“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. “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.”

“And what precisely do you specify?” Delagarde returned dangerously. “I may remind you that I have not yet agreed to anything at all.”

“Then why am I here?” asked Maidie.

“You are asking me? How the devil should I know?”

Misfit Maid
Elizabeth Bailey

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELIZABETH BAILEY

grew up in Malawi, returning to England to plunge into the theater. After many happy years, she finally turned from “dabbling” to serious writing. She finds it more satisfying, for she is in control of everything: scripts, design, direction and the portrayal of every character. She lives in Surrey.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter One

T he sensation came of stark disbelief. But Lord Delagarde was only aware of blankness invading his mind. To steady himself, he carefully gripped the mantel with neatly manicured fingers. Resting his other hand on his hip, he examined the offending apparition seated on the gilded chair at the other side of the fireplace, so boldly confronting him in his own front parlour.

She did not look like the daughter of an Earl. The green pelisse and a glimpse of some dark stuff gown beneath were frankly dowdy, and no female of distinction would be seen dead in such a bonnet. Poke-fronted and unadorned, its bilious mustard hue framed an unremarkable face, out of which a pair of grey eyes regarded him with an unblinking gaze that was, in his present delicate state, singularly unnerving.

What she had said seemed so incomprehensible that he wondered if perhaps his ears had deceived him. ‘I don’t think I quite understood you. Once again, if you please.’

‘Certainly.’ Her voice was clear and light, and free from any trace of consciousness. ‘I require you to arrange my debut.’

‘You require me…to arrange your debut,’ he said slowly, aware that the words must make sense, if only he could shake off this feeling of unreality. ‘Yes, I thought that was it.’

‘It was,’ she agreed, adding in a matter-of-fact way, ‘So that I may be settled in life.’

‘Settled…’ He put a hand to his head, conscious of a slight ache. There was, he supposed vaguely, a faint hope that the entire scene was a figment of his imagination. Perhaps he had not really been roused from his bed at a hideously early hour, been obliged to scramble into his clothes and come downstairs—unfortified by anything more substantial than a few sips of hot chocolate—to be faced with an unorthodox visit from a female of unknown origin, who threw at him this preposterous demand. She required—required!—him to arrange her debut.

Yes, he must be dreaming. Or else last night’s imbibing had unhinged his brain, subjecting him to this extraordinary hallucination. It spoke again, rousing Delagarde from his abstraction.

‘You are not dreaming,’ it said.

Delagarde had not been aware of speaking aloud. ‘I must be,’ he protested, ‘or else I have run mad.’

The hallucination looked him over with a wide-eyed innocence belied by its next words. ‘It is more likely that you are suffering from a morning head. Be assured that my appearance here has nothing to do with the liquor in which you overindulged last night.’

Delagarde blinked, and regarded her with rising indignation. ‘Are you insinuating that I was inebriated?’

‘Weren’t you?’

‘No, I was n—’ He broke off, resolutely shutting his mouth. Why was he responding to such a question? He glared at the girl. ‘Even if I was, it is no possible concern of yours.’

‘No,’ she agreed, taking the wind out of his sails.

‘Then what possessed you to mention it?’ he demanded belligerently.

‘To help you.’

‘Help me?’ Blank again.

‘To show you that you are neither mad, nor dreaming,’ she explained.

This time Delagarde put both hands to his swimming head. ‘We seem to be going round in circles,’ he complained.

‘There is nothing complicated about the matter, as you will realise when you are more yourself.’

Which, Delagarde reflected, might not be for some little time. He began to wish he had not allowed his valet’s disapproving comments to pique his interest. The young female, Liss had reported in fastidious tones, had announced herself to be one Lady Mary Hope, and had declared that she would not leave the premises until she had seen Lord Delagarde.

‘Why the devil did Lowick let this female enter the house in the first place?’ Delagarde had demanded, bleary-eyed.

It appeared that it was the porter, new to the Viscount’s service, who had taken this fatal step. To his lordship’s irritable inquiry as to why the butler had not then shown her the door, the valet had replied haughtily, ‘The young female having been allowed in, my lord, and taking up a peculiarly intransigent attitude, expressing herself in such terms as no real lady—’ He had caught himself up, and coughed delicately. ‘Suffice it, my lord, that even Mr Lowick did not feel he could force her to leave without laying violent hands upon her. Which, my lord, he was loath to do, in the remote contingency that her claim of identity might be proven.’

Which it was not, Delagarde remembered suddenly. He frowned at the girl. ‘How can I be certain that you are indeed Lady Mary Hope?’

‘Who else should I be?’ she countered.

‘How the devil should I know?’ retorted Delagarde, pardonably annoyed. ‘You might be anyone. An adventuress…a schemer, imposter—I have no idea.’

‘Humdudgeon!’ snorted his visitor in a most unladylike way. ‘As a member of the peerage, you know well enough who is who. I am obviously related to the Earl of Shurland, if I am a Hope.’

‘If you are,’ Delagarde retorted, stressing the ‘if’. ‘And if you are Lady Mary, I suppose you to have been fathered by Shurland—or his predecessor. But I have yet to see proof of your identity.’

‘Oh, if that is all,’ came the airy response, ‘I can furnish you with proofs enough very easily.’

‘Well, where are they?’

‘I can readily bring them—after we have settled everything.’

Was that a hint of challenge in her eye? Delagarde made an effort to shake off his creeping lethargy and take control of this absurd situation. Was he to be intimidated by an impertinent chit? He did not think so.

‘My good girl, there is nothing to settle,’ he told her in his loftiest tone. ‘If this is some sort of trickery, you have mistaken your man. Whether you are, or are not, Lady Mary Hope, I have not the remotest intention—’

‘Pray do not let us waste any more time on that matter,’ she interrupted impatiently, not in the least crushed. ‘You had as well accept my identity without further ado. However, I dare say it will be wisest for you to address me as Maidie—for everyone who knows me well uses my pet name—which will help to make people believe us to be very well acquainted.’

‘I have no desire to make anyone believe it,’ objected Delagarde, refusing to avail himself of this permission. ‘And I am far from accepting your identity.’

‘I can’t think why. You must see very well that I am indeed Lady Mary.’

‘I see nothing of the kind,’ declared Delagarde, losing what little patience he had. ‘All I see is a strange young female, who comes to my house—at, I may add, the most unseasonable hour—’

‘It is past ten o’clock!’

‘—unseasonable hour, I say, for visiting. And while we are on the subject, it may interest you to know that any female with the smallest pretension to gentility would not dream of visiting a gentleman—’

‘She would if she had my circumstances.’

‘—in his own house, which, if you were indeed Lady Mary Hope, you would be quite aware is the height of impropriety.’

‘I am aware of it,’ Maidie said, ‘although I have never been able to understand why.’

‘It is obvious why,’ Delagarde snapped. ‘Quite apart from the damage to your reputation, you are alone and unprotected.’

‘Do you mean to assault me?’

‘Of course I don’t mean to assault you!’

‘Then why are we discussing it?’

‘Oh, good God!’

Unable to decide which of several infuriated utterances to make first, Delagarde paced about for a moment or two until he remembered what he had begun to say. He turned on the girl.

‘All this is quite beside the point. What I have been trying to impress upon you is that it is utterly unheard of for a complete stranger to walk unannounced into a gentleman’s residence and throw a ridiculous demand at his head.’

