She sat up and hunted about for her underclothes. There was no point in calling for a maid. Tom had tried to seduce her most recent lady’s maid and the girl had left in high dudgeon a week ago. There was only Bridie, the housemaid, left to do everything. Besides, she could manage perfectly well on her own. She always had done.
Nat’s words echoed unbidden through her head and she froze for a second, her blood feeling stone-cold despite the warmth of the summer morning. That was one aspect of her situation she had blindly refused even to consider until Nat had put it into words the previous night.
She allowed her hand to slide down over her night rail, following the flat planes of her stomach. She looked the same. She felt the same. In fact she felt sick, but that was the brandy rather than anything else. She could not be pregnant. That truly would be a disaster. The thought of it terrified her. It was all very well for Laura Anstruther, for example, to have a child. Laura was old-at least thirty-and already had a daughter and anyway, she was a grown- up. And Lydia Cole-well, Lydia’s pregnancy had caused a most terrible scandal but Lydia herself would be a wonderful mother because she was so sane and so calm and so loving that she could surely look on her baby and feel all the right emotions rather than the sheer terror that Lizzie would feel if only she permitted herself to think about it for a second…Her thoughts ran wild like rats in a trap until she took a deep breath and calmed herself.
Her heart steadied. She would carry on as before. What to do today? Life felt strangely empty. All her tomorrows stretched out before her now and it was odd that she could think of nothing that she wanted to do with them. She realized that so many of her activities had been shared with Nat in the past. They had particularly enjoyed riding out together. A summer morning like this was made for a gallop on the Yorkshire fells. Except that she would be going out on her own in future.
She found a clean gown folded in the wardrobe and struggled to put it on, bundling her hair up with a ribbon. When she threw back the curtains the sunshine was bright and hot, pouring into the room and showing up the dust and cobwebs. Something had to be done about Fortune Hall, Lizzie thought. It was going to rack and ruin whilst Monty grasped after people’s money and spent it all on drink. Soon-in two months time, in fact-he would be entitled to enforce the Dames’ Tax and to take half the dowry of any heiress left in the village who had not wed. That included her, of course. She was the only heiress left, apart from Flora Minchin and Mary Wheeler. Monty’s money- grubbing ways really had to be stopped once and for all, Lizzie thought. She knew that Laura Anstruther had instructed her lawyers to start working on the case the previous year. She needed to talk to Laura and see what they could do about Monty. She would go to the Old Palace after she had scraped together some breakfast. She could see Laura and Lydia, too, and inquire after their health, for both were advanced in their pregnancy now. And she need have no fear that her friends would suspect that anything was wrong with her because all was settled.
She went out onto the landing. The door of Monty’s bedroom was closed whilst that of Tom’s stood ajar with the light streaming out into the corridor. Dust motes jumped and danced in the sunlight. The plaster was peeling from the walls and the floorboards creaked beneath Lizzie’s feet. At times like this Fortune Hall seemed every one of its three hundred and more years old. It feels like I do, Lizzie thought, old and worn. She had come to Fortune Hall to live with her half brothers after her father had died. She had been eleven years old and to be plunged from the warmth, laughter and hedonism of Scarlet Park into the peeling and decrepit existence of Fortune Hall had been a terrible shock. Scarlet Park had been a bright, shining world. Fortune Hall was its opposite in every way.
Shivering, Lizzie hastened down the wide wooden stairs and into the kitchen, where a sullen youth was listlessly sweeping the flagged floor and the kitchen maid was peeling a pile of rotting vegetables and grumbling to the Cook at the same time. They all smiled as Lizzie came in though, and Cook pushed a plate of eggs and gammon toward her along the trencher table.
“There you are, pet,” she said. “Thought you might need something solid after last night. You should keep off the brandy,” she added, “or your head will be as addled as your brother’s.”
“God forbid,” Lizzie said, shuddering. She looked at the plate of congealing food and felt her stomach lurch. How on earth did the servants know of her drinking habits? Nat was right when he said they knew everything. She felt a little shiver of apprehension.
