Читать книгу Misfit Maid - Elizabeth Bailey - Страница 7

T emporarily silenced by the shock of his great-aunt’s perfidy, Delagarde watched in a daze as Lady Hester Otterburn ushered the visitor out. With disbelieving ears, he heard her encouraging the wretched female to return, bringing with her the duenna and all their trunks from the Maddox Street inn where she had left them. No sooner had the front door shut behind Maidie, than his lordship came to himself with a start.

‘Have you taken leave of your senses, Aunt Hes?’ he demanded furiously, as that lady walked back into the parlour.

‘I don’t think so,’ replied his great-aunt mildly.

‘Well, I do! What the devil possessed you to invite her back here? If you imagine that I am to be coerced into acceding to the wench’s idiotic request, you may think again.’

‘Then you will be a great fool!’ she told him roundly.

He stared at her. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘My dear Laurie, if you cannot see what is right under your nose, I declare I wash my hands of you!’

‘I wish you would,’ he retorted, incensed. ‘Do, pray, stop talking in riddles, Aunt.’

To his surprise, she eyed him with a good deal of speculation for a moment. Then she smiled. ‘Gracious, I believe you really don’t know!’

‘Don’t know what?’

Lady Hester laughed at him. ‘How to bring a girl out, of course. No matter. You will learn fast, I dare say.’

‘But I have no desire to learn it,’ Delagarde stated, in some dudgeon. ‘What is more, I am not going to do so.’

‘Oh, yes, you are. I have quite decided that.’

‘You have decided it? Thank you very much indeed. Give me one good reason why I should allow myself to have this hideous charge foisted on to me.’

‘I might give you several,’ said his great-aunt coolly, ‘but one will suffice. You are far too hedonistic and idle.’

Delagarde fairly gasped. ‘I am what?’

‘I have long thought that the life you lead is ruinous. You have no responsibility, and nothing to do beyond consulting your own pleasure. It will do you good to exert yourself and think of someone else for a change.’

‘Oh, will it?’ retorted her great-nephew, stung. ‘Then allow me to point out to you that if—if!—I agree to this preposterous idea—’

‘Don’t be silly, Laurie! Everything is settled.’

‘—it is not I who will be exerting myself. It may have escaped your notice, Aunt, but it is usual for debutantes to have a female to bring them out.’

‘Quite right,’ said Lady Hester comfortably. ‘I shall do that.’

‘Not in this house!’ objected Delagarde. ‘Besides, you cannot do so. For one thing, you have no longer any position in society—’

‘That can readily be remedied.’

‘—and for another, your health is unequal to the strain of a London Season.’

‘Nonsense, I have never been better!’

‘What is more,’ pursued Delagarde, ignoring these interpolations, ‘I have not invited you to remain here above the few days you intended.’

Lady Hester suddenly clapped her hands together. ‘That reminds me! I have not brought near enough with me for a whole Season. My abigail will have to go down to Berkshire at once. Oh, and you will have to open up all the saloons. We cannot receive morning callers in the drawing-room, and if we are to give a ball—’

‘A ball! Let me tell you—’

‘Or, no. It is too late to secure a suitable date. A small party, perhaps, and meanwhile we will introduce Maidie quite quietly—’

‘You cannot introduce her in any way at all!’ Delagarde interposed, in considerable disorder. ‘Good God, I will not be sponsor to a lady looking as Maidie does! I should lose all credit with the world.’

‘You are very right,’ agreed Lady Hester, laying an approving hand on his arm. ‘Her appearance will not do at all. I had not thought of it in all this excitement. She must be properly dressed. I shall see to that at once. Maidie cannot object to acquiring new gowns. You need have no fear, Laurie. I will make sure she does not disgrace you.’

‘If her conduct today is any indication of her company manners,’ Delagarde said bitterly, ‘there is little hope of preventing that.’

But Lady Hester was not attending. ‘We will not make too obvious a stir, I think, for that may defeat the purpose. A soirée at the start of next month will serve admirably. At first, though—’

‘Aunt Hester!’

‘—we shall make it our business to call upon all the leading hostesses. As Maidie’s sponsor, you will of course accompany us.’

‘If you think I am going to dance attendance on that cursed wench morning after morning—’

‘Laurie, what am I thinking of?’ interrupted his great-aunt, unheeding. ‘The servants! We shall never manage with this skeleton staff. You must send to Berkshire immediately. Or, stay. Lowick may go down himself and make all the necessary arrangements.’

‘Aunt Hes—’

‘Gracious, there is so much to be done! I must see Lowick immediately. He and I will put our heads together, and—’

‘Aunt Hes, will you, for God’s sake, attend to me?’

She stopped in mid-stride, and looked at him with an air of surprise. ‘Yes, Laurie?’

‘Aunt Hes, stop!’ he uttered desperately. ‘I will not— I have no intention— Oh, good God, I think I am going mad! Aunt Hes, if you bring that wretched girl to live here, I promise you I shall remove!’