Maidie raised her brows. ‘What is ridiculous about it?’

Delagarde threw up his hands. ‘If you can’t see that, then you are the one who is mad—which I am beginning to suspect is indeed the case. Arrange for your debut, indeed! Even if I had any idea of doing so—which I emphatically do not—it would be quite impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I am not equipped to do so. What were you thinking of? That I should launch you from this house?’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not!’ Delagarde felt an almost irresistible urge to clutch at his hair. ‘You don’t mean to say you really were thinking of such a thing? Good God, girl, I am a bachelor! You need a respectable female to sponsor you—a chaperon.’

Maidie sank back in her chair. ‘Is that all that is troubling you? You need have—’

‘No, it is not all!’

‘—no further concern,’ she said calmly, ignoring his interruption. ‘I have thought of all that. I have brought my own duenna. She is your cousin, so there can be no impropriety in us both staying in your house.’

‘Staying in my—!’ For a moment or two, Delagarde regarded her speechlessly. Then he sank into the chair on the other side of the fireplace and dropped his head in his hands.

Maidie watched him with interest. He was not at all what she had expected. She had anticipated that there might be a trifle of explanation required, but not to have her identity called in question. Why Lord Delagarde should make such a piece of work about a simple matter she failed to comprehend.

He did not look obtuse. Quite the contrary. One might not call him handsome, but it was a strong countenance—if a trifle jaded at present; she could not think he had always such a pallor—with a firm line to the jaw, a straight nose and a broad brow from which dark locks waved back into a long crop. Whether the dishevelled look of this style was deliberate, or due to the gentleman’s current state, Maidie could not say. He certainly had the air of a man of fashion. She knew little of such things, it was true, but even to the untutored eye, there was an unmistakable elegance to the cut of the cream breeches and the blue coat.

From the point of view of appearances, he would certainly do, and his establishment was eminently suited to her purpose. A house in the best part of town, with a deliberate decor influencing even this small room, the simplicity of which impressed her. Nothing elaborate. Warm-shaded wallpaper, its apricot picked out in the faint stripe of the cushioned seats. Maidie approved the slim lines of the furniture, the plain brown carpet, and the sparse decoration to the mouldings about the fireplace.

She was less satisfied to have discovered Lord Delagarde to be a creature of uncertain temperament. It did not augur well for her plans. But it was possible that he was not always so. Had her timing, perhaps, been unfortunate? He had been abed on her arrival, and had kept her waiting quite forty minutes—really, could one take that long to dress?—and the traces in his face of a late and dissipated night had been evident to the meanest intelligence. Even Great-uncle had become crotchety of a morning after indulging too freely in his favourite port. Perhaps Lord Delagarde might respond more readily if his head were not aching so badly.

Maidie leaned forward a little, and addressed him in a tone of solicitude. ‘Shall I send for some coffee?’

Delagarde started. God, was she still here? For a brief moment of silence, in which he had allowed his seething brain to subside a little, he had almost succeeded in forgetting her unwelcome presence. Dropping his hands, he gripped the wooden arms of his chair and braced himself to look at her again.

What had she said? ‘Coffee?’

‘I would strongly advise it. My great-uncle used to say that it was the best cure for your sort of condition.’

Delagarde opened his mouth to consign her great-uncle to the devil, and instead drew a steadying breath. Be calm, he told himself resolutely, be calm.

‘I do not want any coffee,’ he said carefully.

‘I assure you—’

‘No!’ A pause, then pointedly, ‘Thank you.’

She relaxed back. ‘As you wish.’

Resolutely, Delagarde sat up. ‘Now then, Lady Mary, let us be sensible.’

Come, this was an advance, decided Maidie eagerly. He had used her name at least. ‘Indeed, I wish for nothing better.’

‘What you wish for is quite out of the question,’ Delagarde returned. ‘Surely there must be some other person than myself more properly suited to the task of bringing you out?’

Maidie resolutely shook her head. ‘There is no one. You, Lord Delagarde, are my nearest male relative—other than Shurland—and it is nothing less than your duty.’

‘But I don’t know you from Adam! As for being your nearest male relative, I have no recollection of even the remotest connection with the Hopes.’

She raised her brows. ‘Who said anything about the Hopes? The relationship is on my mother’s side. She was one of the Burloynes.’

‘I have never heard of them,’ said Delagarde, not without relief. ‘Which proves they can have nothing to do with the Delagarde family.’

Maidie clicked her tongue. ‘Did I say so?’

‘You said…’ Delagarde began, and paused, realising that she had set his mind in such a confusion that he could no longer untangle one thing she had said from another. ‘It matters little what you said. The point is—’

‘The point is,’ she cut in, ‘that even if you refuse to recognise the relationship, you cannot escape the obligation.’

Delagarde stared at her with a good deal of suspicion. What new ploy was this? ‘What obligation?’

Maidie shifted in her seat and produced the reticule that had been hidden under her pelisse. Searching within it, she brought forth a folded sheet of yellowed parchment, upon which he glimpsed the remains of a broken seal. Maidie got up and held it out to him.

‘This will explain it.’ As he rose automatically to take it from her and open it out, she added, ‘It is from your mother. You see there the name of Mrs Egginton, to whom it is addressed? She lived nearby and very thoughtfully befriended me, and sent to Lady Delagarde after my father died. You will notice that Lady Delagarde promises to lend me countenance when I should at last come out.’

Delagarde ran his eyes rapidly down the sheet. It was indeed a letter written by his mother to this effect, for he recognised the hand. But what obligation did this constitute?

‘What possible reason could this Egginton woman have for choosing to batten upon my mother?’

‘Your mother was born Lady Dorinda Otterburn, was she not?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Well, then. The Burloyne connection comes through the Otterburns. So you see, we are related.’

Delagarde saw nothing of the sort. The name of Burloyne had no meaning for him, although he had to admit to unfamiliarity with all the ramifications of his mother’s family. But he was not going to waste time finding them out.

‘The relationship,’ he said firmly, ‘if there is any—which I take leave to doubt—must be remote in the extreme.’ He was still studying the letter. ‘What is this offer my mother mentions to send someone to live with you?’

‘But I told you that my duenna is your cousin. Have you not been listening?’

Delagarde found himself contemplating the desirability of boxing her ears. He restrained himself with difficulty, and once more bade himself be calm.

‘Lady Mary, while it may prove to be out of my power—regrettably!—to repudiate some sort of relationship with you, allow me to draw to your attention that this letter is over ten years old. Moreover, my mother has been in her grave these many years.’

‘I know that,’ agreed Maidie patiently, ‘and therefore the obligation devolves upon you.’ She retrieved the letter and pointed to one sentence. ‘You see here that your mother even states that you may be counted upon to aid the project.’

‘Good God, girl, I was barely eighteen at the time!’ He thrust away, throwing up a protective hand as if she might threaten him. ‘Take the wretched thing away before I rip it to shreds! It has no bearing on the case. I knew nothing of the matter then, and I wish to know less of it now. In any event, my circumstances hardly make me a suitable person to lend you countenance. And if you think it escaped me that you mentioned Shurland when you gave me this cock-and-bull tale of being your nearest male relative, you are mistaken. So answer me this, if you please: why cannot he bring you out?’

‘Because he is dead,’ stated Maidie doggedly.

‘He can’t be dead,’ protested Delagarde, pacing in some agitation. ‘He only took over the title a year or so ago.’

