Mims crowed with delight, possibly at the discomfiture of hersister. “If she marries him, I can have her bedroom, can’t I?”
Lissy rounded on her. “No, you can’t, because I’m never marrying anyone. Especially not him. Besides which, he’s so skinny and pale he looks like he’s about to breathe his last. Then I’d be a widow.”
“A rich widow,” Mims said, with an air of satisfaction. “Because you’d inherit everything he’s just inherited from our papa. I know all about inheritance law. I read a book in papa’s library.”
“You do? I would?” Lissy was still scowling. “Well, anyway, I don’t care. I’m never marrying anyone. Ever. Especially not someone who might die. That would be awful.”
This was so blatantly just an excuse, that Miranda had difficulty preventing herself from chuckling. “He most certainly doesnotlook as though he’s about to expire, Lissy. He’s just a young man who’s been injured and is in the process of recovery. That can take time. No doubt he will recover his full health now he’s away from soldiering and here in our beautiful countryside. Mrs. Barnes will want to take the trouble to fatten him up, I’m sure. You have no need to worry about suddenly becoming a widow.”
“I’m not going to worry about becoming a widow,” Lissy snapped, “because I have no intention of marrying him. And anyway, he may not even want to marry me. Have any of you thought of that with all your matchmaking?”
Miranda sighed. Perhaps she should have raised this subject when she was alone with Lissy. It might have been best not to have told Mims and Megs. Too late now though.
Mims gave an unladylike snort. “I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss. It’s not as if he were ugly.”
Which he wasn’t. Despite being so thin, he was quite disturbingly handsome, the dark circles beneath his eyes bringing out every instinct Miranda had to look after him. No. She would definitely not think about that. Not one bit.
Megs nodded, although not all that enthusiastically, as perhaps shewas considering how the loss of her new friend was required for this plan to come to fruition. “If I were old enough, I’d marry him. He’s far nicer than that awful Sir Julian who keeps calling round to see you since Papa died. And at least he’s not barmy, which Sir Julian so obviously is.Ithink he wants to marry you, Mama.”
Miranda frowned at the change of subject. She didn’t like to think of Sir Julian, whom she’d known through Geoffrey but whose visits had indeed become far more frequent in the last three and a half months, and who probably wasn’t quite right in the head. At least he wasn’t sniffing after Lissy, though. That would have been intolerable. She was quite capable of defending her virtue, but Lissy was not.
Not that the man had as yet said anything, as Miranda had made sure she was always wearing her black armband when he called and insisted on talking about Geoffrey as though she were still actually mourning him. And not that she would have considered saying yes had he asked, for that would have meant taking her three daughters to live at Thornby Grange. She most definitely didn’t like the look in his eyes when he called. And she wasn’t so stupid as to think a man like Sir Julian would be able to keep his hands off girls as pretty as they were once they were living under his roof.
Oh, the perils of being a mother to three growing girls. The very thought of that dreadful man made her shiver.
With determination, Miranda returned her attention to Lissy. “I know you’ll change your mind about being married when you fall in love, as I hope you will.” She paused as heat rose to her cheeks, but plowed on anyway. “And as Mims so kindly pointed out, Cousin Harry is not at all ugly. Quite the opposite in fact. Most handsome.”
Megs and Mims nodded with the enthusiasm not having to marry him could have engendered. “Very,” Mims said. “Or he will be when he gets a bit fatter.”
Lissy frowned. “I very much doubt that I’ll ever fall in love. I love my horse far more than I could ever love a man.”
“Me too,” Mims said, and Megs nodded. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to encourage the three of them in that direction, just because she herself derived so much pleasure from her own horse. Riding had been a way of escape when she’d first been married to a man she’d not been in love with, and who hadn’t loved her himself. Hers had been very much an arranged marriage to a man who’d only wanted a young woman who could give him an heir to replace the one who’d died. And all she’d given him were these three girls. The lights of her life, but not of his.
Was she guilty of wanting to do the same to Lissy? Perhaps. But if Lissy could be brought to loving him…? That would work.
“I think if you get to know him, you would be sure to get to like him,” Miranda said, aware that she sounded a little desperate. “That is how falling in love comes about.” Only it hadn’t in her case, had it? She’d been fond of Geoffrey, yes, but never in love. Did she not want better than that for her children? Of course she did. And she would get it.
Lissy’s expression hardened into rebellion. “I’m very sorry, Mama, I but don’t think I will. I’ve seen him close up now and nothing stirs in my breast. Nothing at all.”
Miranda shook her head, determined to give her idea its best chance of success. “You cannot unequivocally say no to this, Melissa. We will call on Cousin Harry tomorrow, to politely return his call, and further our acquaintance with him. You and I alone, not Mims and Megs. As you are the oldest, you are Miss Madeley and it is for you to accompany me when we go calling. You must at least get to know him, and then, if you are still of the same mind, we will rethink.”
Mims’ and Megs’ faces mirrored one another’s in open indignation.
“But he’s my friend,” Megs said. “Surely I should come too?”
Miranda shook her head. “You are twelve and not old enough to go calling on gentlemen. It’s not a thing a child should do.”
Mims sighed with the air of a martyr. “Very well. Megs and I willstay at home and do chores with Betsey, won’t we Megs?”
Miranda had an uncomfortable feeling that this was not quite true.
Lissy, Mims, andMegs reconvened in the stables. In reality, this was more of a cowshed with stalls for the departed cattle, which Archie and Joe Miller had tried to render as much like the lavish stables at the manor as possible. An area had been set aside as a tack and feed room at one end, with saddle racks purloined from the manor, of course, and the loft above had been filled with the first load of hay from Mr. Charlton.
The girls climbed up the ladder to the hay loft for their meeting.
“I absolutely refuse to be sacrificed upon the altar of saving this family from ruin,” Lissy began with. “You all know we’ve vowed to stay together and just ride horses for the rest of our lives.” She was determined nothing should undermine their trinity.
Mims was peering out of the door in the gable, which was the way the hay had got in there. Did she suspect Mama of spying on them? Or sending Betsey to do so? After all, there was no one else. “I don’t know,” Mims said. “Mightn’t it be a good idea if you were to be living in the manor? That way we could keep our horses back in the stables. They’d be much more comfortable there in proper stables.”