‘Nonsense. Move out of your own house? Besides, we need you.’

‘We!’ he said witheringly. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘Why?’ A trill of laughter escaped Lady Hester, as she made for the door. ‘My dear Laurie, I have your interests wholly at heart, believe me. Do not be taken in by Lady Mary talking lightly of an “independence”. Brice Burloyne was a nabob.’

‘What has that to do—’

But Lady Hester was gone.

Delagarde stood staring at the open door, mid-sentence and open-mouthed, hardly taking in the significance of her last utterance.

‘I do not believe this is happening,’ he muttered.

Was his life to be turned upside down in a matter of hours? He cursed the ill-timing that had brought his great-aunt on a visit just at this moment. She was invariably content to remain in residence on his estates at Delagarde Manor, where she had lived, courtesy of his mother’s generosity, since before Laurence had been born. Her criticism rankled. Idle and hedonistic, indeed! Was he any more so than any other of his class? And what the devil had she meant by saying that he had no responsibilities? Was he not landlord to a vast estate? To be sure, he employed an agent to administer the lands, and his steward could be relied upon to keep all smooth in his absence.

Was that the burden of her complaint? That he was absent from Berkshire for a good part of the time? Good God, one could not be expected to kick one’s heels in the country all year round! Who did not spend the Season in town?

Another thought struck him, and his eye kindled. If this was a dig at his continued bachelorhood—! To be sure, he had to marry some day. The line must be carried on. But there were Delagarde cousins enough for the succession to be in no immediate danger, even were he not in the best of health. Nor was he reckless in his sporting pursuits, which might put him in danger of accident. In fact, he took sufficient account of his responsibilities not to merit that criticism in the very least!

What the devil should possess her to say such an un-handsome thing of him? Aunt Hes was not wont to criticise, and he strongly suspected that she had made that up on the spur of the moment. A ploy to push him into agreeing to sponsor that dreadful girl. Well, he had not agreed! What whim should take Aunt Hes to rush to the wretched female’s aid, he was at a loss to understand.

What had she said? Brice Burloyne was a nabob? One of these Indian fortunes? Oh, good God! And he was to figure as trustee, heaven help him! No doubt the creature would expect him to ward off fortune-hunters on her behalf. A vision of his hitherto ordered and pleasant existence rose up, and he could swear he saw it shatter. No! No, he would not be coerced.

Striding to the bell-pull, he tugged it fiercely, and then marched out into the hall just as a footman came quickly in through the green baize door at the back. Already he discerned an air of bustle about the house, for Lady Hester’s abigail was hurrying up the stairs, accompanied by one of the maids, and the stout housekeeper, pausing only to bob a curtsy to her master as he came out of the parlour, set her foot on the bottom stair and began to puff her way up.

‘Where is Lowick?’ Delagarde demanded of the footman.

‘Mr Lowick has gone upstairs to confer with her ladyship, my lord.’

‘Oh, he has, has he? Well, go up and bring him down here to me. And send for Liss at once!’

‘I am here, my lord,’ said his valet, entering the hall from the green baize door, as the footman ran up the stairs. Liss had apparently held himself ready, for he was burdened with several articles of clothing.

‘My coat, Liss! My hat!’

‘Both here, my lord.’

Delagarde allowed his valet to help him into the greatcoat, and seized his hat. He was standing before the hall mirror, placing the beaver at a rakish angle on his head, when his butler came hurrying down the stairs.

‘Ah, Lowick,’ Delagarde said, turning. ‘Listen to me! If that female should return here, you will—’

‘Lady Mary, my lord?’ interrupted the butler. ‘You need have no fear, my lord. Her ladyship has given me very precise instructions. All will be in readiness to receive her.’

‘But I don’t want you to receive her!’

The butler bowed, and permitted himself a tiny avuncular smile. ‘Her ladyship has explained that you are a trifle put out by the inconvenience, my lord.’

‘Put out!’

‘It is very natural, I am sure, my lord. I understand that there is an obligation which your lordship is determined to honour.’

Delagarde gazed at him. Devil take it! Aunt Hes had neatly outgeneralled him. Working on the principle, he dared say, that it was never of the least use to try to keep things from the servants. No doubt she would have the entire household duped in no time at all, everyone working to thwart him. How the devil was he to refute the obligation now, without appearing churlish or dishonourable?

‘So she has drawn you in, has she?’ he muttered balefully.

The butler gave him a puzzled look. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord?’

‘Never mind.’ He received his cane from the valet with a brief word of thanks, and turned back to his butler. ‘Lowick, I am going out.’

‘Yes, my lord. You need not fear that every courtesy will not be extended to the young lady, my lord. The housekeeper is even now receiving her instructions to arrange for Lady Mary’s accommodation.’

‘I do not wish to hear anything about it! Let me out!’

‘But will your lordship not take breakfast first?’ asked the butler, opening the front door for him.

‘The only breakfast I require is of the liquid variety—and potent!’ He started out, and then paused, turning on the top step. ‘And if Lady Hester should enquire for me, inform her that I have left this madhouse, never to return!’

