Toblethorpe Manor Read Free Page A

answer tomorrow so that we may arrange the matter. If all goes well, I shall return here after escorting you to London, to check that everything is in order.”
    “You’ll not persuade me to accompany you again, especially with your sister settled in London,” said Lord Denham. “Miss Carstairs, if you are not occupied elsewhere, perhaps you would favor me with a stroll around the shrubbery. I believe the sun has dried the grass, and I find myself recovered from my enforced early ride.”
    “I shall be delighted, my lord,” replied Lucy demurely.
    At that moment the butler entered and bent to murmur in Lady Annabel’s ear.
    “Oh dear!” she exclaimed, “Miss Fell is in a fever and Nurse wants my advice. Lucy, wrap up well if you are going out. Richard, pray do not leave the house for a while, I must speak with you. Lord Denham, do not let my daughter become a nuisance.”
    “Mama! I am not a child anymore. You must not speak so,” said Lucy in indignation.
    “I beg your pardon, dearest. It is difficult to remember that you are a young lady already.”
    “Behave like a young lady or you shall not be treated as one, Lucy,” threatened Richard with a grin, and a wink at Lord Denham.
    Lucy cast him a darkling glance and flounced out of the room on his lordship’s arm.
    “Oh dear, Richard,” said Lady Annabel with a sigh, “I do not believe I shall ever teach her to behave as Society will expect.”
    “Come, mama, you would not wish her to be missish or tongue-tied. Do not let her worry you, she will be a great success.”
    “Indeed I hope so. Well, I had better see how Miss Fell does.”
    “I will be in the library when you want me. I beg you will not let Miss Fell worry you, either. I could wish her in China!”
    Lady Annabel smiled up at her tall son and patted his cheek. As she left the room, she was thinking that her biggest problem was not her daughter, nor even the stranger who had appeared in her household so unceremoniously. She hoped Richard did not know how much he worried her.
    Lady Annabel, in her late forties, was still as blond as she had been when she had caught the eye of Mr. Christopher Carstairs during her second Season. Her husband had had light brown hair and a ruddy complexion; her father, Lord Mortlake, had been as blond as his daughter, but her mother had been an Italian contessa, dark as a Gypsy. Both Lady Annabel’s children had taken after their grandmother. Lucy was a glowing brunette, Richard so dark-skinned he could have passed as a savage from the colonies. He had been a happy child, mischievous but not difficult, and then at the age of thirteen he had been sent away to school. She was still not very clear as to exactly what had happened. She and Kit had been absorbed in their newborn daughter, a miracle after so many barren years. And then Kit had been killed hunting. It still hurt her to think of the dreadful moment when they had borne his body home on a hurdle.
    Richard had been at Eton for two years before she had realized that something was seriously wrong. The charming small boy had become a withdrawn adolescent, hiding his hurts under an arrogance justified to himself by pride in his family and birth. A lecture on manners, after he had been insolent to a neighbor, had led to an agonizing session during which she learned that he had been christened “the Indian” by the older schoolboys and ostracized by his fellows.
    She had suggested that he finish his studies under a tutor. But the tall, painfully thin boy with the haunted eyes had told her, “The Carstairs do not run away.”
    After another year of misery, his last two years at the school had been not unhappy, she thought. Richard had proved himself highly successful in both studies and sports and had at last made a few friends. But the damage had been done. He found it difficult to socialize, and the idea that had saved him, the importance of birth and breeding, was too much a part of him to be relinquished.
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