‘I meant my great-uncle, the fifth Earl,’ she explained. ‘He was my guardian.’

‘Then why didn’t he arrange for your debut?’

‘Because he was eccentric.’

‘Evidently it runs in the family.’

Maidie merely gazed at him with her wide-eyed look. She folded the letter and replaced it in her reticule. She then reseated herself and looked up at him again. As calmly as if she owned the place! Delagarde eyed her in frustrated silence for a moment or two. He had half a mind to ring for Lowick and have him forcibly remove the wretched female, but he supposed such a course was ineligible. He was, after all, a gentleman. But he was not going to accede to her nonsensical demand.

He resumed his post by the mantelpiece. ‘What about this female who befriended you, the Egginton woman?’

‘She died, too.’

‘She would! Well, the other one, then.’

‘Which other one?’

‘Your duenna. Don’t dare try to kill her off as well, because you have already threatened to bring her to live here.’

For the first time, a smile broke across Maidie’s face, and she laughed. ‘What, poor Worm bring me out? Why, she has no connections, apart from you. She is one of your poor relations. I dare say your mother had it in mind to settle her, poor thing, when she suggested that the Worm came to me.’

Delagarde was so surprised by the change that a smile wrought in her countenance that he forgot to ask for an explanation of this odd name. It was a countenance alight, the dowdiness given off by her unfashionable apparel fading into the background. He did not realise that he was staring until the smile vanished and Maidie’s brows rose again, widening her eyes.

‘Are you thinking that there might be some other female relative I could turn to? I assure you there is not. I am wholly dependent upon you.’

This snapped his attention back to the matter at hand, and he frowned. ‘No, you are not. You have no real claim upon me at all. If all you say is true, then the charge of you falls not upon me, but upon Shurland. And don’t tell me he cannot bring you out, because I know very well he is married.’

Maidie put up her chin. ‘Well, I do tell you so. The plain truth is that Adela cannot abide me, and I cannot abide her.’

‘Is Adela his wife?’

‘Yes, she is, and we quarrelled.’

‘I wonder why I am not surprised.’

‘Besides,’ continued Maidie, unheeding, ‘Adela treated me abominably until I came of age. Only then, as if nothing had happened, she began fawning all over me, and determining to bring me out.’

‘Then why the devil,’ demanded Delagarde, exasperated, ‘have you come to me?’

‘Because,’ stated Maidie in steely tones, ‘I am determined never to marry Eustace Silsoe.’

Delagarde’s head began to reel again. ‘Who in the world is Eustace Silsoe? Why should you marry him if you don’t want to?’

‘He is that hateful woman’s brother. Nothing will do for her but that he should succeed with me, and that is all the reason she has for offering to bring me out.’

‘Just one moment,’ begged Delagarde, sitting down again. ‘Are you telling me that you are trying to involve me in this preposterous and impossible scheme you have concocted, when you have a perfectly acceptable alternative, only so that you can escape a marriage you don’t want?’

‘Yes,’ Maidie said, as if there was nothing at all out of the way.

‘But—’ Words failed him.

‘Adela and Eustace think they can trap me, but I am going to spike their guns,’ she went on in a tone of gritty determination. ‘And you are to help me. I have thought it all out. We will say that you are my trustee, and that I cannot marry without your consent.’

Delagarde rose again. ‘We will say nothing of the kind. The whole enterprise is unnecessary, as well as ridiculous. I will have nothing whatsoever to do with such a masquerade.’

He sounded so determined that Maidie began to fear, for the first time, that her mission might be in vain. Consternation filled her, showing in her face as she got up again and took a hasty step towards him.

‘But you must,’ she uttered desperately. ‘Your mother promised me.’

‘My mother, as I have pointed out, is dead.’

‘Which is why I have come to you.’

Delagarde threw up a warning finger. ‘We are going in circles again.’

Maidie came a step closer, reproach filling the wide-eyed gaze. ‘Lord Delagarde, I never dreamed you would refuse me!’

‘Then you must be off your head—as I would be were I to agree to participate in this monstrous scheme,’ he averred, retreating from her.

‘But I am depending on you!’

‘Well, don’t,’ he advised in a harassed sort of way. ‘You will have to think of something else.’

‘It is such a little thing to do for me.’

‘Little!’

‘And you will be well compensated, I assure you.’

‘For living with you? Impossible! I dare say I should count myself fortunate not to end in Bedlam!’

The door opened, and a glance over his shoulder showed him a welcome interruption. Entering the room was an elderly lady, fashionably attired in a demure version of the season’s new high-waisted gowns, a figured green muslin with half-sleeves overlaid with a light woollen shawl of darker hue. A lace-edged cap like a turban bedecked with ribbons and feathers did not quite conceal her hair, which was dark like Delagarde’s, though streaked through with grey. She held herself well, and Maidie immediately noted a resemblance to the Viscount in her softer features, although she looked to be readier to laugh.

Delagarde seized upon her gratefully, uttering in despairing accents, ‘Aunt Hes, thank God! Kindly inform this lunatic female that I cannot possibly lend her countenance and become her fraudulent trustee.’

‘Gracious, what in the world do you mean?’ demanded this lady in astonished accents, looking from him to Maidie and back again. ‘Who is this? What is she doing here? Is she alone?’

‘My own questions exactly,’ asserted Delagarde, ‘and if you can get any more sense out of her than I did, you may call me a dunderhead.’

Maidie found herself the target of two pairs of eyes, the one popping with questions, the other registering a grim satisfaction. She drew a resolute breath, thrusting down the most unpleasant feelings engendered by Lord Delagarde’s persistent rejection. She refused to be put off. She had come this far. She was not going to be turned away from her purpose now. A sudden thought struck her. If this lady was Delagarde’s aunt, and she was already living in the house, then there must be an end to Delagarde’s scruples.

‘But this is excellent!’ she uttered, with characteristic frankness, moving forward to grasp the elder lady’s hand. ‘You are his aunt?’

‘Great-aunt,’ amended the other, surprise in her voice.

‘And you live here!’ Maidie turned enthusiastically to Delagarde. ‘I don’t understand why you were making such a fuss. What possible objection can there be to my living here in these circumstances?’

‘There is every objection. Besides, my aunt does not reside here. She is here only on a short visit.’ He added on a note of sarcasm, ‘Sorry as I am to disappoint you.’

‘But you may prolong your visit, may you not?’ asked Maidie eagerly of the other lady. ‘I cannot think that the business will take very long. Indeed, I hope it won’t. I am as eager to remove back to the country as Lord Delagarde is to get rid of me. But I won’t go back before I am settled.’

‘You see?’ Delagarde said, crossing the room to take up his post at the mantelpiece again. ‘Mad as a March hare!’ He looked across at Maidie. ‘You are wasting your time. You need not think that my aunt, who is bound to be shocked by your conduct, will support you. She will undoubtedly advise me to send you packing.’

‘I can speak for myself, I thank you, Laurie,’ announced the older woman firmly.

Her attention caught, Maidie’s glance went from Delagarde to his aunt, who was studying her with some interest. She stared back boldly, thinking hard. Delagarde seemed to be adamant, she was making no headway there. But hope was reviving fast. If she could only bring this lady round to her side! She was not, she told herself, a schemer. Not like Adela, not in the true sense of the word. Only what else could she have done? She would have preferred to set up house on her own. It was what she had planned to do, with Worm as chaperon. But that scheme would not do, as she had been brought to realise. She had been obliged to fall back upon convention, and for that she needed help. It had not entered her head that her designated assistant would decline to give that help. Now what was she to do? She made up her mind.