Maidie, meanwhile, ensconced in the Hope family coach with her abigail in attendance, was congratulating herself on the outcome of her mission. To be sure, there had been a dreadful moment when she had doubted her ability to bring it off, but the entrance of Lady Hester Otterburn had changed all that. She was heartily glad of it, for she was now certain that, left to himself, Lord Delagarde would have repudiated her. It was fortunate that Lady Hester had been visiting just at this moment, for failure did not bear thinking of! What in the world would she have done?

Not having made any contingency plan—for how could she have guessed that Delagarde would dislike it?—she might have found herself at a loss. She supposed she would either have had to retreat to the Sussex house which was no longer her home, or to have continued on to the Shurland town house and revealed herself to Adela and Firmin, neither of whom had the least idea that she was in London. No, she would not have done that. Nothing would have induced her to gratify Adela with a show of willingness.

But she was not, she remembered with a resurgence of emotion, obliged to do either of those things, thanks to Lady Hester Otterburn deciding, for whatever reason, that she wished Delagarde to meet his obligation—and it was an obligation! Maidie had seen quite enough of Lady Hester to guess that she possessed sufficient influence over her great-nephew to ensure that she had her way.

Arrived at the Coach and Horses where she had passed the previous night, Maidie lost no time in relaying the story of her success to her duenna.

It had not been with Miss Ida Wormley’s unqualified approval that she had set forth that morning. Indeed, having kept up an incessant discourse against the scheme throughout the two-day coach journey from the Shurland estates at East Dean—to which Maidie had paid not the slightest heed—the Worm, greatly daring, had made a final attempt to prevent her from going at all.

‘I do wish you would not, Maidie,’ she had begged, almost tearfully. ‘It would be the most shocking imposition, and I do not know what his lordship will think of you.’

‘It does not matter what he thinks of me, Worm,’ Maidie had declared impatiently. ‘Do stop fussing! Unless you would have me wed Eustace Silsoe, after all?’

‘No, no, I am persuaded he could not make you happy,’ had said Miss Wormley, distressed. ‘And after the manner in which Lady Shurland has behaved towards you, I cannot blame you for wishing to seek another way.’

‘Well, then?’

‘But not this way, Maidie! To beard Lord Delagarde in his own home! He must think you dead to all sense of decorum. And what he will think of me for allowing you to behave in this unprincipled way, I dare not for my life imagine!’

‘Have no fear, Worm,’ Maidie had soothed. ‘I will make it abundantly clear to his lordship that the scheme is mine, and mine alone. Do not be teasing yourself with thoughts of what he may think of you, but set your mind rather to the programme of how we are to go on once we are installed in his house. You will be obliged to take me about, you know, for we cannot expect Lord Delagarde to chaperon me. It would be most improper.’

But Miss Wormley had been in such a fever of anxiety that she had been unable to set her mind to the resolution of anything. Besides, as she had several times informed her charge, she had no idea how to set about such a programme since she had never moved in fashionable circles. Maidie knew it, and did not hesitate to set her mind at rest as she related her doings at the Delagarde mansion in Charles Street.

‘I must thank heaven for Lady Hester,’ sighed Miss Wormley, setting a hand to her palpitating bosom, and sinking down upon the bed.

For want of something to distract her mind, she had been engaged, when Maidie returned with her abigail in tow, in collecting together those of Maidie’s belongings that were scattered about the bedchamber they had shared at her insistence, for she could not reconcile it with her duty to allow her charge to sleep alone in the chamber of a public inn in the heart of the capital.

‘But was not his lordship very much shocked?’ she asked presently.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Maidie carelessly, removing her hat and smoothing the unruly bands that had held her hair tightly concealed under it. ‘But I took no account of that.’

‘No, I should have known you would not,’ agreed her duenna mournfully. ‘The large portmanteau, Trixie.’ Rising again, she directed the abigail how to pack her mistress’s clothing. Her own accoutrements were already neatly stowed in the smaller receptacle. Then she turned again to Maidie, adding, ‘You never take account of me, after all.’

She spoke without rancour. A colourless female of uncertain age, Miss Ida Wormley had become inured, after near eleven years, to the knowledge that her influence over Lady Mary Hope was but sketchy. She suffered a little in her conscience, which led her to overcome a natural timidity and speak out, whenever she felt her principles to be at odds with Maidie’s conduct. But, despite the fondness with which she knew her charge regarded her, she could not flatter herself that her advice and protestations were attended to.

‘But I thought perhaps you might attend to Lord Delagarde.’

‘Humdudgeon!’ snorted Maidie indelicately. ‘You know very well, dear Worm, that Great-uncle counselled me never to allow myself to be impressed by rank.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Wormley, repressing a desire to disabuse her charge of her unshakable faith in the wisdom of the deceased fifth Earl’s counsel.

‘In any event,’ Maidie pursued doggedly, ‘Delagarde is only a viscount.’

