Deb sighed and crumpled up the paper, throwing it inaccurately in the direction of the fire grate. It was her fifth attempt and it still was not quite right. The first had been too coy, the second too vague, the third too bold. She had had no idea that this business of advertising for a fiance would be quite so difficult, nor that she would be so short of choice. She had visited the Bell and Steelyard Inn again the previous day and there were still no more replies to her advertisement. It seemed inexplicable.
Deb paused at the sound of a step in the corridor outside, for she had not told Mrs Aintree that she was pressing ahead with her plan. She felt a little ashamed of this, but she had lain awake for a long time into the night whilst she puzzled the whole matter out. She could find a fiance or she could confess all to her father and accept his reproaches as her due. If it would end there, then perhaps she might have taken it on the chin. But it did not. Lord Walton was of choleric disposition and Deb knew that once he was aware that she had no matrimonial plans, he would compel her to return to live in Bath. If she refused, he would cut off her allowance. There would be no discussion.
Deb rested the quill pen on the inkpot and pushed the paper away from her. After three years away it would be impossible to go back and to live at her parental home. It had been bad enough before she had run away with Neil. The atmosphere there had been stifling. Her father had ruled with a rod of iron and her mother had practically pushed her into the lap of any eligible man who passed by. So, before her parents tried to marry her off again, she had to find her own fiance.
Dear Lord Scandal, you simply must help me. I have told my father that I am engaged to be married, but unfortunately this is not the case. I do not have a betrothed and most earnestly seek a gentleman who can fulfil the duties of a fiance during the period of my brother’s wedding. This is crucial to me if I am to avoid the ignominy of being dragged home to live with my parents again…
Deb ran a hand through her disordered honey-coloured curls. She could not help but wonder what Lord Richard Kestrel would make of her attempts to hire herself a fiance. Although it was the merest business arrangement, she felt the same wave of disloyalty sweep over her again. She groaned. This was ridiculous since she owed Lord Richard no loyalty at all. For all her affinity with him, she did not know whether he was trifling with her or not, although her blood burned to believe him faithful.
Both reason and observation were against Lord Richard Kestrel. Deb had heard of his conquests and seen him flirt with a great many ladies. For all his fine words, she suspected that he had tried to fix her interest in order to discover more about the Midwinter spy. All in all, he was not to be trusted, no matter what her instincts told her. And he was not a marrying man. Since Deb considered herself not to be a marrying woman, this should not have mattered, and yet, unaccountably, it did. Her feelings had been made starkly plain on the subject when Lily Benedict had cornered her at Lady Sally’s soiree a few days before and helpfully whispered that did she know that Lord Richard Kestrel had once been engaged to a lady who had found him in the arms of a Cyprian on the night of their betrothal ball…
‘Malicious cat!’ Deb said now, aloud. Even so, she knew that Lord Richard was a man one might flirt with or even take as a lover, but that marriage would be out of the question. And she told herself that she had no desire to enter that state again after her experience with Neil. She knew exactly how unfaithful, unreliable and downright cruel a man could be and she would not put herself in that position again.
She was about to pick up her quill with renewed energy to frame her letter to Lord Scandal when there was a commotion in the corridor outside and Olivia erupted into the room. Her face was flushed pink, her eyes bright, her hat tilted askew on her flyaway curls. For a moment it was almost like looking at a mirror image of Deb herself. Deb got up, smiling, and then she saw the expression in her sister’s eyes and her smile turned to a frown of concern as her insides turned to ice. Something was dreadfully wrong.
‘Liv?’ she said. ‘What has happened? What’s the matter?’
And then Olivia did something that Deb had never seen her do in her entire life. She burst into tears.
‘I am sorry, I am so very sorry…’ It was ten minutes later and Olivia was finally able to speak again, although not in any coherent way. Her words were making no sense to Deborah at all.
‘I cannot help it. I cannot stop crying!’ Olivia gulped. ‘Oh, Deb, you would not believe what has happened this morning…I simply have to tell someone. I cannot bear it any longer!’
