by Anne Gracie
“Here, try these ones on.” George handed her the loosest pair of breeches, and Lily squeezed into them.
“What do you think?”
“They suit you,” George told her. “How do you feel? Comfortable, aren’t they?”
“A bit tight, but otherwise . . .” Lily pranced and wriggled, and pulled some he-man poses that made them all laugh. “They feel delightfully naughty.”
Rose frowned. “Yes, but nobody would ever mistake you for a boy.”
George turned to her in surprise. “What does that matter?”
Rose smiled. “It doesn’t. Now we’d better get changed back into our dresses. If Cal discovers your breeches he’ll probably confiscate them.”
They slipped back into their dresses. “Why are you both wearing black?” George asked. “Your aunt too.”
“We’re in mourning for our father, Aunt Dottie’s brother,” Lily explained.
“And after that we’ll be in mourning for our uncle Henry. Another whole year,” Rose said savagely. She paused. “But Uncle Henry was your father, wasn’t he? So why aren’t you wearing black?”
“I wouldn’t wear mourning for him if you paid me,” George declared. “He was a lazy, selfish pig who broke my mother’s heart. He left me to rot—didn’t tell a soul about me, pretended I didn’t exist and never came near me, not ever in my life that I remember. He didn’t care if I lived or died, so why should I wear mourning for him?”
The two girls exchanged glances. “We didn’t like him, either,” Rose said.
“But you have to wear black for such a close relative,” Lily said. “Society expects it. People think you’re heartless and disrespectful if you don’t.”
George shrugged. “I don’t care. It would be hypocritical of me to wear black for a man I despise, and I’m not doing it. What do I care about society anyway? I never asked to come here—he forced me—your brother, I mean. Besides, I look terrible in black. Like a crow.”
Rose and Lily looked at each other. “Do you think we look like crows?” Lily asked.
George gave them each a thoughtful glance. “Not her.” She jerked her chin at Rose. “Black is a good foil for her coloring, that golden hair and that peaches-and-cream complexion and those blue, blue eyes. But you and me, Lily, with our dark hair and pale skin and gray eyes, we need a bit of color to liven us up.”
“I know.” Lily gave a dejected sigh. “I’m so fed up with looking like a crow. I don’t even like crows. They’re so, so . . .”
“Mournful,” Rose supplied, and they all laughed.
George went to the door, opened it and looked out.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Rose asked. “It’s the third time you’ve looked out into the hallway. Are you expecting something? The rest of your luggage, perhaps?”
“I don’t have any more,” George told her absently. “No, I’m waiting for my dog.”
“Your dog! You have a dog? What sort is it? Where is it? Does Aunt Dottie know?”
“His name is Finn, he’s an Irish wolfhound, and a complete darling. Your brother refused to let me bring him, but Finn followed me for miles and miles until he—your brother—had to give in and let him into the coach. As to whether Aunt Dottie knows, I think he was going to tell her about Finn after we went upstairs. Does she like dogs?”
“I don’t know,” Rose said. “As far as we know, she’s never had one.”
“If I can’t have Finn,” George said, “I’m not staying here.”
“Don’t worry,” Rose told her. “Aunt Dottie is an absolute love. I’m sure she’ll let you keep your dog. Where is he, George?”
“Hawkins, your brother’s coachman, took him somewhere—I don’t know where—to be given a bath. He’s to bring him to me when he’s clean and dry. But that was hours ago, and I’m getting worried.” She looked out into the corridor again.
“But Hawkins won’t bring him up here,” Rose said. “A coachman doesn’t come upstairs. He’ll have put your dog in the backyard or the—”
But George was gone, running down the stairs. The others followed. “Through the kitchen,” Rose said. “This way.”
They burst into the kitchen and came to a dead stop.
