me to escort you, ma’am,” the marquess said. “I hardly need a chaperone,” she told him sharply. “And I would not be good company this morning.” “Allow me to accompany you as a friend, then,” he said, and he swung down from his saddle and turned to the earl. “You will take my horse back to the stable, Nev?” The earl smiled and doffed his hat to Claudia, and it was too late to say a firm no. Besides, it was something of a relief to see a familiar face. She had thought she would have to wait for Susanna to return from her shopping expedition before she would have anyone with whom to talk. She might well burst before then. And so just a minute later they were walking along the pavement together, she and the Marquess of Attingsborough. He offered his arm, and she took it. “I am not much given to distress,” she assured him, “despite last evening and now this morning. But this morning it is anger—fury —rather than distress.” “Someone upset you in there?” he asked, nodding toward the building from which she had just emerged. “That is Mr. Hatchard’s office,” she explained to him. “My man of business.” “Ah,” he said. “The employment. It did not meet with your approval?” “Edna and Flora will return to Bath with me tomorrow,” she said. “That bad?” He patted her hand on his arm. “Worse,” she assured him. “Far worse.” “Am I permitted to know what happened?” he asked. “The Bedwyns,” she said, sawing at the air with her free hand as they crossed a street, avoiding a pile of fresh manure. “That is what happened. The Bedwyns! They will be the death of me yet. I swear they will.” “I do hope not,” he said. “Flora was to be employed by Lady Aidan Bedwyn,” Claudia said, “and Edna by none other than the Marchioness of Hallmere!” “Ah,” he said. “It is insufferable,” she told him. “I do not know how that woman has the nerve.” “Perhaps,” he suggested, “she remembers you as a superior teacher who will not compromise her principles and high standards even for money or position.” Claudia snorted. “And perhaps,” he said, “she has grown up.” “Women like her,” Claudia said, “do not grow up. They just grow nastier.” Which was ridiculous and unfair, of course. But her antipathy toward the former Lady Freyja Bedwyn ran so deep that she was incapable of being reasonable where the woman was concerned. “You have an objection to Lady Aidan Bedwyn too?” he asked, touching the brim of his hat to a couple of ladies who were walking in the opposite direction. “She married a Bedwyn,” Claudia said. “She has always struck me as being particularly amiable,” he said. “Her father was apparently a Welsh coal miner before making his fortune. She has a reputation for helping people less fortunate than herself. Two of her three children are adopted. Is it for them she needs a governess?” “For the girl,” Claudia said, “and eventually for her younger daughter.” “And so you are to return to Bath with Miss Bains and Miss Wood,” he said. “Are they to be given any choice in the matter?” “I would not send them into servitude to be miserable,” she said. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “they might not see it that way, Miss Martin. Perhaps they would be excited at the prospect of being governesses in the houses of such distinguished families.” A young child with a harried-looking nurse in hot pursuit was bowling his hoop along the pavement. The marquess drew Claudia to one side until they were all past. “Little whippersnapper,” he commented. “I would wager he promised most faithfully that he would carry the thing except when he was in the park with plenty of open space.” Claudia drew a slow breath. “Are you suggesting, Lord Attingsborough,” she said, “that I reacted overhastily and unreasonably at Mr. Hatchard’s office?” “Not at all,” he said. “Your anger is admirable as is your determination to burden yourself with the girls again by taking them back to Bath rather than placing them in employment that might bring them unhappiness.” She sighed. “You are quite right,” she said. “I did react too hastily.” He grinned at her. “Did you give Hatchard a definite no?” he asked. “Oh, I did,” she said, “but he insisted that he would do nothing until tomorrow. He wants the girls to attend interviews with their prospective employers.” “Ah,” he said. “I suppose,” she said, “I ought to give them the choice, ought I not?” “If you trust their judgment,” he said. She sighed again. “It is one thing we are at pains to teach,” she said. “Good judgment, reason, thinking for oneself, making one’s own decisions based upon sense as well as inclination. That is more than one thing. We try to teach our girls to be informed, thinking adults—especially the charity girls who will not simply marry as soon as they are out of the schoolroom and allow their husbands to do all the thinking for them for the rest of their lives.” “That is not a very rosy picture of marriage,” he said. “But a very accurate one,” she retorted. They were walking beneath an avenue of trees that lined the pavement. Briefly Claudia raised her face to the branches and leaves overhead and to the blue sky and sunshine above. “I will warn them,” she said. “I will explain that the Bedwyns, led by the Duke of Bewcastle, are a family that has enjoyed wealth and privilege for generations, that they are arrogant and contemptuous of all who are below them on the social scale— and that includes almost every other mortal in existence. I shall explain that Lady Hallmere is the worst of the lot. I shall advise them not even to attend an interview but to pack their bags and return to Bath with me. And then I shall allow