The Romance Read Free Page B

however, pleased that I came in your stead.’
    ‘Then it might teach her to be more careful in her choice of words in future,’ said Lady Beverley.
    Miss Trumble went and drew back the curtains, finding the darkened room claustrophobic. The sun was shining outside. Down in the street a group of strolling playerswere dancing to the beat of a tambourine. A fish seller came past, the sunlight gleaming on his basket of mackerel.
    ‘I do not suppose the mysterious Lord Saint Clair was there,’ Lady Beverley went on.
    ‘Indeed, he was,’ said Miss Trumble mildly.
    Lady Beverley sat up. ‘And what was he like? Did he meet Belinda?’
    ‘He is an empty-headed fop, vacuous and silly, from my observation.’
    ‘Your observation is not welcome. Remember your place, Miss Trumble.’
    ‘You did ask what he was like,’ said Miss Trumble placidly.
    ‘The rout at the Dunsters’, tonight. Will he be there?’
    ‘I do not know, my lady.’
    ‘If he has entered the social scene, then he is bound to be there. I am feeling stronger already. I shall escort my girls.’
    ‘Very good, my lady.’
    *      *      *
    ‘And,’ said Belinda, over her shoulder to Lizzie, as she sat brushing her hair later that day, ‘I did hear Lord Saint Clair say to Gyre that he was looking for a wife. He said his father expected him to get married. Don’t you see what that means?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Lizzie, her eyes shining. ‘It means that any compliant lady will do.’
    ‘Exactly. Do run along and see if Miss Trumble is to go with us. For if she is, then it will spoil everything, for if I have to act the part of the simpering miss, she will find a way to put a stop to it.’
    Lizzie left and returned a few minutes later with the glad news that their mother was to escort them.
    ‘Good,’ exclaimed Belinda. ‘Now we must think up safe topics of conversation.’
    ‘I gather from Miss Trumble when she is being funny about young misses that gentlemen do not really expect young ladies to have much conversation. The way to a man’s heart is through his tailor. You must compliment the cut of his coat.’
    Belinda smiled. ‘So young and so wise.’
    ‘And you must simper…so. You have very long eyelashes, Belinda, and they must be used to advantage.’
    Belinda turned and studied her face in the glass. ‘My eyebrows are a trifle thin. Many ladies wear false eyebrows these days.’
    ‘Ugh,’ said Lizzie with a shudder. ‘Those hairy caterpillar things. Even old Lady Dunster wears them, and someone told me at her last ball one slipped and she did not notice until it fell into her glass of champagne. Surely all those false things are for people without your beauty or advantages. You do not need those awful false wax bosoms. Cissy Partridge, you know, the little girl with the bad teeth, hadthem on last night and she had white-leaded her bosom to hide the join, but they still looked dreadfully false. I told her that she ought to have chosen a gown with a higher neckline and she became quite angry and denied she was wearing anything false.’
    Belinda giggled. ‘Do you know they even wear false hair…down here?’ She pointed to her crotch. ‘It is advertised in the
Morning Post.’
Lizzie’s face turned as red as her hair. Then she rallied. ‘You must never talk of such things. What if Lord Saint Clair were to hear you, or any gentleman, for that matter? Oh, sometimes, Belinda, my poor brain feels as if it is cut in half. One half longs for you to marry Saint Clair, but the other guilty half nags me that you are condemning yourself to an empty life and all our excellent education will go unused.’
    ‘Not by my children,’ said Belinda. ‘That is what Miss Trumble taught us, that a mother with a well-furnished mind is much better for her children than a mother without a single idea in her head.’
    Lizzie bit her lip. ‘But…but if you have a son, your husband will choose a tutor for him, no doubt the sort of tutor he would