“Is this here your animal, miss?” Cook demanded. She gestured angrily. Finn sat over near a big square table in the center of the room, looking ridiculously clean and unbelievably innocent. “I don’t ’old with beasts in my kitchen. Nobody told me we was getting a dog. What am I supposed to do with it—look at ’im, the miserable great lummox.”
“I’m so sorry,” George began. “I didn’t know that Hawkins—”
Rose took her arm and squeezed it meaningfully. “Don’t say a word,” she murmured.
“Are you sure it’s even a dog?” Cook continued. “Looks more like a ruddy great ’orse to me. And who’s going to feed it, I ask you? A great big thing like that, well, it’ll eat us out of house and home, I reckon.”
Finn laid his muzzle on the table and heaved a huge, tragic sigh.
“Well, will you look at that,” Cook exclaimed crossly. “He’s sittin’ down and his head is higher than the table. And will you just look at them eyes.”
They all looked at his eyes.
“Have you ever seen such a miserable-looking creature,” Cook stormed. “He might smell like a nosegay, but why anyone would want to bring a great whiskery, clumsy creature—”
“He’s not clumsy—” George began indignantly.
“Shhh,” Rose and Lily hissed from either side of her.
“—like that into a decent God-fearing gentlewoman’s house, I don’t know,” Cook continued. “And as for who’s going to feed him, I know full well who that’s going to fall on, oh, yes I do.”
“I’ll feed—”
“Oh, I know you young ladies are always full of good intentions, but it’s poor old Cook who has to make sure everyone is fed—and this poor creature is half starved, I’ll be bound.”
“He’s not, he’s—”
“I’ve already given him the gravy beef that was for tomorrow’s pie, and a marrow bone that was to go for soup, and he’s eaten all the leftover sausage rolls—and just look at him!”
George looked. Finn looked disgustingly well satisfied to her. He turned his mournful never-been-fed-orphan look back on Cook.
“All right, then, just one little piece of the venison we’re havin’ on Friday, but that’s the last you’re getting from me!” Cook bustled off to cut a slice of venison from the haunch hanging in the larder.
George turned an amazed look on the other two, who were convulsed with muffled giggles. “She likes him?”
They nodded. “Whenever Cook starts scolding like that, it means she cares and is trying to hide it,” Lily whispered.
Rose nodded. “She was exactly like that with the butcher, and they got married last year. That’s why she doesn’t live in anymore—she lives with the butcher, just down the street.”
“A butcher? She lives with a butcher.” George couldn’t believe her luck.
Lily nodded. “There’ll be no shortage of meat and bones for Finn, that’s for certain.”
They waited until Finn had devoured the venison and been scolded for his manners. “Two gulps? What do you call that, my lad! Disgraceful!” Cook told him. “Now be off with you and don’t you come begging around my kitchen anymore. I’ll bring you a nice meaty bone for breakfast.”
They took Finn upstairs. George couldn’t believe how clean he looked. His rough gray coat even looked soft, though of course it wasn’t. Remembering Cook’s nosegay comment, she bent down and sniffed him, then burst out laughing. “He smells of lavender. Oh, dear, good thing we’re in the city, eh, Finn—those country dogs would make such fun of you. Now, come and meet the girls.”
Finn, like the gentleman he was, sat and shook their hands politel
y, then, formalities over, he heaved a satisfied sigh and sprawled bonelessly out in front of the fire.
Chapter Nine
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old Time is still a-flying. And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.
—ROBERT HERRICK, TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME
The next morning when the girls came down to breakfast, Aunt Dottie looked at Georgiana’s blue dress and pursed her lips. “Is that all you have to wear, my dear?”
She nodded. “More or less.”
“Then first thing after breakfast the girls and I will take you shopping! Not only is that dress sadly outmoded, it’s far too bright a color, given your state of mourning.”
“I won’t wear black!” Georgiana declared. “Not for a man who—”
“Eat your egg, niece,” Cal snapped.
“But—”
He shot her a hard, silencing look and turned to his aunt. “Georgiana is correct, Aunt Dottie—she won’t be wearing black for Henry.”