Addressing herself to Delagarde’s aunt, she said, ‘I have not properly introduced myself. I am Lady Mary Hope, daughter of the late John Hope, fourth Earl of Shurland; and great-niece of the late Reginald Hope, fifth Earl of Shurland, and my erstwhile guardian. I am related to Lord Delagarde through my mother, who was a Burloyne.’

‘Have we any relations called Burloyne, Aunt?’ asked Delagarde. ‘You ought to know. She claims it comes through the Otterburns.’

The elder lady nodded. ‘It does, indeed. Although it is some few generations back.’

‘I thought as much. Far too remote to be of consequence.’

Maidie brightened. ‘Are you an Otterburn, then, ma’am?’

‘I am Lady Hester Otterburn. Dorinda—that is, Delagarde’s mother—was my niece.’ To Maidie’s relief, Lady Hester smiled and touched her arm with a friendly hand. ‘What is it you want, child?’

Drawing a breath, Maidie plunged in again. ‘I want Lord Delagarde to arrange my debut.’

For a moment, Lady Hester looked at her with almost as great a blankness as had Delagarde. Then, to Maidie’s bewilderment, she burst out laughing. Lord Delagarde’s reluctance to oblige her was at least comprehensible. But this? She watched as the elder lady betook herself to Delagarde’s lately vacated chair and sat down.

‘Forgive me,’ she uttered, as soon as she could speak, ‘but that is the funniest idea I have heard in years.’

‘I don’t see why,’ Maidie said, pained.

‘Nor do I,’ agreed Delagarde, regarding his aunt with disfavour. ‘What the devil do you mean by it, Aunt Hes?’

Lady Hester bubbled over again. ‘The picture of you, Laurie, in the role of nursemaid to an ingenue. Really, it does not bear imagination! What in the world possessed you to think of such a thing, child? Laurie has no more notion of how to steer a young girl through the social shoals than the man in the moon.’

‘There is no man in the moon,’ Maidie said, vaguely irritated.

‘This is typical,’ commented Delagarde, gesturing towards her. ‘Her whole conversation consists of nonsequitur statements.’ To Maidie, he added, ‘We know there is no man in the moon. What is that to the purpose?’

Maidie tutted. ‘It is a foolish expression, which only shows how little people know of the cosmos.’

Both Lady Hester and Delagarde stared at her. Maidie eyed them both back, frowning. Had she said something out of the way? She knew she had been too little in company to appreciate the niceties of etiquette. Adela was always complaining of her lack of social graces. There had been some spite in that, but perhaps there was more ground for the complaint than Maidie had thought. Well, it mattered little. She had scant interest in society, and if only she could get this business over and done with, she would not be in need of social graces.

‘May we return to the point of this discussion?’ she asked, her tone a trifle frigid.

‘By all means,’ said Lady Hester amiably. ‘Do tell me why you hit upon poor Laurie for the task of introducing you.’

‘It was not by chance, you know.’ Maidie dug once more into her reticule, and brought out the letter, which she gave to Lady Hester. ‘This is from Lady Delagarde.’

‘Thank you. Do sit down, child.’

Thus adjured, Maidie resumed her former chair as Lord Delagarde walked across and took a seat on a little sofa that faced the fire. She eyed him surreptitiously, aware that he was watching her. Not, she dared say, with any degree of approval. Not that she wanted his approval. If there had been any other option open to her, she would have felt much inclined to abandon her scheme, for she was sure he was going to prove difficult. He was evidently a man used to having his own way, and all too likely to give her a great deal of trouble.

The thought faded from her mind as Lady Hester came to the end of the letter she was reading, and spoke.

‘It is Dorinda’s hand, I can vouch for that.’

‘I never doubted it,’ said Delagarde. ‘I hope I can recognise my own mother’s handwriting. What of it? You have not heard the half of this ridiculous story. Here is this female—’

‘Lady Mary, you mean,’ interpolated his aunt.

‘If she is Lady Mary—’

‘Oh, I think there can be no doubt of that.’

‘Thank you,’ put in Maidie gratefully. ‘I cannot think why he would not believe me.’

Delagarde almost snorted. ‘Because your conduct hardly tallies with the title.’

‘Laurie, do be quiet!’ begged Lady Hester. ‘Let the child tell her tale in her own way.’

‘Her tale is imbecilic. She does not wish to marry some fellow or other, and has thus fled her natural protector to come here and demand that I bring her out, on the pretext of that letter. A more stupid—’

‘Hush! Let her speak.’

Maidie threw her a grateful look, and launched once more into an explanation of her difficulties and the ingenious solution she had worked out. Unlike her great-nephew, Lady Hester listened without comment, and even managed to keep Delagarde from bursting out until Maidie had finished. Only then did she speak.

‘I think I understand. There are one or two matters I should like to clarify, however. The exact relationship between us is readily discovered.’

‘Readily discovered?’ echoed the Viscount, incensed that his great-aunt should give the time of day to the chit’s nonsensical scheme. ‘If you hunted it down through half the family tree, I dare say. Besides, I am sure there must be a dozen other males closer related to her than I am myself.’

‘But none of them, my dear Laurie, is a viscount.’

Maidie found herself the sudden recipient of a suspicious look from his lordship, and a questioning one from Lady Hester. What were they at now?

‘Why should that weigh with me?’ she asked forthrightly. ‘I am an Earl’s daughter.’

‘And may look as high as you please for a husband? I wonder just how high you are looking to go.’

Regarding Lady Hester frowningly, Maidie shrugged. ‘His rank is immaterial. It is not that which will determine my choice. I only meant that my title is bound to make it easier for me to find someone willing to marry me.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ agreed Lady Hester affably. ‘Tell me, Lady Mary, why do you wish to be settled in life?’

A sigh escaped Maidie, as the picture of her self-imposed future formed itself in her mind. ‘To tell you the truth, I had as lief not be—married, I mean. But when Eustace began plaguing me with his attentions, and then Adela must needs try to hint me into accepting him, I began to see what awaited me if I chose to remain single.’

An odd look crossed Lady Hester’s face. ‘Well, I do not ask why you wished to remain single, for that I can readily understand. I am single myself. But what was it that you feared?’

Maidie shifted her shoulders in a gesture of discomfort. ‘To be the object of incessant suits for my hand. Once word of the legacy got out, I could see there would be no peace for me. So I thought the best solution would be to find myself a complaisant husband, who would not object to my continuing interest in other matters, and so end the nonsense at once.’

Lady Hester was regarding her keenly. ‘What legacy?’

‘Oh, I discovered when I came of age that my mother’s fortune had been settled upon me.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Yes, which is why Adela suddenly changed her behaviour towards me.’

‘I imagine she might,’ came the dry comment.

‘Of course I was glad to have such an independence,’ pursued Maidie, ‘for it made it possible for me to make my own choice of occupation, rather than become a companion.’

‘A companion! Good gracious, why should you wish to?’

‘I didn’t wish to. Only I previously thought that it would have been my one path to escape from working as an unpaid drudge to Adela. But I was forced to recognise that the very independence that offered me freedom also made me a target for gentlemen seeking to marry well.’

