Page 14 of Her Passionate Duke

She had ended up sitting in the parlour during Lady Caroline’s piano lesson, drinking tea and eating cakes while she argued with Lord Charles.

He had apparently decided that he was teaching her patience by deliberately saying things which offended her. And while he was certainly irritating, and part of her longed, at times, to fling her tea in his face and leave, each time she considered it, she remembered – at home there was a cat… in her bedroom… and suddenly she was in no hurry to return home.

“I shouldn’t have stayed as long as I did,” she said to Lady Caroline as the family rather pointedly told her that they were about to dress for the theatre.

“All my fault, I have to say, and I don’t regret a minute of it. You are most entertaining to argue with,” said Lord Charles.

“Do you think you’ll go to the orphanage tomorrow?” asked Lady Caroline.

“Yes, if I leave relatively early tomorrow and don’t make any stops on the way,” Linnet said in a determined tone. “And if I refuse to discuss anything with Mother at breakfast, or with anyone else for that matter.”

“A good plan – I can be quite certain, that, if you start into a discussion, you’ll end up wasting half the day. Your problem is that you’re too affable, and you think that everyone is entitled to your time and attention, whenever they want it.”

Lady Caroline smiled as she spoke, but Linnet had to admit to herself that perhaps she was right.

“Have you ever said no to anyone?” asked Lord Charles. “Ever in your life?”

“No, but she’ll have to learn to at some point,” said Lady Caroline, before turning to Linnet. “I think you’ll find that you’re happier when you stop ceding control of your life to other people.”

Linnet thought that she would be happier when people stopped making personal remarks; but she felt it would be rude to say so.

“Perhaps – but now I must be on my way home.”

They bid her a polite farewell for the day, and called for her carriage to be brought around, as she gathered up Emily and her footman, and went out onto the front steps to await it.

As the carriage conveyed her the short distance to her home, she considered what she might find when she arrived there. Could she be confident that Lord Theodore would have left by now and that she would be returning to a mouse-free bedroom?

She hoped so.

But in this she was doubly disappointed. Lord Theodore was on his way out the door, carrying the large wicker basket, from which a tortoiseshell-coloured cat glowered at her. That was a positive sight – if he was leaving, was the mouse gone? She cautiously greeted him, then circled around him at a distance to reach her door. But, she discovered once inside, he had failed to extract the mice, and the cat had spent the entire day in Linnet’s bedroom, shredding her rug and carpeting the floors in a fine layer of fur. Linnet began sneezing almost from the moment she walked through the door of her room. Grabbing her night rail from the still-mouse-infested dresser, she fled the room and spent the night sleeping in the guest room, after directing Emily to deal with the fur before morning.

“I shouldn’t have come home tonight,” she said to her mother, miserably, as an itch began on her left arm. “I was enjoying myself so much at the Woolards’, in spite of Lord Charles’ provocations—”

“If you would rather live somewhere else, you’re welcome to,” her mother said coldly. “Let them assume the burden of feeding and housing you. Or you could get married, and allow a husband to care for you, but you don’t seem in a hurry to do that.”

“I haven’t met anyone worth marrying yet.”

She intended this as a jab at Lord Theodore, for she could not feel charitably towards him, when the itch had now spread to her right arm as well. The implication was not lost on Lady Chelmstone.

“If you had been here today you wouldn’t be complaining so much. The man exhausted himself trying to get rid of that vermin. No low-born man for hire would have done half as much.”

“A hired man would have been more effective, I suspect,” said Linnet, stifling a sneeze. “And we’ll end up having to hire one anyway, given that the mouse is still here.”

Lady Chelmstone scowled, her face an unpleasant shade of red.

“One day you’ll have a girl of your own,” she said. “And you’ll understand how much it hurts when you speak to me like that!”

Before Linnet could answer, her mother turned abruptly and left the room.

***

Linnet slept fitfully, and by the time she awoke the next morning unsightly rashes had begun forming on both arms. Still feeling sore and exhausted, she rose from bed, driven only by a sense of obligation to the Duchess of Grantsham to learn as much as she could about the subject of her upcoming address at the charity dinner.

It was early morning – far earlier than she would normally rise, but, once awake, she had been unable to fall asleep again, because of the itching. The sun rose red and regal over Grosvenor Square. By now the delivery men and servants to various establishments had already finished their morning travel through the city and the streets were quiet.

She slathered her arms in the lotion which her mother’s physician swore would ease the itch – although in Linnet’s experience, it had little effect - then dressed in a gown with long sleeves of a soft bleached cotton. If nothing else, the sleeves would stop her from scratching at herself, at least to some extent.

Linnet asked for the carriage to be brought round, and went to break her fast. The breakfast room was full of light, and cheerful, and after two cups of coffee and a plate of rather delicious sweet buns, she felt far better able to face the day. She went back up, and gathered a journal and some pencils to take with her, so that she could take notes about the orphans, then summoned Emily to accompany her. Emily brought her pelisse, reticule, gloves, and bonnet, and they went down to the front hall to wait. Linnet asked the butler to provide two footmen to go with her, as the orphanage was in a barely respectable area of London.