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make the most of the late April sunshine.
Emerald glared at her mother.
‘I really wish you would be more pleasant to Dougie. He’s doing his best, poor boy. He arrived with the most enormous Fortnum’s hamper on Friday, but it’s obvious that he feels awkward and out of his depth, and that’s only natural. It’s up to us to do all we can to help him through what must be a very difficult time. It isn’t just rude of you to treat him the way you are doing, it’s downright mean and spiteful as well. He’s gone out of his way to try to fit in, chatting to Jay about estate management and—’
‘Of course that would make him perfect in your eyes, Mummy, but have you thought how my father would feel, knowing that an ignorant Australian is taking his place?’
‘I know that your father would have treated Dougie with a good deal more kindness than you have done, Emerald. I really am shocked by your behaviour, and all the more so in view of Dougie’s generosity in agreeing that you can remain at Lenchester House and have your ball there. He would be perfectly within his rights to ask you to leave and cancel the ball. The least you can do is help him to find his feet a little socially. I’ve invited him to your coming-out ball, and naturally, given that he is now the head of the family, he will partner you for the evening.’
‘No! You can’t do that. I won’t have it. I won’t!’
Emerald had been banking on the fact that she would not have any male relatives present at her ball as a lever she could use to manoeuvre the Duke of Kent into partnering her. Now her mother was telling her that, without consulting her, she had made arrangements for the loathsome sheep farmer who claimed that he was her father’s heir to partner her.
Didn’t her mother realise how humiliating it would be for her to have to acknowledge that someone so gauche was the new duke, without trying to force her to have him at her ball, spoiling all her own plans? How typical it was of her mother totally to ignore her feelings in favour of those of someone else. She had never put her first, never given her the exclusive love that Emerald had always felt should have been her right. Instead she had to favour others, people so far beneath Emerald in status that her mother fussing over them had been an added insult. People like Rose, and now this detestable Australian.
‘I can’t possibly have him at my ball. He hasn’t got the first idea of how to behave. He’ll make a laughing stock of himself.’ And of her as well if she wasn’t careful, thought Emerald.
‘Dougie may not be well versed in the way things are done in society, but that isn’t his fault. It’s up to all of us, but most especially you, to help him in that regard. It’s certainly what your father would have wanted and expected. If there was one thing Robert detested, it was snobbery.’
‘Fancy Mama inviting Aunt Cassandra and John over for dinner tonight. Aunt Cassandra will criticise us and John will bore on about farming,’ Janey complained to Rose as they stood together in the drawing room, sipping the pre-dinner G and Ts Janey’s father had made for everyone. ‘He actually telephoned this afternoon and asked me if I’d like to go riding with him first thing tomorrow morning.’
Rose almost spilled her drink as first shock and then jealousy spiked through her.
‘I said no, of course. I’m not getting up at the crack of dawn to listen to John going on about sheep breeding.’
‘It’s only natural that he should be concerned about getting the best return on Fitton’s lands,’ Rose defended her hero stiffly.
Janey laughed, and then pleaded, ‘Rose, don’t be cross with me. I didn’t mean to criticise John. I know you’ve always had a soft spot for him.’
‘No I haven’t,’ Rose denied immediately. ‘I just don’t think you should run him down, when all he’s trying to do is keep the estate going.’
‘What do you think about Dougie turning out to be the new duke?’ Janey asked her, hastily changing the subject, not wanting to upset or antagonise Rose. ‘What a surprise that was.’
‘What was a surprise?’ Ella asked them, coming over to join them. She’d had a bit of a fright earlier when Janey had almost walked in on her just as she was about to take her diet pill. Not that it really mattered if Janey did know, of course. After all, she wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was just that she didn’t want Janey telling everyone what she was doing, as her sister, with her easy, open manner, was bound to do if she were to find out.
Ella gave a small surreptitious tug at the waistband of her navy-blue linen skirt. She was sure that it was just that tiny bit less tight than it had been. There were no scales here at Denham, and it had been awfully difficult at mealtimes insisting that she wasn’t hungry. In the end she’d had to pretend that she’d had a stomach upset.
‘Finding out that Dougie is the new duke,’ Janey answered her sister’s question.
Ella gave the young Australian, who was standing talking to her father and stepmother, a quick look. No wonder he had been so keen to question her at that party.
‘It’s really put Emerald’s nose out of joint,’ Janey continued unsympathetically. ‘She’s refused to come down for dinner, you know. I heard Mama telling Daddy that Emerald says she’s got a a bad headache. A case of green jealousy ache is more like it.’
Emerald glowered moodily at her magazine. How dare her mother make such a silly fuss over that stupid Australian? Emerald was determined that she would never, ever refer to him as ‘the new duke’, even in the privacy of her own thoughts. Well, she wasn’t going to join in the fussing. How could such an oaf possibly be her father’s heir? Emerald shuddered at the thought of how humiliating it would be to be obliged to have him at her ball. People would laugh and talk about him behind his back, and that would reflect on her. Why had he had to turn up now, just when it was so important that she created the right impression on the Duke of Kent? Any other mother would have been doing everything she could to help her daughter to impress the royal duke instead of trying to humiliate her by inviting Dougie to her ball. She hated him and she hated her mother as well.
All through dinner Rose snatched brief glimpses of John, who was sitting further up the table. As the rules of precedence demanded, the highest ranking guests sat closest to the host and hostess, which meant naturally that Dougie was seated at her aunt’s right hand, at one end of the table, and John to her left, whilst Jay sat at the other end.
Had she been there Emerald would have been seated next to the duke, but because she wasn’t that honour went to Lady Fitton Legh.
Darling John, he was such a good, kind person, even if he hadn’t noticed her new hairstyle.
Rose was still reflecting on John’s virtues later in the evening as she sat alone in the library, where she had gone to check in one of her aunt’s reference books on the provenance of a sofa table pair that her employer was insisting was a Regency original, but which she thought was a copy.
The door opened and John’s stepmother came in. Rose’s heart sank, but she gave her a polite smile, which Lady Fitton Legh did not return. For no logical reason Rose suddenly felt very apprehensive.
‘I’ve come to have a word with you about my stepson.’
‘John?’ Rose half stammered, her apprehension increasing.
