Page 2 of Lady Controversial
‘Well, I hope you don’t expect me to spoil my hands,’ Jane replied, glancing down at the smooth hands in question and admiring fingernails that she buffed against the fabric of her robe. ‘Isolda can do as she pleases but I am sure there must be enough money to employ a boy if she would prefer not to exert herself.’
‘I shall need your help later today,’ Isolda said, knowing she was taking on a struggle but determined that her lazy sister would make some contribution. ‘There is mending to be done. You trod on the flounce of your grey gown yesterday and ripped it. There is darning too.’
‘Let Gladys do it,’ Jane said, flipping her wrist.
‘Gladys has more than enough to do already. You are a perfectly adequate seamstress and you must accustom yourself to the fact that we can no longer afford servants to cater to our every whim.’ Not that they had ever been able to, but that hadn’t prevented Papa from keeping on a full staff, whom he had then failed to pay. Most had eventually left and Isolda could hardly blame them for deserting a sinking ship. ‘If you want your clothes to look presentable then you will mend them yourself.’
‘Why are you so mean to me, Isolda?’ Jane asked, screwing up her eyes until they resembled slits and frowning as though she bore the entire world a grudge. ‘It is not my fault that we are reduced to…well, this.’ She spread her hands, one of which still held a forkful of bacon. Brutus saw an opportunity and sprang up, thinking the treat was intended for him. ‘Ugh!’ Jane hastily withdrew her hands and stared at her now empty fork. ‘Get that horrible beast away from me! I cannot think why you allow him in the house, Isolda. I am absolutely sure that he has fleas.’
Isolda laughed at the dog’s antics and couldn’t bring herself to chastise him.
‘I hear tell that the Earl of Finchdean will soon be returning to his estate,’ Jane remarked after sulking for a few minutes about her spoiled breakfast. When no one made a fuss of her she quickly brightened again and returned to her pet subject, which was the supposedly rich and eligible earl. ‘Such a shame that we are living in abject poverty. I don’t suppose he will deign to set foot over this threshold.’
‘Heaven forbid,’ Isolda remarked, sharing an amused glance with Mrs Compton. As far as Isolda was concerned, the further the earl stayed away from them the better.
‘How do you know this?’ Gladys asked.
‘Oh, I walked into the village yesterday to check on the progress of my ball gown.’ She twitched her nose. ‘Really, it is such a pity that it cannot be of better quality. I shall feel like a poor relation when I wear it. Everyone will stare, I expect, but still… Anyway, there were some other ladies in the salon and his lordship’s imminent return was all they could talk about.’
‘They are clearly not the only ones,’ Isolda mutteredsotto voce.
She too had heard a great deal about the mysterious earl, and admitted to being curious. Not that they were ever likely to meet. Jane had got that much right. She had heard that he, his mother and sisters were all very self-aware and probably didn’t even know that Isolda’s little cottage existed. They would certainly not deign to step inside such a lowly dwelling even if they did—especially given that Papa’s reckless gambling and suicide had quickly become public knowledge.
Isolda had seen Finchdean Hall from a distance—it was hard to miss—and their entire cottage would likely fit into half of one of the wings. She did not much care for what she had heard about the family. The dowager Lady Finchdean was by all accounts haughty and remote, disliked by the majority of villagers whom she treated with icy disdain. She was a woman who constantly claimed ill-health and one whom Isolda felt no pressing need to be acquainted with.
Jane, on the other hand, would likely resort to underhand stratagems in order to bring herself to the notice of the taciturn earl. Isolda sighed inwardly and braced herself for another battle of wills. They might be impoverished but they were still ladies of quality and Isolda would not tolerate Jane being shunned by the district’s leading family. Better to avoid them altogether and prevent that situation from arising, she decided.
‘The earl and his family are coming down with a large group of friends for a shooting party,’ Jane said, her eyes turning dreamy. ‘Only imagine.’
‘Imagine what? Shooting innocent birds?’ Mrs Compton shook her head, apparently not seeing any irony in the fact that she would happily cook the innocent birds in question if they found their way into her kitchen. ‘I have much better things to do with my time, thank you, young lady.’
Isolda turned her mind to the thousand and one things she had to do that morning and didn’t bother to make any response as Jane continued to run on.
Ellery Haigh, Earl of Finchdean, left London behind him with an unmitigated sigh of relief. The matchmakers were circling their wagons even before the season had got underway. They had him squarely in their collective sights and he’d had more than enough of the paltry excuses they made to throw their mousy daughters into his path.
‘You will have to get accustomed to it,’ Felix, his younger brother, remarked. Riding together alongside the carriage conveying their mother and sisters, Felix had correctly interpreted the reason for Ellery’s high spirits. ‘Our mother won’t permit us to hide ourselves away in the country once the season gets under way; especially as Jemima is to make her curtsey.’
Ellery rolled his eyes. ‘All the more reason to escape while we still can. I have had quite enough of being eyed up like a prize stallion in Tattersall’s ring.’
‘Coward!’
Ellery laughed. ‘Wait until they start targeting you, then you’ll better understand my repulsion.’
Felix shook his head good-naturedly. ‘I’m not the catch that you are, big brother.’
‘Keep thinking that.’
‘Well, I’m not!’
‘You’re an earl’s brother. A gentleman with an independent fortune and not completely ugly, I’ll own as much. That’s more than enough to make you a target.’
‘Ah.’ Ellery smiled when Felix’s expression turned sour.
George Fox, who was married to Ellery’s elder sister Sally, cantered up to join them. ‘Damned rum affair, that business with Brooke,’ he remarked, never one to mince his words. ‘I admire your restraint, Finchdean, and that’s a fact. In your shoes, I would have given the fellow a good thrashing for his impertinence.’
‘What business?’ Felix asked, sharing a quizzical look between Ellery and Fox.
Ellery didn’t want Felix, five years his junior, worried by an affair that was likely something of nothing, and sent Fox a warning look. Felix still had another year to go at university and deserved to enjoy his freedom for a little longer. ‘Nothing of any great consequence,’ he said. ‘Ah, good, this is the last posting inn,’ he added as they rode into Chichester. ‘We will soon be home.’
