I pray you are finding amusement in Town and that we will someday be together again. I miss you terribly.
Your mother
Grace dropped the letter and it fluttered to the floor. She felt a seething anger growing in her. It was outrageous that her mother should be treated so! Not allowed to eat what she wished? Woken at dawn? Force-marched like a common soldier?
She must rectify the situation at once.
Chapter Six
Grace reread theletter, and the rereading did nothing to comfort her. Lady Barlow was being treated abominably. She could easily see how it had unfolded—the nurse had at once perceived the delicate nature of her mother and rode roughshod over her.
Grace fully understood that her mother was not as strong as might be wished. Not in body, and not in mind. One might even lay the blame for her ills at her own door. Her mother might have made more effort over the years. Or at least more effort when they’d been forced into the dower house. But, the fact was that she was weak, she was not in good health, and nobody had the right to treat her like a prisoner! It was too unkind.
Grace snatched the letter from the floor and tied her robe. She was certain Lady Heathway would still be awake and she must make arrangements to leave first thing in the morning. She would go to Kent and remedy this ghastly situation. She would hire a trustworthy nurse. None of it should take above a week, but shewouldsee that her mother was made comfortable.
She softly knocked on Lady Heathway’s door. When she was admitted, she found the lady in curl papers and already in bed.
“I am sorry to disturb you, my lady, I know you must be very tired,” Grace said.
“What is it, my dear?” Lady Heathway said, sounding alarmed. “You have not heard a sound down below? I was certain it was only Ranston’s nerves provoking him, but then one never knows—he’s bound to be right one of these days.”
“No, it has nothing to do with Ranston’s fears of a break in. It is my mother—”
“Your mother is well taken care of, your mind may be at ease on that point.”
“But indeed, she is not,” Grace said, handing over the letter. “This was on the tray in the hall when we arrived home. She does very poorly.”
Lady Heathway perused the letter and let out a long sigh. “Your mother’s complaints are all nonsense,” she said. “The best is being done for her—you must trust in my judgment in this matter. Now, you are overtired. Go to bed and things will seem far less dire in the morning. Depend upon it. Off you go.”
With that, she was dismissed.
As Grace walked back to her room, she felt herself bristle. It was all very highhanded! Who were these people, that they could dictate how her mother was to be treated? Lady Heathway even hinted, and not for the first time, that there was nothing at all wrong with Lady Barlow. Whatever her mother’s situation, or whether it was self-inflicted or not, the lady did not flourish.
Something must be done.Shemust do something. Who else did her mother have to depend on but her daughter?
As she closed her bedchamber door behind her, an idea came to her. She drifted to the window and peered out at the drainpipe that led to the pavement. The sun would rise in two hours, maybe sooner.
She might dress herself, go down the pipe and to the end of the street to the stables. It would, of course, be far more sensible to go out the door, but Ranston was still downstairs, pacing the front hall and prepared to fight off thieves. She had just heard him explaining to the arriving Lord Heathway that he had fended off an unseen attacker in the garden. The Lord did not seem too concerned to hear it, but was perfectly agreeable if the butler wished to keep watch. Ranston would tell Lady Heathway of her departure before she was halfway down the street.
If she left by way of drainpipe, however, she could rouse the stables and tell them she required both a horse and a groom. She would be safe enough in daylight and accompanied. The route was straightforward, and it was not so very far. She could decide what to do once she arrived to the dower house. The nurse would be dismissed, and she would send a note back to Lady Heathway with the groom.
Yes, that was what she should do. She was tired of being managed and she would not allow any of these people to turn her from what she knew to be right. Her mother was mistreated by a bully of a nurse and had called for help to her only daughter. She would not ignore it. She would not betray her mother in such a fashion.
*
George had stoppedat his club on the way back from Lady Easton’s ball. He had never sat through such an uncomfortable and interminable supper in his life. He found, at the blessed end of it, that he required a stronger drink than Lady Easton provided.
He had not been alone in the idea, as he’d seen Jacobs and his friends there too. He’d avoided them by going into the pool room, but then when he was set to leave, it seemed they were too. He’d dallied to avoid accompanying them as he was sure they went in the same direction. Jacobs’s house was nearby Berkeley Square and seemed to be where they all convened until they were too exhausted to carry on further.
After letting them have a good head start, he set off for his own house.
The more he mulled over his conversations with Miss Yardley, the more muddled they seemed. Why had she been so prickly? He’d only been trying to give her a hint because…well because shewasvery lovely and would attract both the right sort of men and the wrong sort of men.
Jacobs and Skeffington were most definitely the wrong sort.
Bertridge seemed rather taken with her, and he of course would be therightsort of gentleman. Bertridge never put a foot out of place. Whoever had dreamed up the wordsensiblehad been thinking of Bertridge. And yet, George thought he would not be quite right for Miss Yardley. Not the wrong sort, exactly, just not the definitely right sort.
And she was, after all, very lovely.