them to decide for themselves what they wish to do.” She remembered suddenly that both girls had actually stayed at Lindsey Hall with the other charity girls last summer for the occasion of Susanna’s wedding. They had actually met the Duke and Duchess of Bewcastle. The Marquess of Attingsborough was laughing softly. Claudia looked sharply at him. And then she laughed too. “I am a tyrant only when I am wrathful,” she said. “Not simply annoyed, but wrathful. It does not happen often.” “And I suspect that when it does,” he said, “it is because someone has threatened one of your precious girls.” “They are precious,” she told him. “Especially those who have no one to speak up for them but me.” He patted her hand again, and she suddenly realized that she had been walking with him for several minutes without paying any attention whatsoever to the direction they took. “Where are we?” she asked. “Is this the way back to Susanna’s?” “It is the long and the best way home,” he told her. “It passes Gunter’s. Have you tasted their ices?” “No, I have not,” Claudia said. “But this is the morning.” “And there is some law that states one can indulge in an ice only in the afternoon?” he said. “There will be no time this afternoon. I will be at Mrs. Corbette-Hythe’s garden party. Will you?” Claudia winced inwardly. She had completely forgotten about that. She would far rather stay at home, but of course she must go. Susanna and Frances expected it of her, and she expected it of herself. She did not enjoy moving in tonnish circles, but she would not absent herself from any entertainment just because she was self-conscious and felt she did not belong. Those things were all the more reason to go. “Yes,” she said. “Then we will stop for an ice at Gunter’s this morning,” he said, patting her hand once more. And for no reason at all, Claudia laughed again. Where had her anger gone? Had she by any chance been manipulated? Or had she just been given the benefit of the wisdom of a cooler head? Wisdom? The Marquess of Attingsborough? She remembered something suddenly, and it put to flight the remnants of her anger. “I am free,” she told the marquess. “I have just informed Mr. Hatchard that I do not need my benefactor any longer. I have just handed him a letter of thanks for the man.” “A cause for celebration indeed,” he said. “And what better way to celebrate than with one of Gunter’s ices?” “If there is one, I cannot think what it might be,” she agreed.
6
The garden at Mrs. Corbette-Hythe’s home in Richmond was spacious and beautifully landscaped. It stretched down to the bank of the River Thames and was an ideal setting for a large garden party—and this particular one was large. Joseph knew almost everyone, as he usually did at such events. He wandered from group to group, a glass of wine in one hand, conversing with acquaintances and generally making himself agreeable before moving on. The weather was ideal. There was scarcely a cloud in the sky. The sun was hot and yet the air remained fresh, perfumed with the scents of the thousands of flowers that filled beds and borders in the formal parterre gardens below the terrace and offered a feast of color to the beholder besides. There was a rose arbor to one side of the house. A string quintet close to its arched entryway played soft music to mingle pleasingly with birdsong and laughter and the sound of voices in conversation with one another. When Joseph arrived at the group that included Lauren and Kit, it was to find his cousin brimming with news. “Have you spoken with Neville and Lily yet?” she asked. But she did not wait for his answer. “Gwen and Aunt Clara will be coming to Alvesley for the summer.” “Ah, great news!” he said. Kit’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Redfield, were to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary during the summer. Alvesley Park, their home and Kit and Lauren’s, was to be filled with guests, himself included. Gwen was Neville’s sister, Aunt Clara his mother. “Anne and Sydnam are going to be there too,” Lauren added. “I shall look forward to seeing them,” Joseph assured her. “There is nothing quite like a family gathering in the country to lift the spirits, is there?” Miss Hunt was punishing him for last evening, Joseph had been made aware almost from the moment of his arrival. He had joined her group as soon as he finished greeting his hostess, quite prepared to spend the whole afternoon in her company. She had smiled graciously at him and then turned her attention back to the conversation she was holding with Mrs. Dillinger. And when that topic exhausted itself shortly after, she introduced one of her own—the latest style in bonnets. Since he was the only man in the group, he had felt quite pointedly excluded and soon wandered away to find more congenial company. She had given him the cut direct, by Jove. She looked even more than usually beautiful this afternoon. While other ladies had donned brightly colored dresses for the occasion, Miss Hunt must have realized that she could not hope to vie with the flowers or the sunshine in splendor and so had worn unadorned white muslin. Her blond hair was artfully styled beneath a white lacy hat decorated with white rosebuds and just a touch of greenery. He mingled with a few other groups before eventually strolling alone down to the water’s edge. The garden had been artfully designed to display flowers and a riot of color close to the house while nearer to the water there were more trees, and everything was varying shades of green. The upper garden was not even visible from
