Usually his brother would rant for a few moments but on this occasion a stillness descended as they glared at one another, until with careful precision Ernest snapped his book shut and carefully placed it within his jacket pocket.
“I’ve read many a Gothic novel,” he bit out, spectacles encircling a glacial gaze, “but none contained a villain quite as unfeeling as you. I bid you a fruitful afternoon counting your coin.”
With a swish of brown coat-tails and stomp of hessian, his brother stalked out, leaving the door wide.
Casper dipped his head.
Some days, he’d had quite enough of being a duke.
Chapter 14
England expects…
Evelyn wore black.
For today, she would bury Reuben Swift, bid farewell to Matilda and strike a deal for her painting on the south side of the river.
Currently, her friend sat on the butter-yellow chaise, tucking food she’d pilfered from the Astwood kitchen into Evelyn’s green reticule – three biscuits, six hothouse strawberries, two pears and an ounce of tea leaves.
“Thank you for the use of Clipstone Street, Matilda.”
“I’m so sorry it didn’t work out and wish I could help further but what with…” Matilda’s words faded. The Earl of Sidlow had put creaking knee to lemon rug yesterday and thanked a dumbfounded Matilda for “accepting his hand in marriage,” so they were both steeped in hot broth.
“You mentioned a plan whilst your cousin was away?”
A fervid nod and Matilda peered left then right. “In the past few weeks,” she whispered, “I have responded to six governess advertisements fromThe Times. I need only lay low and avoid this marriage until my birthday in August. Then, I’m released from my cousin’s guardianship.”
“Won’t someone from society recognise you?” Evelyn whispered back.
Her friend pursed her lips. “The first five positions were all in foreign locations – Wales and suchlike. The last is in London but… Well, let us just say that one need never worry about discovery there.” She shrugged. “I believe my only deficiencies for the employment are scarcity of references and a complete lack of any experience with children.”
Evelyn clasped her friend’s waist. “Matilda, should you ever need me…”
They smiled wanly at one another, aware they were flotsam on a tide of male rule, tossed hither and thither at whim. Would they wash up on a beautiful sunny beach or the muddy Thames riverbank?
“Never fear,” stated Matilda bravely, also stuffing two misshapen sugar lumps into the reticule. “The circumstances of that last position were somewhat…unusual, so the advertiser might be desperate.”
“Does it involve a duke?”
“No.”
“Then you should be fine.”
With a reticulethat resembled an overstuffed toad, Evelyn made her way home, although that home was soon to change.
In the past two days, she and her sister had once again packed their belongings into carpet bags, sold all else that couldn’t be carried – so not Cleopatra – and now she merely awaited funds from her transaction across the river so they could purchase stagecoach tickets and begin a new life.
Yesterday, they’d stared at maps in a shop window, where Artemisia had closed her eyes and randomly stuck her fingers out. Peering through the small panes to see the name of their chosen destination, they’d found it to be a map of Oxfordshire. Then peering even closer, her sister had squealed.
“A castle! There’s a castle on the map. You know I–”
“Love castles. Yes, half The Strand now knows,” Evelyn had said with a smile.
“It could be a pile of stones or…” Her sister’s pallid face had been wreathed with excitement. “…fate!”
Evelyn had more hoped that fate would simply provide enough for a few weeks’ rent in… She’d squinted at the village beside the castle – Lower Rushington. That she could find work at teaching and Artemisia at sewing, and that one day, she could repay her original debt to Filgrave in the manner agreed.
Indeed, she mourned for London this day as well, home for three and twenty years. The bustle and noise, the grandeur and the squalor, her job at the theatre, which she’d lost in any case, Filgrave no doubt turning the thumbscrews on the manager…