Lady Hester was now looking very thoughtful indeed. Was she beginning to understand the motives that drove Maidie? Delagarde, on the other hand, was still frowning heavily, she noted. He caught her eye, and got up.

‘Interesting though this history may be, Lady Mary, it makes no difference to—’

‘Laurie!’

‘What is it, Aunt Hes?’

‘Pray sit down again. It happens that I find this history extremely interesting.’ She turned to Maidie as Delagarde reluctantly reseated himself. ‘Let us re-examine this question of our relationship.’

‘But you have already admitted that the Burloynes are related to the Otterburns,’ Maidie protested.

‘Yes, but I am a little uncertain of your mother’s parentage. I did hear that one of the Burloyne cousins married Shurland, now I think of it, but I don’t recall which one. If memory serves me, there were three Burloyne brothers of my generation. Their father married into the Otterburn family, through one of the daughters of my own great-aunt.’

Delagarde blinked. ‘You are very well informed, Aunt Hes.’

‘One likes to keep abreast of these things.’ She sounded casual, but Maidie, when the elder lady turned back to her, was surprised to encounter an extremely penetrating glance. ‘Which of those three brothers was your grandfather Burloyne, child?’

‘The second one, Brice.’

‘Indeed?’ A long sigh escaped Lady Hester, and she sank back into her chair. ‘Well, well. Brice Burloyne’s granddaughter. And no male relatives.’

‘No, for all the Burloynes are dead now, and I have no uncles or male cousins.’

‘Except Shurland,’ put in Delagarde stubbornly.

‘But I have told you—’ Maidie began.

‘Enough!’ broke in Lady Hester. ‘Do not fall into a pointless dispute. Now, my dear Mary—if I may call you so?’

‘Oh, please don’t,’ begged Maidie instantly. ‘No one ever calls me Mary—except Adela, and that was only to annoy. My great-uncle Reginald, when he found himself saddled with the care of me, dubbed me Maidie, and so I have remained.’

‘Very well then, Maidie, if you wish it. Tell me about this Adela. She sounds a most unpleasant sort of woman.’

Maidie wrinkled her brow. ‘I would not describe her as unpleasant,’ she said, trying to be fair. ‘Her manner is no more objectionable than Lord Delagarde’s, for example.’

Delagarde’s infuriated glance raked her. ‘I am obliged to you, ma’am.’

Lady Hester laughed. ‘She is nothing if not direct, Laurie. I don’t suppose she means to insult you.’

‘Why should he care? Besides, he has said worse of me.’

‘And you don’t give a fig, I dare say?’ smiled Hester.

Maidie lifted her chin. ‘I am not come here to gain his good opinion.’

‘No, you are come here to gain my services,’ said Delagarde. ‘Not that I have the slightest expectation of your adopting a conciliatory manner! What I wish to know is, what was Shurland doing while this Adela was constraining you to marry her brother?’

‘Yes, why did you not appeal to him?’ asked Lady Hester.

‘I did,’ Maidie told them flatly. ‘His answer was that, between us, my great-uncle and myself had wasted his inheritance, and I would get no assistance from him.’

‘Wasted his inheritance?’ echoed Delagarde. ‘On what, pray?’

‘It does not signify,’ Maidie said hurriedly. ‘The truth is that it would suit him very well for my money to come into his family, even at one remove. Were I to marry another, he could not hope to get any share of it.’

‘He is scarce likely to gain directly from his brother-in-law’s marriage,’ objected Lady Hester.

‘No, but I am sure that he and Eustace have reached some sort of agreement on the matter, for there would otherwise be no reason for him to lend his support to Adela’s scheme.’

‘But what drove you to take this drastic action, child? Not that I blame you, but Adela could hardly force you into matrimony with her brother. And she did, I think you said, offer to bring you out.’

‘Yes, she did.’ Contempt entered Maidie’s voice. ‘It was only for appearances’ sake. She was afraid of what people might say of her, if it was seen that I married her brother without choosing him from among a number of others. And Eustace himself did not wish to figure as a fortune-hunter.’

‘Then why in the world did you not allow her to bring you out, and then choose another?’ demanded Lady Hester.

Maidie stared at her in frowning silence for a moment. Such a course had never even occurred to her. If it had, she would certainly have rejected it out of hand. She lifted a proud chin.

‘I may not be well versed in the etiquette obtaining in fashionable circles, but I assure you, ma’am, I am not without a sense of honour.’

She thought Lady Hester looked amused, but her tone was apologetic. ‘I had no intention of putting up your back, child. Are you suggesting that to have accepted a Season from Lady Shurland would have put you under an obligation?’

‘Yet you are trying to put me under a false obligation,’ cut in Delagarde swiftly.

‘It is not false!’ Maidie retorted indignantly. ‘If I had not your mother’s letter, I would not have involved you at all. In any event, this has nothing to do with being put under an obligation to Adela.’

‘Then what?’ asked Delagarde, finding himself intrigued by the workings of the wench’s mind.

‘I am not a cheat!’ Maidie exclaimed. ‘I would not pretend to one thing and mean another. Such conduct may suit Adela. It would not suit me. If I was prepared to marry Eustace, what need was there for a Season? But I am not willing to marry him. It would scarcely be honourable in me to dupe Adela into thinking I might do so, and allow her to bring me out only in order that I could find someone else. No, no. I must arrange it for myself, or I had better not wed at all.’

‘But you are not arranging it for yourself,’ Delagarde pointed out. ‘You are expecting me to arrange it.’

‘And so you shall,’ broke in Lady Hester Otterburn cheerfully.

‘What?’

‘My dear Laurie, you will hardly be outdone in the matter of honour, I should hope! It is not the part of a chivalrous man to leave poor Maidie to her fate. Besides, I know it must be an object with you to accede to your mother’s wishes. I cannot think you will do otherwise than make it your business to set Lady Mary’s feet upon the social ladder.’

Chapter Two

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.

Chapter Three

A sharp-featured brunette walked quickly into the room, followed more ponderously by a portly gentleman some years her senior. Both were in morning dress, and clearly in a state of some agitation. Lady Shurland cast one swift glance around, caught sight of Maidie, and flung out an accusing finger.

‘So, it is true! Mary, how could you?’

Maidie looked briefly at Delagarde’s frowning countenance, and drew an unsteady breath as she turned to face the woman. She had anticipated this invasion. It was not to be supposed that Adela and Firmin would acquiesce in her schemes. Only, must they arrive just at this moment? Nothing could have been more unfortunate. A prey to hideous indecision, she stepped forward. But before she could speak, Lady Hester intervened, rising and moving forward with hand held out.

‘Good evening, Lady Shurland. We have not met, I think. My name is Lady Hester Otterburn.’

Delagarde watched the woman turn abruptly to his aunt, and shot a look at Maidie. He saw dismay in her face. Did she suppose that he meant to send her packing? It was a heaven-sent opportunity to do so. There could be little doubt that the Shurlands had come to claim her. He looked again to where Lady Shurland had perforce halted. So this was the female whose machinations Maidie sought to avoid. He had never admired angular women. Besides, she looked to be ill-tempered, darting killing looks at Maidie even as she exchanged greetings with Aunt Hes. His attention was drawn by the current and sixth Earl of Shurland, with whom he was slightly acquainted, and who was evidently labouring under suppressed emotion.