“What?” All three girls gasped.
“But she must,” Aunt Dottie exclaimed. “It would be quite outrageous of her to wear colors with her father so recently dead.”
“Henry’s will makes it quite clear that nobody should mourn him.”
Georgiana looked at him sharply but said nothing.
“Henry’s will?” Aunt Dottie said.
“The will makes it quite clear that nobody should wear black for Henry. And as his brother and his heir—and as head of the Rutherford family—I must insist that you respect it, difficult though you may find it to put off your blacks before time.”
Cal buttered a piece of toast while the news sank in. Aunt Dottie might not like it, but she would respect the orders of the head of the family. She always had. And she’d make it clear to everyone in society that their lack of mourning was by Henry’s will and Cal’s orders.
Nobody would blame Aunt Dottie or the girls. They would blame the autocratic Earl of Ashendon. Who, with any luck, would be somewhere on the Continent.
Cal was very aware of Georgiana’s intense gaze boring silently into him, but he ignored her. She’d read Henry’s will. She knew there was nothing in it about not wearing black.
But there was nothing at all in the will about her, either—and that was what had decided Cal.
He hadn’t said that Henry’s will had forbidden them to wear mourning; he’d said nobody should mourn him. A small but vital difference.
If his niece questioned it, he would mention a later will. But judging by her silence, she wasn’t going to question him at all. And why would she? She got what she wanted.
“Does that mean we get to put off our blacks too?” Lily asked, her eyes sparkling.
Cal nodded. “In a week, it will be a year since Papa died and after that, yes, you may return to dressing as you used to, in white and colors and whatever.”
The two sisters exchanged glances. “And go to parties?” Rose asked.
“Of course.”
“And balls?”
“Yes, yes, whatever is suitable. You shall make your come-out next season.”
There was a short, shocked silence. “You mean this spring? The season that starts in three months’ time?” Rose almost whispered it.
Cal nodded. “Yes. Pass the marmalade, if you please.”
“Which one of us will come out first?” Lily asked worriedly. As the youngest, she would expect to go last.
“All of you together,” Cal said.
At that there was a babble of exclamations and excited speculation. Shopping would have to be done: morning dresses, walking dresses, ball dresses ordered, and from a London modiste—nobody in Bath was sufficiently fashionable—and pelisses, slippers, hats, gloves, fans. The lists grew.
Cal ate his toast and drank his coffee, well pleased with the result. The prospect of a London season would distract the girls from further mischief for the foreseeable future. Now all he had to do was find someone to launch them. Aunt Dottie would come, of course, but she’d be the first to admit she wasn’t up to the rigors of a London season.
Aunt Agatha might not be willing to come to Bath to help him, but introducing three pretty nieces to the ton in their first London season was exactly the kind of thing she’d enjoy—though she’d be sure to extract her pound of flesh from Cal.
It would be worth it.
Between Aunt Agatha and Aunt Dottie they would manage, as long as Cal provided them with a suitable chaperone who would keep the girls in check and escort them to the more everyday events. And he knew exactly who that would be.
And once he had all that organized, he could leave.
“We will still need to purchase suitable clothing for George while we are here in Bath, and until the mourning period for your father—her grandfather—is up,” Aunt Dottie pointed out when the first excitement had died down.
“Do I have to—?”
Cal cut his niece off. “Purchase a wardrobe of black gowns for only a bare week’s wear?” Aunt Dottie hated waste.
Aunt Dottie pondered that. “I suppose she could wear some of Rose’s dresses. They’re much the same height.”
“A perfect compromise,” Cal said quickly, with a hard look at Georgiana to shut her up. “Quite unexceptional to wear black for the next week or so as a mark of respect for her grandfather. And perhaps you could buy something in half mourning—shades of lilac and lavender. You always looked lovely in purple.”
“It’s very irregular.” Aunt Dottie still wasn’t happy about it.