‘Only!’ sighed Miss Wormley.

‘But he’s ever so fashionable, m’lady,’ put in Trixie suddenly. ‘Ain’t that right, Miss Wormley?’

‘Oh, yes. Lord Delagarde is always finding a mention in the Court sections of the London journals, and I recognised his name often in your great-uncle’s copies of the Gentlemen’s Magazine.’

‘Yes, and in them scandal pages often and often! Breaking hearts left and right. Abed here, abed there—’

‘Trixie!’

‘Is that true?’ asked Maidie, interested. ‘Has he had many such associations?’

‘You must not ask me, Maidie!’ uttered the Worm, blushing. ‘Trixie should not have spoken. It is all nasty gossip.’

‘But is it true?’ persisted Maidie, unheeding. ‘I can readily believe it, for he is certainly personable.’

‘Is he, m’lady?’ asked the maid, awed. ‘What is he like?’

‘He is tall and dark, and very cross!’

‘Now, Maidie—you should not! I am sure Lord Delagarde must be all that is amiable—even if it is true that his name has been linked with a number of fashionable…oh, dear, I did not mean to say that!’

‘It does not signify. You are bound to think well of him, Worm,’ said Maidie, ‘for you are more closely related to him than I. For my part, I find him excessively temperamental. I only hope he may not take it into his head to interfere in my concerns. My dependence must be all upon Lady Hester.’

It seemed, when the party arrived back at the Charles Street house, that her dependence was not misplaced. She was touched by the enthusiasm of Lady Hester’s greeting, and noted, with a rush of gratitude, that her champion encompassed Worm in the warmest of welcomes.

‘You and I, my dear Miss Wormley, must sit and enjoy a comfortable cose in the not-too-distant future. We call ourselves cousins, that much I know, but I am hopeful of pinpointing the exact relationship if we exchange but a few of our respective forebears.’

‘Oh, Lady Hester, you are too good,’ uttered Miss Wormley, quite overcome. ‘And your kindness to dear Maidie—’

‘Nonsense,’ said Lady Hester, brushing this aside. ‘Come now, let me guide you to your chambers.’

There was a bevy of servants busy about the transfer of the many trunks and boxes from Maidie’s carriage into the house, but they stood aside for her ladyship and her guests to pass. Pausing only to give some final instruction to her coachman, who was waiting in the hall, Maidie followed her hostess, throwing a word of thanks to the various attendants who were bearing her belongings upstairs.

Rooms were in the process of being prepared, and Maidie, having traversed two flights of the grand staircase and a couple of narrow corridors to arrive there, was delighted to discover that her allotted chamber had a southern aspect.

‘Oh, is that a little balcony?’ she exclaimed, moving to a pair of French windows.

‘The veriest foothold only,’ said Lady Hester. ‘It opens on to the gardens, however, so you may use it to take a breath of fresh air now and then.’

Maidie was not attending. She was tugging at the bolts, and had pulled them back and dragged open the windows before Lady Hester could do more than protest that she would let in the cold. Miss Wormley, who might have concurred, was distracted by the arrival of the luggage, and at once made it her business to inform the servants which pieces should remain in this room.

‘This will do excellently,’ Maidie said with approval, for the balcony extended out for quite two feet, and must be double that in width. Yes, she could set up here easily, and have an excellent view. Stepping on to the balcony, she looked up at the sky and ran her eyes around the horizon. On the second floor of Delagarde’s house, there was some little disturbance to the eyeline from the tops of the surrounding buildings. The attics would have been better, but it was a temporary inconvenience. At least she might continue her work. She had been afraid that it would have been interrupted altogether.

Turning back into the room, she directed Trixie to close the windows again, and looked around for a suitable table. Ah, yes. That little whatnot over on the other side of the four-poster bed. It looked to be free of odds and ends. She might lay her charts on top, and keep it at her elbow.

‘The room is to your liking, then?’ asked Lady Hester.

Maidie turned to her. ‘It will serve very well, thank you.’ She thought she read amusement in the elder lady’s eyes, and wondered if she had not been quite polite. ‘I mean, it is very nice indeed.’

‘Miss Wormley should be accommodated next to you, I thought,’ Lady Hester said, leading the way to the adjoining room as soon as Maidie had put off her pelisse and bonnet.

Maidie noted that her ladyship’s glance ran swiftly over her plain stuff gown, and settled for a moment on her tightly banded hair. She put up a self-conscious hand to smooth it, and could not but be relieved that Lady Hester made no comment.

The room next door was almost as well appointed as Maidie’s own, and Miss Wormley lost herself in a stuttering speech of thanks, which Lady Hester kindly dismissed. Her own room, as she showed them in case Maidie should be in need of her, was in an opposing corridor on the other side of the house, but his lordship, it appeared, occupied one of the two principal bedchambers, the only ones located on the first floor along with several saloons.