She stopped and looked at Deb with tear-drenched eyes, as though daring her sister to contradict her. Deb waited. Olivia took a deep breath.
‘Ross was making love to me,’ she said. ‘Ross was making love to me and I was thinking about decorating the ceiling. The ceiling, Deb! I was entirely engrossed. So Ross stopped and looked at me and I realised what had happened and how angry he was, and I felt ill-quite sick with fear and misery-and Ross stormed off and I believe this is the end for us, the absolute end, Deb-’
‘Wait!’ Deb besought. She noticed that Olivia’s nose was running, so she rummaged around in her sleeve but could not find a handkerchief. Instead she was obliged to give her sister the small cambric cloth from the table instead. Olivia blew her nose heartily and did not even notice the unorthodox nature of the handkerchief.
‘Wait,’ Deb said again, as her sister dabbed at her reddened eyes and seemed about to burst into renewed speech. ‘Give yourself time to draw breath.’
Olivia sighed and Deb looked at her curiously. She was very shocked by Olivia’s outburst, for she would never have believed her sister capable of such strong feeling. She was also fascinated to see that Olivia did not cry in a pretty way at all. Somehow she had expected her sister to look pale and interesting with tear-wet eyes. Instead, Olivia’s nose had turned red and appeared twice its normal size. Deb felt a great rush of affection for her. She slid along the sofa and put an arm around her.
‘Now then, Olivia,’ she said calmly, ‘I am afraid that you will have to explain yourself more clearly. What it all this about Ross and the ceiling?’
‘I told you,’ Olivia sniffed. ‘Ross was making love to me and I was not paying attention.’
‘You mean actually making love, or…?’ Deb waved her hands about vaguely.
Olivia looked irritated. ‘Actually making love as opposed to-what, Deb?’
‘As opposed to kissing, or…’ Deb shrugged, trying to look knowledgeable. She hoped that her exceptionally limited knowledge of the ways of the world would not let her down here.
‘Yes,’ Olivia sounded ruffled. ‘Making love, Deb! Please do not interrupt me again!’
‘I am sorry,’ Deb said. ‘Do go on.’
‘Whilst Ross was busy, I was lying there, gazing at the ceiling,’ Olivia said, clearly unable to stop talking even had she wanted to do so, ‘and I noticed a hairline crack in the trellis work painted above the bed, so I started to plan how I might have it mended…’
‘Oh, dear,’ Deb said.
Her sister cast her a sideways look. ‘Indeed. So I was intending to call a decorator from London, and really I was quite carried away by my plans, and after a little while I suddenly returned to the present and realised that Ross had paused in what he was doing-’
‘How long?’ Deb asked.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Olivia wrinkled up her reddened nose.
‘How long do you think your mind was on other matters?’
‘Ten minutes?’ Olivia guessed. ‘Perhaps fifteen?’ Her voice faded. She looked stricken. ‘I cannot be certain. Once Ross starts, you see, he can sometimes go on for quite a while because he likes to-’
‘Please do not tell me the intimate details!’ Deb spoke hastily. ‘I would never be able to look Ross in the eye again.’
Olivia gave a watery giggle. ‘No, I suppose you would not. Oh, dear, I am being very indiscreet. I do not seem to be able to help myself!’
‘Never mind that,’ Deb said. ‘You have been discreet enough in the past six years. I expect it will do you good to be indiscreet for a change.’ She frowned. ‘Olivia, there is something I must ask. When Ross makes love to you, do you not join in at all?’
Now it was Olivia’s turn to frown. She looked at Deb in a puzzled way. Deb looked back.
After a moment Olivia said uncertainly, ‘Mama never said anything about joining in. Is one supposed to?’
Deb’s frown deepened still further. She fidgeted and avoided her sister’s bewildered gaze. ‘I think one is. I mean, I do not know. I thought that you would know…’
‘I don’t know,’ Olivia said, her forehead wrinkling. ‘I do not know anything about the way one is supposed to
