Page 22 of Not Quite a Lady
‘You are very tactful,’ Lily retorted bitterly. ‘But I know what you are thinking. They all say it, mostly behind my back. I have no old things that I have inherited, so that makes me inferior. I have to buy my silver and my furniturenewwhich seems to be some sort of crime against good taste.
‘Why should I have to put up with old fashioned, faded, worn, shabby things just because theyareold?’
Before, she had just found this attitude inexplicable, too foolish for it to hurt. Now, believing she saw the same sort of rejection in Jack’s expression, she wanted to cry.
And who was he to judge? He might sound like a gentleman, but Society would be just as harsh to the mine owner, however careful his schooling, as they were to the merchant’s daughter. More so: she had money, he did not.
‘They must have to buy new things sometime,’ she muttered. ‘Every thousand years or so things must wear out or get broken.’
Jack snorted with laughter and dropped to one knee to reroll the carpet. ‘Much more frequently than that, Lily. Do you think all these titled families came over with the Conqueror?
‘Virtually none of them did. Most of them began their climb up the ladder in Henry’s reign – all those lovely monastic lands to buy their place at court with. Then there was another lot ennobled after the Restoration. I’ll bet they were all scrambling to buy the latest in wall hangings and silver then.’
‘Truly?’ Lily stood and regarded his bent head as Jack tied the cords round the roll.
‘Truly.’ He looked up and grinned and her heart did a foolish little stutter. ‘It is just inverted snobbery. Sometime we will sit down with thePeerageand look up the dates of the titles of the people who annoy you most and have a satisfying sneer.’
He got to his feet with a wince which reminded her that his back must still be painful. ‘May I have the old carpet? Please? I dearly like to behave like a slovenly bachelor when I have the chance.’
‘Very well.’ She turned away. His smile, when he chose to deploy it, was dangerously unsettling and highly seductive. ‘Does your back hurt very much? The doctor did not leave anything for it, but I am sure we have something in the stillroom.’
‘It is stiff, that is all. I am not getting enough exercise to work out the bruising.’
‘I will send Percy for arnica.’
‘He is doing very well with my boots, but I do not think that having my back rubbed with lotions by Percy is going to be a very healing experience. Now if you were to do it, I am sure there would be a great improvement.’
‘If you think it would help,’ Lily began dubiously.What would Aunt Herrick say?
Then she saw the glint in his eyes. ‘You areteasingme. You deserve to be black and blue. Now I am going shopping and you must rest.’
‘You do not mind going out, after yesterday?’
‘Yes, I do mind,’ Lily admitted. ‘But it is that or run away and hide and I will not do that. Tonight is Lady Troughton’s reception. I shall wear my newest gown and my second bestparureof diamonds.’
‘Well done.’
The approval in Jack’s smile sent her down the stairs and into the garden with a warm glow which lasted up to the point when she tied her bonnet ribbons in a large bow under one ear and picked up her parasol.
What would happen if she met anyone who had heard about the breaking-off of her engagement or the near riot outside herhouse? What if Adrian was already telling the polite world that she was ruined?
Chapter Six
The shopping expedition passed off without incident. Lily bought six pairs of silk stockings, an ell of wickedly expensive Swiss lace and a pair of the scandalous new pantalettes.
Putting such a garment on seemed impossibly daring: on the other hand they might be just the thing should she ever wish to thoroughly scandalise anyone.
‘They are solong,’ she explained to Lady Billington as they set out in the carriage that evening for Lady Troughton’s reception. ‘It would not be like showing one’s petticoat. If anyone caught a glimpse they would know they were encasing mylegs.’
‘Most improper,’ her chaperone agreed. ‘But pantalettes are the least of your problems, Lily. That riot outside the house yesterday is all over Town and there is the most vulgar speculation as to why it occurred.
‘Some people are saying that you have so much money that you ordered things without thought and the resultant chaos was honest tradesmen attempting to deliver. All nonsense, as I have been telling people, but say what you will, they love a good story.
‘But that pales into insignificance when one considers your engagement. What were you doing that made Lord Randall break it off?’
‘Nothing. And I broke it off, not him. He was furious because of the hoax, and because he had discovered how much of my money would still be in trust even after I marry. And then he found Ja...Mr Lovell in the salon on the sofa and made insulting accusations and I told him I no longer wished to marry him and threw him out.’
‘Indeed? You should have at least kept your temper long enough to have agreed a mutually acceptable notice to the papersand not left it to him.’