‘The other will be for his wife, when Laurie finally decides to gratify us all and make his choice.’ As she led the way downstairs again, and into the drawing-room that abutted the dining-room, Lady Hester added, ‘I dare say that if Dorinda had not died, she would have hustled him into matrimony years ago, though not without a battle of wills. She was as strong-minded as Laurie himself, was Dorinda. I suppose I should have made more of an effort with him in her stead, but you may have noticed that Delagarde is a difficult man to push.’

Yes, she had noticed, Maidie thought. He was a difficult man, she suspected, in every circumstance. But her interest in his possible marriage was, to say the least of it, tepid. Now, in any event. Had he had the good sense to marry earlier, no doubt her campaign would have met with less resistance. She felt it to be typical of him that he had remained a bachelor, as if he had known that it must aid him to thwart her.

They were soon installed in the drawing-room, a pleasant apartment done out in cream and straw to the walls and mantel, and to the cushioning of the light finely turned sofas and chairs that characterised Chippendale’s designs.

‘And now, my dear Maidie,’ pursued Lady Hester, when they were all partaking of a dish of tea, ‘we must make some plans. I thought, as a first step, that when you have had an opportunity to relax a little, we might make a visit to one of the discreet dressmaking establishments.’

‘Discreet?’ repeated Maidie.

Miss Wormley murmured something indistinguishable but, beyond directing a brief questioning look at her, Lady Hester took no notice.

‘I do not suggest a trip to Bond Street just yet, for I know you will not wish to appear where we may give rise to comment—at least, not until you have been officially presented to some of our more prominent hostesses.’

Maidie’s brows went up. ‘What you mean, Lady Hester, is that I am at present dressed too unfashionably to be seen.’

Lady Hester burst out laughing. ‘You are very frank! I was trying to be diplomatic.’

Maidie shrugged. ‘I prefer plain speaking. Besides, even had I not been made aware of my shortcomings in dress by Adela, I have sense enough to know that I cannot be so careless if I am to appear in society.’

‘Lady Mary has never been one to concern herself over her appearance,’ said Miss Wormley, hurrying into speech. ‘And—and she has decided views of her own.’

This became apparent, when the three ladies presently arrived at the quiet premises in Bloomsbury which housed the creations of Cerisette, a French modiste who had set up in business but three years since, on her escape from the troubles in Paris. Informed that the young lady was about to make her debut, Cerisette first directed their attention to a series of made-up gowns, all created in the now popular muslins with high waists, and all of them without exception, Maidie noted, in the palest of hues, whether sprigged or plain. She gazed upon the display, which was predominantly white, with a scattering of pastels, and resolutely shook her head.

‘No, no. These will not do at all!’

‘My dear Maidie,’ protested Lady Hester, coming up to her and eyeing the offending garments with a frowning countenance, ‘these are very suitable. All young females are accustomed to wear only the most modest of gowns when they are just out. What in the world is wrong with them?’

Maidie drew a breath. ‘It is not the styles, ma’am. I will be as modest as you please, only I cannot and will not wear anything made up in pastels.’

She saw the doubt in Lady Hester’s face, and knew that the moment had come. She drew a breath, and told herself she was being ridiculous. What did it matter what Lady Hester thought? Or anyone else, come to that? But it would not serve. In everything else, she might shrug off criticism or rebuke, but this was her one point of vulnerability.

‘What is it, child? What troubles you?’

For answer, Maidie went to one of the long mirrors with which the salon was furnished, and, with a tremble in her fingers which she could not control, once again removed her mustard-coloured bonnet. She looked at her own face, sighed deeply, and reached up to remove the pins that held the offending tresses in place.

‘What in the world…?’ began Lady Hester. But she was not attended to.

‘Worm, take these, if you p-please,’ Maidie uttered nervously, handing the pins to her duenna, who was hovering at her elbow. She took the rest of them out, and dragged her fingers through the mass of curling locks that, loosed from their moorings, sprang up about her face, forming a virulent ginger halo. She stared at her reflection in the acute misery that always attacked her when she obliged herself to look at it, and then turned, in a good deal of trepidation, but unsurprised to encounter the startled look in Lady Hester’s countenance. But it was not she who spoke first.

‘Bon dieu!’ came from Cerisette, who was standing stock-still, staring blankly at that extraordinary head of hair.

Tears started to Maidie’s eyes, and she felt the arm of her duenna come about her. Lifting her chin, she winked the hint of wetness away, and stared defiantly into Lady Hester’s face.

‘My poor child!’ said that lady gently. ‘It is not nearly as bad as you think.’

‘It is p-perfectly h-horrid,’ Maidie uttered unsteadily. ‘I look just like a marmalade cat! And when L-Lord Delagarde sees it, he will undoubtedly show me the d-door.’

Lady Hester’s eyes danced, but she refrained from laughing. ‘He will do no such thing, I promise you. Besides, we will have you looking altogether respectable before he has an opportunity to see it.’

A faint surge of hope lit Maidie’s breast. ‘Can—can anything be done about it?’

‘Assuredly.’

‘There now, you see, my love,’ said Miss Wormley comfortingly. But it was she who whisked her handkerchief from her sleeve, and fiercely blew her nose.