‘You will forgive this intrusion, I trust,’ he said, addressing himself to Delagarde. ‘We had been on an outing of pleasure for the day, and returned home to be met with the extraordinary intelligence, culled from my coachman, that Lady Mary had arrived in town and was even now staying in your house. You may imagine our consternation. We lost no time in setting forth to discover for ourselves if this were indeed the case.’

‘And now that you have discovered it,’ said Delagarde, his tone so bland that Maidie’s eyes flew to his face, ‘what do you propose to do about it?’

‘Why, take her home, of course!’ burst from Adela.

‘Oh?’ said Delagarde. ‘But what if she does not choose to accompany you?’

‘She will do as she is told,’ Shurland announced curtly, and turned to his quarry. ‘This flight of yours, Maidie, was quite unnecessary. I do not know with what purpose you have thrust yourself upon Lord Delagarde, but—’

‘I have done it so that he may bring me out,’ said Maidie, breaking in without ceremony.

‘Mary!’ gasped Lady Shurland in a horrified tone. ‘Do you tell me that you have had the effrontery to—to—’

‘Yes, I have. But you may be easy, Adela.’ For she meant to add that Delagarde had refused to be imposed upon. She was given no opportunity to do so.

‘Lord Delagarde, I am mortified!’ burst from Adela. ‘She is dead to all sense of shame!’

‘I believe she is,’ Delagarde agreed mildly.

‘And after I have shown every willingness to bring her to town myself. How could you, Mary, treat me so shabbily? To leave your home while we were absent, without a word said! And then to throw yourself upon the mercy of a stranger, as though we had behaved ill towards you. I do not know how you can look me in the face!’

Maidie was looking her very boldly in the face, an expression of distaste on her own countenance. ‘Pray do not put on these airs for the benefit of Lady Hester and Lord Delagarde, Adela. I have already told them what your motive was in offering to bring me out.’

‘Oh, I have no doubt that you have done your best to blacken me,’ uttered Adela in a tone of deep reproach. ‘You will not be satisfied until you have made me an object of censure in the eyes of society.’

‘Dear me,’ put in Lady Hester calmly. ‘In what way, my dear ma’am?’

‘Everyone will think that I was too mean and selfish to bring her out. It is quite untrue. I have done everything in my power to do the best for her—in despite of her every attempt to make an enemy of me. Only see how she repays me! Sneaking behind our backs in this unkind way.’

‘Adela, leave this to me,’ said her lord, and turned again to Maidie. ‘I shall refrain from discussing the evils of your conduct in this company, Maidie, but I desire that you will at once stop behaving in a fashion which even you must recognise to be reprehensible in the extreme. If, as I am informed, you have indeed taken up residence in this house—’

‘Pray do not speak to me as if I were a schoolgirl, Firmin,’ interrupted Maidie. ‘You have no authority over me.’

‘On the contrary. As Head of the Family, I must consider myself responsible for you.’ He swung, without warning, upon Maidie’s unfortunate duenna. ‘And if any further proof was needed, Miss Wormley, of your total unfittedness to have the care of Lady Mary—’

‘I will not have you turn on Worm!’ Maidie warned, flying to the shrinking duenna’s defence. ‘You may say what you wish to me, Firmin, but you may not berate my dearest Worm.’

‘Oh, Maidie, pray—’ uttered Miss Wormley, clutching at her bosom in an ineffectual way. ‘You must not! It is perfectly true that—Oh, dear!’

‘Do not be alarmed, Worm. You are not to blame.’ Maidie crossed the room as she spoke, and perched by Miss Wormley’s chair, putting a protective arm about her. ‘Poor Worm implored me not to come, and she was even more shocked at my conduct than Lord Delagarde himself.’

‘Oh, Lord Delagarde!’ uttered Adela, pouncing on this and throwing out a hand towards the Viscount. ‘What can I say? How can I sufficiently apologise?’

‘I see no reason for apology,’ said Delagarde coldly, eyeing her with a hint of hostility. ‘You can scarcely be held accountable for Lady Mary’s actions.’

‘It is excessively tolerant in you, sir,’ gushed Adela. ‘But it will not do. I know, none better, how little Mary has been taught of the conventions governing the conduct of young females of her class, and I cannot but feel myself put to the blush by the way she has behaved.’

‘It does you credit, my dear Lady Shurland,’ put in Hester, bringing Delagarde’s frowning gaze to bear on her mischievous features.

He noted the telltale twinkle in her eye, and raised questioning brows. What was she about now? She could not seriously be taking the part of a female whom he was himself rapidly taking in dislike?

‘Few ladies would be so unselfish,’ pursued Lady Hester in a kind voice, ‘as to offer to sponsor a female so lost to all sense of what is fitting. I would not blame you if you chose to give up the notion of bringing Maidie out.’

So that was it! Delagarde was shaken by an inward laugh. Still, from what he had seen of Adela Shurland, Aunt Hes was wasting her time. It would not work.

‘Whatever my feelings might be, I conceive it to be my duty,’ said Adela virtuously, and not much to Delagarde’s surprise. ‘I must hope to prevail upon her to conduct herself with more circumspection.’ She added waspishly, ‘Of course, it is no surprise to me that Miss Wormley was unable to prevent you from behaving in this inconsiderate way, Mary.’

‘She has no control over the girl whatsoever,’ said her spouse. ‘From what I have been privileged to see, I should not think she ever has had. But perhaps she will care to explain why, if she did not approve of Lady Mary’s antics, she did not see fit to inform me of what was in the wind.’

‘Oh, I could not!’ broke from the tearful duenna involuntarily. ‘I mean, it would not be—’

‘Of course you could not,’ said Maidie reassuringly. ‘Really, Firmin, how can you be so stupid? As though Worm would do anything so shabby as to betray me to you.’

‘Naturally not,’ returned Adela sarcastically. ‘It is too much to expect that she might remember who is her employer.’ She then turned on her husband. ‘I told you to send her packing. I warned you how it would be. But no, you never listen to me. I might as well have spared my breath.’

‘Adela, be silent!’ snapped her lord, reddening. He turned to his hosts with an air of apology. ‘My wife is in great distress. I trust you will make allowances.’

‘For my part,’ said Lady Hester, turning to cast a conspiratorial wink at Maidie before addressing the Earl, ‘I am willing to make every allowance. Indeed, Shurland, I do most strongly advise you to leave the child with me. It is clear that she is in pressing need of guidance, and a woman of my years, who has been about the world, is far less prone to be distressed. I do sincerely sympathise with Lady Shurland, and shall be happy to take this irksome charge off her hands.’

Maidie listened to this speech with mixed feelings. She had known Lady Hester rather less than a day, but it did not need that quick little wink to tell her what her new friend was about. But Lady Hester did not know Adela. Maidie did. She was determined, and there was no hope of her voluntarily giving up the notion. There! She was arguing already. And Firmin was on her side. Not that she cared what either of them thought. There was only one thing that could induce her to leave. She had not thought that she cared for his opinion either, but if Delagarde chose to encourage the Shurlands to take her away—!

She looked across at him and found him watching her. Their eyes met. Maidie, unaccountably breathless all at once, could tell nothing from his expression. Indeed, she forgot even to try to read it, making instead the interesting discovery that his eyes were as dark as his hair. She was vaguely surprised that she had not noticed it before. It occurred to her to wonder why in the world he was still unwed. She could only conclude that those females whose interest had been aroused—not a few, she was persuaded!—had discovered too quickly how disobliging and cross was his nature.

