Page 11 of An Unlikely Debutante

Chapter Four

The grass was wet beneath her feet as Lina crossed the field, hopping over a shallow ditch and scrambling up a bank before joining the road again. She had caught a ride on a farmer’s cart from Pottersdown to the village of Hilstone and from there a friendly shopkeeper had assured her it was no more than twenty minutes’ walk across the fields to Whitemore House. Lina had dallied, stopping to pluck some wildflowers to weave into her hair, resting on a tree stump and turning her face up to the sun and even pulling off her boots to dip her toes in the cool waters of a gurgling stream. The twenty-minute walk had turned into an expedition that lasted more than an hour, but now Lina knew she could delay no longer.

She wasn’t sure why she was quite so nervous. This was what she had been waiting for: an opportunity to change her life, to do something different, be somewhere different, at least for a short time. For every one of her twenty years she had lived and worked amongst her gypsy family, travelling through England, performing at fairs in the summer and doing whatever work she could find in the long winter months. For a while she had been restless, unsure what was bothering her, torn between a desire to actually belong somewhere and a carefree and adventurous spirit that wanted to experience everything the world had to offer. She couldn’t decide what she truly wanted from her life, so everything had just stayed the same.

‘New experiences,’ Lina murmured to herself as she stopped beside a pair of huge wrought-iron gates, pushed open to reveal a sweeping drive. Fingering the metal for a moment, she peered inside, trying to catch a view of the house.

The drive curved away to the left through immaculately kept lawns and disappeared over a dip with no house in sight. Swallowing her nerves, Lina pushed herself to enter the grounds of Whitemore House, aware of the pounding of her heart in her chest.

When the house did come into view, set back at the crest of a small hill with the drive sweeping dramatically in front of it, Lina had to stop and pause for a second. Then she laughed out loud. It was easily the biggest building she had ever laid eyes on and Raul had taken her into London twice and York once over the course of their travels. It was perfectly proportioned, one central structure with two symmetrical wings flanking it, all in a beautiful sandy-coloured stone.

After more than ten minutes of walking, Lina finally reached the front door and was self-consciously adjusting her dress as it opened before her.

A middle-aged man greeted her with a tight smile.

‘Miss Lock, I presume?’

Lina nodded, her mouth too dry to speak.

‘Follow me, please.’ His words were delivered with a disdain that shook the nervousness from Lina. This was the reason she disliked the aristocracy. They were obsessed with the idea of respect and good manners, but treated anyone inferior as if they were at best a nuisance and at worst an inanimate object, to be used and discarded. Even their servants were rude.

‘So are you a member of the family, then?’ Lina asked, making sure she added a coarse quality to her voice as she spoke. She stepped over the threshold, trying to take in the vast entrance hall, the marble flooring and the perfectly sculpted statues that sat in recesses dotted along the walls.

‘Most certainly not. I am Lord Whitemore’s butler.’

‘So a servant. Strange, that.’

The butler looked down at her from his superior height.

‘What is strange?’ he asked eventually with a long-suffering sigh.

‘Well, I always thought servants were meant to be polite. To be a shining example to make their masters proud. But you, you’re ruder than a cow that hasn’t been milked for a week.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ the butler stammered. Lina half expected his face to turn bright red, but instead his cheeks seemed to lose colour and his lips were pressed thin. ‘That sort of language won’t be tolerated, Miss Lock.’

‘Ah, but it will. See, I’m an invited guest and you are a member of staff.’

‘The Marquess will hear about this.’

‘Williams, what is all the noise about?’ a soft, feminine voice called and was shortly followed by the emergence of Lord Whitemore’s sister from one of the many doorways that led into the grand entrance hall.

‘Please forgive me...’ The butler was silenced by a friendly wave of the hand and Lina felt herself being swept into the embrace of the slightly older woman.

‘Come, come, you must be tired from your journey. I have tea set out on the terrace. In the shade, of course, the sun does dastardly things to my complexion,’ Lord Whitemore’s sister gushed. The journey had taken less than three hours and Lina had experienced many more arduous days, but she allowed herself to be swept along by the other woman’s enthusiasm.

‘Thank you...Lady Whitemore?’ Lina ventured.

‘Dear me, we haven’t even been properly introduced. I am Lady Georgina Pentworthy, Alex’s long-suffering and completely devoted sister.’

‘A pleasure to meet you, Lady Pentworthy.’

Georgina shook her head very slightly and laughed. ‘Why don’t you call me Georgina, my dear? Much simpler than trying to untangle which part of my name to use when.’

They walked through a room filled wall to wall with books. Lina had never seen anything like it and paused for just a second to take in the dozens of bookshelves that lined the walls, full of heavy, leather-bound books. It made her much-treasured and battered three-book collection seem rather insignificant.

‘I am so pleased you agreed to come and stay,’ Georgina said, squeezing Lina’s arm lightly. ‘These next few weeks are going to be so much fun.’

‘Would it not have been better for you if I refused?’ Lina asked. ‘Then you would have won your wager straight out.’