“Of course you will explain that it’s on my instructions, as head of the family, out of respect for Henry.” Lack of respect.
She gave him a thoughtful look, then nodded. “Respect for Henry—yes. That would be acceptable. Well, then, come along, girls, fetch your coats and hats. And Rose dear, find George something more suitable to wear. We’re going shopping.”
* * *
A mound of correspondence had accumulated in the short time Cal had been away. He took it into the library and sorted it into estate business—a towering heap—and personal—a single scrawled, hand-delivered note. Nothing from Radcliffe, dammit, but a letter from Phipps had confirmed he’d obtained Henry’s will and found it substantially unchanged from the copy Cal had already seen. There was no mention of Georgiana.
Cal had just broken the seal on the note when a soft knock on the door made him look up. It was Georgiana, a slender waif dressed all in black with a black hat and black gloves.
“What is it?” he asked warily.
“That wasn’t in my father’s will. About no mourning.”
He shrugged. “Different will. Your copy was an old one. I have a copy of the latest one here.” The fewer people who knew the truth, the better.
She studied his face, unconvinced, but before she could ask him anything else—like had her wretched father remembered her in any way at all, poor child—Rose poked her head in the door. “Come on, George, we’re going shopping—for colors. Bye, Cal.”
“Shopping.” George grimaced good-naturedly, then gave Cal a smile and a friendly nod of good-bye. It was the first time they’d been in any kind of accord, and he found himself smiling as he returned to his correspondence.
The note was from his friend Galbraith, inviting Cal—actually begging Cal—to join him at York House that night, for dinner and commiseration. He didn’t say what the commiseration concerned, but Cal could join the dots.
He penned a swift acceptance and rang for Logan to deliver it to Galbraith at York House. Then he turned to the documents concerning the Ashendon estate and grimly began to work his way through the pile, making notes as he went.
His mood grew blacker. There was a huge backlog of estate matters to be attended to. Their father had been meticulous, a hard taskmaster who’d left a huge and complicated estate
in apple-pie order. Henry had simply let things grind to a halt.
But it would be no hardship to go to Ashendon and see to things personally. Three names on his list were from Oxfordshire.
Some time in the afternoon he heard the girls and Aunt Dottie return home. From the sounds of laughter and excited girlish conversation, he gathered they’d a good day.
Cal kept working.
An hour later Rose entered, carrying a tray containing a pot of coffee and a plate of sandwiches. “Cook thought you’d be hungry, but Logan said you wouldn’t want to be disturbed, so I said I’d bring it in.”
Cal thanked her, picked up a sandwich in his left hand and kept working.
She loitered, twirling a golden curl around her finger. “Thanks, Cal, for telling Aunt Dottie to get us something in lilac. Even though it’s still a mourning color, lilac suits all of us, you know—me, Lily and George. We’ve ordered the prettiest dresses. And bought some divine hats.”
“I’m glad.” He had no idea about colors and what would suit whom, but he was pleased the girls were happy for a change. He picked up the next document.
“Cal,” she said in a soft, coaxing voice. “You said we weren’t to go out in the evening without an escort.”
He gave her a narrow look. “Yes?”
“And we haven’t—don’t worry—we’ve been ever so good, I promise. But there’s a night fair down on the common tonight. Could we—I mean, would you take us? There are jugglers and fire-eaters and tightrope walkers, and—”
Lily poked her head around the door to add, “And a puppet show and coconut shies and toffee apples and a menagerie and stalls selling—”
Cal held up his hands to stop the flow of enticements. “Sorry, not tonight, girls. I have an engagement. Another time, perhaps.”
Their faces fell. “Oh, but it’s only on for one night.”
“There will be other fairs.”
“But—”
“Girls, you’ve just been shopping with your aunt and purchased the first colors you’ve worn—legitimately worn, I mean—in a year. And you have a new niece to get to know. Isn’t that enough to keep you happy for the evening?”