‘A good cut will make all the difference,’ Lady Hester said bracingly. ‘How fortunate that you have kept the length! We will have my own old coiffeur to you this very day.’

‘You don’t feel that I should do better to keep it the way I have been doing,’ Maidie suggested, with unusual diffidence. ‘Not that I care what anyone thinks of my appearance,’ she added hastily, and with scant regard for the truth, for in this aspect she was as sensitive as any young female, ‘but we must not forget that my object is to attract.’

‘No, we must not forget that,’ agreed Lady Hester, with an amused look.

‘Should we not keep it hidden?’ Maidie asked, too anxious to notice the hint of laughter. ‘It is far less noticeable when it is tightly banded to my head.’

‘Ah, but I have always found it to be an excellent thing to make a virtue of necessity. You will not, I know, wish to dupe any likely candidates for your hand into thinking that you are other than yourself.’

‘Oh. Er—no, of course not,’ agreed Maidie, with less than her usual assurance.

‘Since we must needs expose it, then,’ pursued Lady Hester, with only the faintest tremor in her voice, ‘let us by all means make the very best use of it that we can. I know that you will feel very much more confident once you see that it can be made to look quite pretty.’

Maidie was doubtful, but she bowed to Lady Hester’s superior knowledge. Besides, she found the whole matter of her hair so distressing that she knew her judgement on the subject to be unsound.

‘It is all the fault of my great-uncle Reginald,’ she said candidly, reviving a little of her usual spirit. ‘I know he could not help bequeathing me his hair, but as he was the only one of his family to catch it from my great-grandfather, it does come through him. I dare say he did not intend it, and it is the only thing he gave me for which I have any regret.’

‘His lordship was very fond of dear Maidie,’ confirmed the Worm helpfully. ‘But he saw nothing amiss with the colour of her hair, did he, my love?’

‘Yes, but he was a man. It made no difference to him.’

‘It need not be a problem to you, Maidie,’ Lady Hester assured her.

But Cerisette did not agree. When the customers turned to her once again, she broke into voluble protestation. Had she known in the beginning that mademoiselle was possessed of this so strong a head, assuredly she would not have shown her the pastels. Mademoiselle had shown good sense to refuse them. She could not risk her reputation upon mademoiselle appearing in anything but white. Fortunately, for the debutante, white was comme il faut.

‘Well, it is not comme il faut for me,’ declared Maidie stubbornly. ‘I cannot possibly wear white.’

In that case, returned Cerisette, drawing herself up, she could not possibly assist mademoiselle.

‘Dear me,’ said Lady Hester haughtily. ‘Then we shall take our custom elsewhere.’ Turning to Maidie, she smiled warmly upon her, murmuring reassuringly, ‘Come, child. I will not have you offended by this creature’s whim. Do not allow her to upset you. These French modistes are prone to take pets for the least little thing.’

But Maidie had turned mulish. She might be self-conscious about her hair, but she was not going to be driven ignominiously from Cerisette’s door. She resisted Lady Hester’s attempt to sweep her away.

‘One moment, if you please, ma’am.’ She turned to the modiste. ‘Perhaps you are not aware, madame, that I am the daughter of the late Earl of Shurland. I am also extremely wealthy. Since I require an entirely new wardrobe for the Season, you might reflect on how much my custom could enrich you.’

She was glad to see the shock gather in the woman’s face, and turned on her heel to march out before she could reply. Not much to her surprise, the modiste ran after her with a mouthful of apologies.

Maidie cut them short. ‘It makes no matter. Find me some gowns of suitable colours, and we shall say no more about it.’

The modiste made haste to comply. Clapping her hands, she scattered her assistants with a stream of instructions as Maidie turned back to Lady Hester, whose face was alight with laughter.

‘Maidie, you are abominable! Don’t you know that it is the height of bad taste to parade your rank and wealth?’

‘So it may be,’ said Maidie, unrepentant, ‘but that it is effective, you will scarcely deny.’

‘Her great-uncle, you must know,’ put in Miss Wormley with diffidence, ‘was a trifle eccentric. I am afraid he imbued her with some very improper notions.’

‘Humdudgeon!’ said Maidie. ‘Great-uncle may have been as eccentric as you please, but I must be ever grateful for his teachings. He could not abide shams, and nor can I.’

‘Well, let us not fall into a dispute over him,’ said Lady Hester pacifically. ‘Instead, we must bend our minds to the problem of gowning you appropriately.’

In the event, despite the new enthusiasm of Cerisette, it was Maidie and Lady Hester between them who selected the gowns most suited to her colouring. Maidie opted for a muslin of leaf-green, and a silk of dark blue. But her clever mentor bespoke a crêpe gown of pale russet that picked up highlights in her extraordinary hair, and muslins both of peach and apricot that enhanced the brightness above.

But when Lady Hester and the modiste seized upon a pale lemon gown all over silver spangles, Maidie balked again. ‘Nothing would induce me to wear such a thing!’

