Lizzie sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at her hands. Without looking up, she asked, ‘Did you not find him attractive?’
    Belinda manufactured a yawn and then said, ‘I suppose he is well enough, in his way. Do not be afraid. I am not going to rush off and marry some middle-aged man like my sisters.’
    ‘I should suppose him to be in his thirties.’
    ‘Well, that is middle-aged, as the Good Lord has given us only three score years and ten. Let us not talk about Gyre. Let us talk about Saint Clair. He would make the perfect husband, amiable and not vicious.’
    ‘And he is amusing, witty?’
    ‘Let us say he is the type of gentleman who would be extremely frightened if any female showed the slightest sign of having a brain in her head.’
    ‘I will be devil’s advocate,’ said Lizzie. ‘I will be Miss Trumble. How will such a marriagefare, Belinda, when you find yourself tied to a man with no wit or conversation whatsoever?’
    ‘I will have Mannerling and I will have children, and my lord will be mostly in London. I shall have my own family and my own establishment. I will be able to entertain as we once entertained.’
    Lizzie half-closed her green eyes, catlike, as she remembered the splendid balls and parties at Mannerling. Any doubts she had entertained about Lord St. Clair were swept away. She was determined to find him the best of men.
    ‘Did you not think it odd of Miss Trumble to disguise herself so?’
    ‘Miss Trumble is a mystery,’ said Belinda. ‘But Mama demanded her references and finally got them from her. I gather they were impeccable.’
    Lizzie sighed. ‘I think there is nothing more sinister in Miss Trumble’s past than a broken heart. I think she was jilted and that the man she loved is still on the London scene, no doubt a grandfather by now, and that she does not wish him to see her old and diminished.’
    ‘A very romantical idea.’ Belinda laughed. ‘I adore our Miss Trumble, but she has always probably been a lowly governess and so she cannot know the passion Mannerling holds for us.
She
has never lived in such a magnificent place.’
    ‘But if her employers were very grand,’ said Lizzie doubtfully, ‘she would be used to grandhouseholds.’
    ‘Being a servant in a grand household is not at all the same thing as being a member of the family,’ said Belinda haughtily. She stretched her arms above her head. ‘Oh, remember the days of Mannerling, Lizzie. We were
invulnerable.’
    And so both lost themselves in rosy dreams and forgot the rather sterile existence of their early youth when they were wrapped in riches and immense pride.
    *      *      *
    ‘And how did the affair go last night?’ asked Lady Beverley next day. She was lying on a chaise longue in the drawing-room and the little table beside her was loaded with apothecaries’ bottles. Miss Trumble, to whom the question was addressed, often thought that her employer’s frequent illnesses were caused by the mixture of medicines she took.
    ‘Well, I think,’ said Miss Trumble cautiously, ‘Mrs. Tamworth was not,