Then, as though to give her the lie, Delagarde abruptly smiled at her. Maidie blinked, stared at him in foolish disbelief, and was annoyed to feel herself flushing. He must have seen it, for his smile grew, and he lifted an expressive eyebrow in mute question. To Maidie’s intense relief, he then turned away, stepping into the continuing discussion.

‘Nothing could be further from my mind,’ Adela was saying, ‘than to allow Maidie to burden you, dear ma’am. Come, Shurland,’ she said, turning purposefully to her husband, ‘Maidie has trespassed enough. Make her come home with us, and let us have an end to this nonsense.’

‘Trespass? Dear me, no,’ said Lady Hester gently. ‘She is here by my invitation.’

‘That may be,’ said Shurland heavily, ‘but I am certain that Delagarde cannot wish for such a charge.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Delagarde, energetically entering the lists, ‘you must know that my mother commended Lady Mary to my care many years ago, and I have been remiss in not honouring the promise.’

‘Commended Lady Mary to your care?’ echoed Shurland, gazing at him blankly. ‘Why should she have done so?’

‘My dear sir, nothing could have been more natural. When a young female relative is orphaned—’

‘Relative? What nonsense is this, pray?’

‘Surely you are aware that the Burloynes are connected to the Otterburns?’ said Delagarde, in a voice of pained surprise which caused Lady Hester to choke off a smothered laugh. ‘Indeed, it was my mother who sent Miss Wormley—our cousin, you must know—to look after Lady Mary when she was left without a female protector at so tender an age.’

Adela’s eyes were popping, and it was evident that all this was as new to her as it was to her husband.

‘How comes it about that I never heard a word of this?’ Shurland demanded, casting an irritated glance at Maidie.

‘Did you not? It was before your time, of course,’ Delagarde said in an excusing tone. ‘But perhaps the late Lord Shurland did not have an opportunity to inform you of it.’

‘Reginald Hope,’ said the present Earl, in a voice that very imperfectly concealed his chagrin, ‘saw fit to inform me of nothing at all concerning my inheritance. If he had a thought to spare for anything other than his infernal hobby, I was not privileged to know of it.’

‘How dare you sneer at Great-uncle Reginald?’ demanded Maidie, suddenly firing up.

At the back of her mind, as she came rapidly towards the group, she took in the startled glance of Lady Hester, and the odd expression that leapt into Delagarde’s features. But the spurt of anger would not be contained.

‘You are not half the man he was, Firmin,’ she told her cousin in a voice that shook. ‘Great-uncle Reginald was the best of men, and the kindest of guardians, and as much a father to me as Worm was a mother. I will not have either of them abused. As for his preoccupation, it was a great deal more than a hobby, and of far greater worth than anything you might waste your thoughts upon.’

‘Of importance to others of equal eccentricity, no doubt,’ retorted Lord Shurland.

Delagarde saw Maidie’s eyes flash, and was not much surprised to find that the Earl backed down. He was rather amused than otherwise by the discovery that the unshakable Lady Mary had a temper.

Shurland shifted a little, avoiding his cousin’s eye, and adopted a blustering tone. ‘Very well, very well. Enough said. In any event, this is no time to be arguing over what is past and cannot be mended. Go and pack your things, Maidie, for you are coming home with us.’

Maidie moved away from him, saying in a calmer tone, ‘I thank you, no, Firmin. If Lord Delagarde is indeed willing to sponsor me—’

‘Certainly,’ broke in Delagarde. ‘Not only that. I am going to figure as her trustee.’

Shurland’s chest swelled alarmingly, and his cheeks reddened. ‘You will figure as nothing of the kind, sir! I am perfectly aware of all the circumstances of her fortune. You have no rights in the matter at all.’

‘Neither have you,’ Delagarde pointed out. ‘Lady Mary is of age and may do as she pleases, and I do not believe that either myself or you, Shurland, have the means to prevent her. If she chooses to come and live with my aunt and myself, there is no barrier that I can see.’

‘Except,’ put in Adela bitterly, ‘that it makes us look like fools.’

‘That cannot be helped,’ said Delagarde.

‘Oh! I did not look for such usage from you, my lord! It is plain that Mary has blinded you with some horrid tale against me.’ She glared at Maidie, and seemed for the first time to notice her appearance, for she added in a waspish tone, ‘How you suppose you might catch a husband in a get-up like that, I am at a loss to understand. You look thirty if you look a day! And if you have not sense enough to conceal that perfectly appalling hair—’

‘Appalling?’ echoed Delagarde, interrupting her without ceremony. ‘My dear ma’am, I cannot agree with you. Lady Mary’s hair is her most attractive attribute, and the gown is excessively becoming. Indeed, I was just expressing my admiration when you were announced.’

Maidie gasped at this blatant untruth, and noted that Lady Hester was struggling against a fit of laughter.

‘However that may be, my lord,’ said Adela sulkily, ‘you will at least admit that it is hardly raiment suitable to a debutante.’

‘Well, if you dislike it so much, Adela,’ Maidie said before Delagarde could answer this, ‘you should be happy that it is not you who will have to appear in society with me.’

‘This is absurd!’ Lord Shurland burst out angrily. ‘I am far from accepting this faradiddle about your mother, Delagarde, but I take leave to inform you that there will be but one construction to be put upon the matter, if you take it upon yourself to interfere in this way.’

Maidie felt a sudden shift in the atmosphere, as though a chill entered the room. Glancing at Lady Hester, she was startled to find the elder lady’s eyes sparkling with something other than humour. Her attention was drawn to Delagarde, who had stiffened, she thought. His narrowed eyes were turned upon the Earl, and there was a hint of ice in his voice.

‘Indeed? Perhaps you would care to elaborate.’

Shurland glared at him, but blustered it through. ‘Poker up, if you will, sir! You know very well what I mean. I shall not demean myself by explaining it further.’

‘Very prudent,’ returned Delagarde sardonically.

The Earl coloured. ‘If we are to talk of prudence, let me advise you to inquire into the way things are left before you do what you may come to regret. You do not know her, Delagarde. I do!’

Maidie could make nothing of this. She saw that the Viscount’s brows had snapped together, and he was now looking more puzzled than angry. Before she could request an explanation, Lady Hester had moved forward again, her calm tones dispelling the discomfort in the air.

‘You quite mistake the matter, my dear Shurland. Delagarde is acting, I assure you, from motives of the purest chivalry.’ She laid a hand upon Adela’s arm. ‘I fear you are very much put out, my dear. Never fear. We shall say that the child has come expressly to stay with me, because Delagarde’s mama wished for the connection, and because Reginald Hope was my own dear friend.’

‘You may say so,’ answered Adela shrilly. ‘I will not. No one will think that an adequate reason for Mary to come out under your aegis instead of mine. I shall be made to seem the greatest beast in nature, and I think it is quite heartless of Mary to subject me to such a horrid slander!’

Upon which, Lady Shurland burst into sobs, and rushed out of the room. Her harassed spouse turned on Maidie.

‘I hope you are satisfied!’ He swung round on Delagarde. ‘As for you, sir, concoct what story you wish, but don’t expect me to corroborate it!’

‘The only thing I require,’ responded Delagarde calmly, ‘is that you will keep quiet about Lady Mary’s fortune. Neither you nor I can wish for the sort of speculation that must arise if society should hear of it.’