‘But you must have something suitable for a ball,’ protested Lady Hester.

‘That is as may be, but I refuse to parade around in a garment that would be better employed upon the stage. It looks fit for a fairy—and I am certainly not that.’

To everyone’s astonishment, including her own, she fell in love instead with a creamy muslin gown covered in huge sprigs of lacy black. Despite the protestations of her elders that the décolletage was positively unseemly, she insisted on trying it.

‘I am obliged to admit that it looks magnificent,’ conceded Lady Hester, watching Maidie twirl before the mirror.

‘It does take attention away from your hair,’ offered Miss Wormley in a doubtful tone.

‘It is hardly the garb of a debutante, but I dare say Maidie will not care for that.’

She was right, Maidie did not care. If something could indeed be done about her hair, she began to think that she might not fare so very ill, after all.

‘I never thought I could look so well,’ she marvelled. Drawing a breath, she turned confidingly to Lady Hester. ‘I do begin to have a real hope of finding a man willing to marry me.’

‘My dear Maidie,’ came the dry response, ‘there was never the least doubt of that. With your fortune, there will be no shortage of suitors, even had we made no change at all in the matter of your dress.’

Maidie fixed her with that wide-eyed gaze. ‘Then why are we doing all this?’

Lady Hester burst into laughter. ‘How can you ask me? For the purpose of bringing Laurie to heel. We cannot do without him, and he can have no objection to be seen with you looking like this.’

‘Which is as much as to say,’ guessed Maidie, with a glint in her eye that boded no good to the absent Viscount, ‘that he would not be seen dead with me otherwise!’

It was not until the early evening that Delagarde put in an appearance. He strode into the drawing-room where the ladies had gathered before dinner, and stopped short, staring. Maidie, unable to help herself, had jumped up on his entrance, and now stood rooted to the spot, her heart unaccountably in her mouth.

She was arrayed in the dark blue silk. It had long, tight sleeves, and its folds fell simply from the high waist, but Maidie became acutely aware that its cut across the bosom was slightly lower than it should be. Though this was as nothing to the anxiety that gripped her as she recalled her exposed locks. Until this moment, she had believed that the cleverly wielded scissors in the hands of a master had worked wonders.

The thatch of ginger had been considerably thinned, a deal of it combed forward to fall in curling tendrils about her face. The rest, behind a bandeau of blue velvet from which two dark feathers poked into the air, fell lightly upon her shoulders, with some few ordered ringlets straying down her back.

In vain did Maidie remind herself that she cared nothing for his lordship’s opinion. In vain did she recall the budding resentment she had experienced upon Lady Hester’s ill-considered revelation. The stunned expression in his face robbed her of all power over her emotions, until she realised that he was staring, not at her deplorable hair, but at her costume.

Delagarde found his tongue. ‘What the devil is that?’

‘Laurie!’

‘Have you all gone stark, staring crazy?’ He turned a fulminating eye on his great-aunt. ‘What do you call this? She is supposed to be making her debut. Only look at that neckline! And feathers!’ he uttered in a voice of loathing, his eye rising to Maidie’s head. ‘She looks like a matron with a bevyful of brats in her train, instead of…’

His voice died as he caught sight of her hair. For a moment he gazed in blankest amazement, the fury wiped ludicrously from his face.

‘Good God!’ he uttered faintly at length.

Quite unable to prevent herself from reaching up to cover what she might of her horrible locks, Maidie burst out, ‘He hates it! I knew he would.’

‘It is certainly startling,’ he conceded. He might have been looking at a stranger!

‘Well, you cannot hate it more than I do myself,’ Maidie stated, resolutely bringing her hands down and gripping her fingers together. ‘You may be thankful you were spared seeing it before it was styled.’

A short laugh escaped him. ‘Yes, I think I am.’

Maidie shifted away, and he moved around her, his eyes riveted to the extraordinary hair. Who would have believed it? Such a little dowd as she appeared this morning—and now! He tried to recall the impression he had formed of an unremarkable countenance, but the colour of that head was so very remarkable that he could not recover it. She turned to face him again, and he could not repress a grin at the sulk exhibited in her features.

Maidie flushed. ‘It’s well for you to laugh. I dare say you think it excessively funny. But I must live with it.’

‘So, it would appear, must I,’ he returned smoothly.

‘Well, it is no use supposing that I can get rid of it,’ Maidie said, goaded. ‘I have tried before now, and it does not help in the least.’

‘You tried to get rid of it?’ repeated Delagarde, amazed.

‘She did,’ averred Miss Wormley. ‘She cut it all off.’

It was a new voice to the Viscount, and he turned quickly in her direction. One glance at the faded countenance and the discreet grey gown told him exactly who she must be. Moving to her chair, he held out his hand.

‘You are Lady Mary’s duenna, I think?’

‘Miss Wormley, Delagarde,’ confirmed Lady Hester. ‘Our cousin, you know.’

‘Ah, yes. How do you do?’