“Get it down you,” Cook said, slapping a beaker of strong tea down beside her. “Nothing’s so sovereign for the headache, in my experience.”
Lizzie managed to force some of the gammon down and drank the tea, then clapped a bonnet haphazardly over her head before setting off down the drive toward the village. None of the gardeners were about. The weeds grew plentifully through the gravel and even Sir Monty’s flower garden, for many years his pride and joy, was a tangle of nettles and dock now that he had abandoned gardening as a pursuit in favor of stealing people’s money.
Lizzie walked along the river to Laura’s house, The Old Palace. The day was hot and the water glinted appealingly in the sun. Lizzie’s spirits lifted as she contemplated a swim later on. As a child she had swum in the lake at Scarlet Park and then the moat at the Hall and she had no time for the shrinking of those who considered bathing to be unhealthy and unladylike.
She could hear voices on the terrace as she approached The Old Palace and coming up through the meadow gate she found not only Laura Anstruther and Lydia Cole but Alice Vickery as well. They were sitting beneath the shade of an enormous striped umbrella and taking tea. Laura and Lydia looked hugely pregnant for they were both near their time now and as Lizzie stood unnoticed in the shadow of the gate, she felt another pang of emotion like the one that had struck her earlier as she was dressing. The mysteries of motherhood were utterly unfamiliar to her and she was not sure that she could even begin to comprehend them, yet there was something about having a child that felt infinitely precious to her even as it terrified her. She took a deep breath. It would not happen to her. She was sure of it. It was better simply not to think about it at all and pretend once more that nothing had happened. She pushed open the gate and went forward onto the terrace, a smile firmly fixed on her face.
“Laura, you are blossoming!” she said. “I am so glad to see you well!”
“Lizzie!” Laura’s face broke into a warm smile and she grasped Lizzie’s hands and drew her forward to kiss her cheek. She had been sick for most of her pregnancy but now she was indeed looking extremely well, her skin glowing and a very warm and contented smile in her eyes. “We were worried about you,” she added. “Alice said that she had called several times but that you were either indisposed or from home. I would have come myself but it takes me a good half hour to move five paces!”
“I’m sorry,” Lizzie said contritely, going across to kiss Lydia and Alice before taking a seat back beside Laura on a long, cushioned bench in the shade of the parasol. “It was only a trifling chill and I am quite well now.” She did not miss the look that flashed between Alice and Lydia. She knew what it meant. They were her best friends and they knew her so well and they did not believe her. They knew she had never had a day’s illness in her life.
“Lemonade or tea, Lizzie?” Laura asked, breaking the rather odd moment. “And would you like some plum cake?”
“If Alice has made it then yes please,” Lizzie said, smiling at Alice. “And I shall have lemonade please, Laura.”
“We heard that you were at Lady Wheeler’s dinner last night,” Alice said, her blue eyes bright as they rested on Lizzie’s face. “Mary called this morning. She said that Viscount Jerrold was paying you a great deal of attention.”
“Oh, Johnny is an old friend of mine, as you know,” Lizzie said lightly. She noticed that Lydia had blushed a little at the mention of John Jerrold’s name and she wondered at it. Lydia had been completely ruined by not one but two love affairs with Lizzie’s half brother Tom and had sworn off men forever as a result, but Lizzie remembered that John Jerrold had paid Lydia considerable attention before Tom had trampled all over her heart and her reputation. Lydia had also lost her fortune and her parents had been arrested for murder and her life was utterly in tatters. Lizzie knew that no man of consequence was ever likely to pay Lydia any honorable attention in future yet she could not but hope that one day her friend would find happiness. She wondered how Jerrold felt about Lydia now.
“There is nothing going on between Johnny and me,” she said. “It was a dull evening and I drank more than I ought and now I have the headache, which I suppose serves me right.”
“Mary said that Nat Waterhouse was also there,” Laura said, passing Lizzie her glass of lemonade and cutting a slice of the cake for her. “I was surprised to hear it-I did not know that he was a friend of the Wheeler family.”
Lizzie felt the jealous bile rise in her chest as it had done the previous night. The others were all looking at her