‘I shall say nothing, but I must point out to you that you, far more than I, are likely to be hurt by its becoming known.’

‘Well, if you spread the news about, you will discover your mistake,’ Delagarde said trenchantly. ‘Because I will set it about that you tried to marry Lady Mary off to your brother-in-law.’

‘If you imagine that Eustace wishes to marry her, you are mightily mistaken,’ objected Shurland, incensed. ‘The truth is that he desires nothing less—as who shall blame him?’

On this parting shot, he stalked out of the room, leaving Maidie a prey to conflicting emotions. On the one hand, she was relieved that Delagarde had perversely chosen to champion her; on the other, she was disturbed by Firmin’s veiled hints. What had he meant? Her thoughts dissipated as Lady Hester gave way to laughter.

‘What a dreadful liar you are, Laurie! I don’t know how I kept my countenance.’

Delagarde grinned. ‘You can talk, Aunt Hes!’ He saw that Maidie was staring at him in frowning silence, and raised an eyebrow. ‘Well? You have got what you wanted, have you not?’

‘Yes, but I can’t think why, when you know very well that you heartily dislike the notion,’ she said frankly.

‘True,’ he agreed. ‘But not as much as I disliked Lady Shurland. Come to that, I am not overfond of Shurland either.’

‘They are both hateful! And Firmin was lying, too. It is quite possible that Eustace does not wish to marry me—for he doesn’t like me any more than I like him—but he will overcome his reluctance in order to get his hands on my money.’

‘So will a great many others,’ Delagarde said. ‘Which is why we are going to say nothing about it.’

Maidie frowned. ‘Then how am I to get a husband?’

‘You will have to rely on your looks and natural charm of manner.’

‘Oh,’ Maidie said doubtfully. Then Lady Hester began to laugh again, and a slight flush crept into her cheeks. ‘You mean to be sarcastic, I suppose, but I do not care.’

‘You need not tell me that.’

‘Well, but you completely agreed with Adela. You said exactly the same as she did about this gown.’

‘Did I?’ Delagarde looked her up and down.

Then, so suddenly that she had no time to protest, he stepped up to her and, in one swift movement, ripped the bandeau from her head. Maidie uttered a stifled cry and put her hands up to her hair. She hardly heard the shocked reactions of the other ladies, for Delagarde had seized her wrists, and was pulling down her struggling hands.

‘Stand still!’ he ordered. ‘Do you think I am going to hurt you? Just be quiet a moment!’

Maidie stared up at him, lost in amazement, unable either to speak or move as she felt his fingers moving deftly in her hair, running through her curls, and prinking them. She followed the motion of his eyes as they flicked about together with the action of his fingers. As he finished, the dark eyes came to rest on hers. They smiled.

‘There, that is better,’ he said, and stepped back. ‘You look much younger, and the gown is now unexceptionable.’

Lady Hester clapped her hands. ‘Well done, Laurie!’ She came up to Maidie. ‘Don’t look so bemused. He is quite right. The bandeau and feathers were a mistake.’

Maidie blinked. ‘But he hates my hair! I know he said something silly to Adela, but—’

‘Whatever I may have said,’ interrupted Delagarde, ‘it is quite untrue that I hate it. Besides, since you are desirous of catching a husband, it will usefully attract attention. There is bound to be some deluded fool who falls in love with it! And the sooner the better.’

‘At last we are of one mind!’ retorted Maidie, reviving from her bemused state. She drew a breath, and smiled at Delagarde.

The effect was blinding, and his brows rose. Perhaps it was not such a far-fetched notion that someone would fall in love with her. Provided, that is, they had no opportunity to discover her character first.

‘I must thank you, my lord, for having supported me,’ Maidie was saying. ‘I do not understand why you should have done so, but I won’t tease myself about that.’ She added in a confiding way, ‘I was afraid you meant to encourage Firmin and Adela to take me away.’

‘I know you were,’ Delagarde said. ‘And I have no more idea than you why I did not do so. I have every expectation that I will live to regret it!’

The better relations that had been established between himself and Maidie were not the only thing that prompted Delagarde to offer his escort when she expressed a need to visit the lawyer who dealt with her affairs. He’d had time enough since Wednesday to wonder why he had allowed himself to be dragooned into submission over her ridiculous charade. It was not, he thought, the advent of the Shurlands. He had been more or less reconciled before that. He had spent that first day smouldering over the perfidious way Aunt Hes has spiked his guns, but had arrived home without any real expectation of discovering the whole episode to have been imagined, as he had told himself might well be the case.

His resentment had flared anew at sight of Maidie in that objectionable attire, but it had fled as he took in the enormity of her ginger hair and discovered the chink in her armour. Gone was the self-possessed young woman who had driven him against the ropes in the morning! He had begun to realise that there was a good deal of bravado about Maidie’s manner. She was still the most infuriating wench he had ever encountered, and he did not doubt but that she would drive him demented. But he could no more have thrown her out of his house than he could similarly have treated Aunt Hes.

He had done what he might to avert the worst consequences of her descent upon him, but he was a little disturbed by Shurland’s remarks. It would be as well, he thought, to discover just how matters were left. Maidie’s expressed wish to visit her lawyer was therefore opportune.

They set off in his phaeton on Friday morning, with Maidie (who had yesterday been on a further shopping spree with Lady Hester) arrayed in a new pelisse of warm brown and a matching bonnet adorned with russet satin rosettes. With her curls rioting under a wide brim, Delagarde acknowledged that she made an appealing picture.

‘You look very well,’ he said, as he handed her up into the carriage. ‘Was it your choice?’

‘No, it was Lady Hester’s,’ Maidie told him, giving him her direct gaze with those clear grey eyes. Well! It was moderate praise, but at least he approved. ‘I have not yet learned enough to trust myself.’

‘You will,’ Delagarde said, climbing up into the phaeton, and disposing the heavy folds of his caped greatcoat loosely about him to free his arms before taking up the reins and his whip. He nodded at his groom, who let go of the horses’ heads and swung himself up behind as the carriage swept past.

‘It is very kind of you to take me to see Bagpurze,’ Maidie told him, not to be outdone in civility.

‘No, it isn’t,’ Delagarde said with a grin, glancing down at her. ‘I have a very good reason for going with you.’

Maidie frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Since I have been thrust into a position where I may well have to figure as your trustee, I had better know the true facts of your inheritance.’

‘But I have told you!’ Maidie protested. ‘Do you suppose I have been lying to you?’

‘You have scarcely told me anything at all, and you cannot expect me to have made head or tail of the rigmarole you did tell me. But at least I must get a straight story from a lawyer.’

‘Do as you please,’ Maidie said huffily. ‘I have nothing to hide.’ She thought for a moment, and then added, ‘Besides, it is a good opportunity for us to come to terms.’

Delagarde glanced frowningly down at her. ‘Terms?’

‘Yes, of course. You need not think I should expect you to do all this for nothing. And I am sure you will find the charge less troublesome when we have agreed how much I should pay you for serving me.’

For a stunned moment, Delagarde could say nothing at all. He held in his horses with automatic skill as he guided them through the turn into Piccadilly. Then he found his tongue, throwing a quick look at the calm figure at his side.

‘You wish to pay me?’

Maidie frowned up at his profile. ‘What is the matter now? You need not be embarrassed to admit that your pockets are to let. I should have thought you would be only too glad of the opportunity to obtain some easy money.’

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