Miss Wormley had risen quickly to her feet, and now grasped his hand, murmuring a series of half-finished sentences, from which Delagarde was unable to untangle the references to his supposed kindness from her hopes that he had taken no offence. He cut her short with a word of dismissal.

‘But you don’t mean,’ he went on, ‘that Lady Mary really did cut off her hair?’

Miss Wormley nodded vigorously. ‘Indeed, she did. She must have been thirteen at the time.’

‘Worm, don’t!’

‘But I wish to hear it,’ said Delagarde, a hint of amusement in his tone, and a smile for the duenna.

Miss Wormley succumbed. ‘She appeared at the dinner table one evening, quite shorn to pieces. She might almost have taken a razor to her head, except that it was cut too raggedly for that. I was very much shocked, but Lord Shurland could only laugh.’

‘Yes!’ said Maidie bitterly. ‘I have never forgiven Great-uncle Reginald for that. Ever since I have kept it strictly confined—until today. And I wish very much that I had not allowed Lady Hester to persuade me to do otherwise.’

Delagarde rounded on her. ‘My good girl, don’t be stupid! For God’s sake, take off that ridiculous bandeau, and let me see it properly!’

‘She will do no such thing.’ To Maidie’s relief, Lady Hester rose and came to stand beside her protegée. ‘Leave the child alone, Laurie. You can see she is distressed.’

These words caused Delagarde’s glance to move to Maidie’s face. She looked not distressed, but decidedly mutinous. As well she might! What the devil was Aunt Hes playing at, to dress the girl in this fashion? His eyes raked her from head to toe and back again. It was not so much the style of the gown as the bandeau and feathers—and the colour. There was something—yes, repellent!—in the combination of dark blue and silk. Almost he preferred the dowd. This look of sophistication, of mature womanhood, he found distinctly disturbing.

He became aware of Maidie’s wide-eyed gaze upon him, in it both question and—doubt, was it? He frowned. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

She put up her chin. ‘It would take more than your disapproval to offend me. It is immaterial to me what you think of me.’

‘Is it, indeed?’ said Delagarde, instantly up in the boughs. ‘Then allow me to point out that it was not I who sought to place you under my sponsorship. But, since you will have it so, you had better learn to take account of my opinion.’

Maidie’s brows drew together. ‘Well, I will not. I have not asked you to interfere beyond what I specify.’

‘Oh, indeed?’ returned Delagarde dangerously. ‘And what precisely do you specify? I may remind you that I have not yet agreed to do anything at all.’

‘Then why am I here?’

‘You are asking me? How the devil should I know?’

‘Oh, tut, tut!’ interrupted Lady Hester, laughing. ‘Do the two of you mean to be forever at loggerheads?’ She turned apologetically to the duenna, who was looking distressed. ‘Miss Wormley, pray pay no attention. If you had been here this morning and heard them both, you would think nothing of this plain speaking between them.’

‘But Maidie must not—it is quite shocking in her…’ The Worm faded out as her charge’s inquiring grey gaze came around to her face. Daunted, but pursuing, she took up her complaint again. ‘It is not becoming, Maidie, when his lordship has been so magnanimous as to—’

‘But he has not, Worm,’ interrupted Maidie, moving to resume her seat in a chair next to her duenna’s. ‘It is Lady Hester who asked me to come. Lord Delagarde has not ceased to object—quite violently!—and he has been far from magnanimous.’

‘Oh, no doubt it is churlish of me,’ uttered Delagarde in dudgeon, ‘to object to my house being invaded, my peace being disturbed, and my life turned upside-down merely to accommodate the whims of a pert female who has not even the courtesy to make the matter a request. She demands—or, no, it was required, was it not?—that I should arrange her debut. If anyone can give me a reason why I should be magnanimous after that, I shall be delighted to hear it.’

Silence succeeded this tirade. Delagarde, having discharged his spleen, looked from one to the other in growing bewilderment. The Worm looked crushed. If Aunt Hes was not on the point of laughter, he did not know his own relative. As for Maidie herself—was that a hint of apology in her eyes? Before he could quite make up his mind, Maidie spoke.

‘It is—it is quite true,’ she said, in a gruff little voice. ‘I had not thought of it in quite that way. I suppose I need not blame you for being so horrid.’

Delagarde was conscious of a peculiar sensation—as of a melting within him. Thrown quite out of his stride, he directed the oddest look upon her, and began, ‘Maidie, I—’

She cut him short, rising swiftly to her feet. ‘No, it is for me to speak now.’ With difficulty, she overcame a rise of emotion that she did not recognise. ‘I have been selfish. If you feel that you cannot bear to accommodate me, even for a little time, I shall quite understand.’

Before Delagarde could gather his bemused wits at this wholly unlooked-for turn of events, the door opened to admit a footman. Fleetingly, Delagarde wondered at his butler’s absence, but his attention was caught by the man’s words, which had nothing, as he might have expected, to do with dinner.

‘Lord and Lady Shurland,’ announced the footman.