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“Pardon?” Mabel stared blankly at him.
“I confess, Wilhelmina has lied to you about the house fire.”
“How dare you suggest such a thing?” Wilhelmina cried.
“Oh, I dare,” Ryan countered. “Because I have been to view your house for myself, to see what repairs are needed to get it inhabitable again. There is absolutely no sign of there ever having been a fire bad enough to render you homeless.”
Wilhelmina’s face turned florid with the force of her outrage. Ryan watched her slide a worried look at Cedrick, who had yet to speak but now looked uncomfortable. Ryan then turned to Mabel and continued: “There is no furniture, so either she has hidden it or sold it. Whatever she has done with it, the house itself remains inhabitable.”
“It is not.” Wilhelmina, for all her forty and three years, stomped her foot in outrage. “That house is dire. It is draughty, cold, and not fit for purpose. It is uninhabitable.”
She tipped her chin up and glared at Ryan, as if challenging him to deny it. Ryan sighed but refused to be cowed by the woman’s contempt. He was now glad he hadn’t invited her into the house. He didn’t want the dratted woman across the threshold.
“What have you done with the furniture?” he demanded.
“I got robbed,” Wilhelmina burst out. It was obvious to everybody she was lying.
“Really.” Mabel shook her head in disbelief.
“It doesn’t matter where the furniture is. It is in storage. I had to remove what was left of it before that got stolen too,” Wilhelmina cried. “Oh, how dare you be this cruel to me?”
“Here we go again,” Mabel sighed.
“What was that?” Wilhelmina squinted spitefully at her.
Mabel glared at her. “Well, every time you don’t get your own way, you accuse and threaten everyone around you. When that fails to work, you then start to act as if everyone has wronged you and everyone owes you something.”
“Arthur has a duty to look after me. Are you saying that you are encouraging him to shirk his duty? To his own sister? Me? That you would rather see me out on the street than offer me a safe haven in my hour of need?” Wilhelmina snatched a handkerchief out of her cuff and dabbed ineffectually at her nose. It wasn’t needed because she wasn’t crying; she was just pretending to be upset. Her eyes remained cold and calculating as she glared at Mabel, daring her to deny it.
“We would do no such thing in a case of genuine need, but I don’t see why we should accommodate your friend as well. I assume he has a family of his own?” Mabel slid a look at Ryan, who appeared to know something about Cedrick’s family as well.
Curiously, he didn’t say anything, but merely stared at the folly across the lake as if he wanted to be floating on the water than listening to a family argument. She realised then just how much of a difficult situation he was now in, and all because of her relations.
“Cedrick, go home. You have stayed and made sure that Wilhelmina is fine, and I am sure she appreciates it, but it is now time for you to go and stay with your family. They have to accommodate you. It is their duty to see to your accommodation in your hour of need. Meantime, Wilhelmina, it is time for you to get your furniture out of storage and return it to your house. Then you can move back in where you belong.” Mabel began to usher her daughters toward the house, eager to get them off the drive and away from the curious gazes of any servants who might be watching.
“Don’t you think you have taken enough advantage of the lord? Do you know what a mockery you are making of your own husband? What is it going to look like if it appears that you, a married woman, would prefer to stay with the lord of the manor rather than your own husband?”
“How dare you suggest there is anything untoward going on?” Mabel whirled to level a glare on Wilhelmina that was full of fury and was hard enough to make even Wilhelmina blink warily. “Anybody who suggests such a vile thing has no opinion worthy of note, as far as I am concerned. I am here because Sian was injured the other day, as the villagers know because they helped look for her, while you stayed at the house. They know she was badly hurt and needs to recuperate and wasn’t fit to travel all the way home the night she was found. Anybody who wants to make up scurrilous lies about that has no right to do so and are nothing but cruel and spiteful. How lurid of you to suggest such a thing, though, Wilhelmina.”
“Believe me when I tell you that it is no inconvenience to me. I quite like the company. I shall, of course, have a word with Arthur to tell him that personally if he wishes to hear it from someone reliable. Meantime, I shall also inform him that there has obviously been some miscommunication and there is absolutely no reason why you should not return to your own home forthwith. For the time being, though, Sian and her sisters and mother are all under my protection and will remain that way until I see fit. The gossips can make what they want of it, but I think they have enough to talk about right now without bothering with us.”
“What do you mean?” Mabel asked quietly.
Ryan looked at her. He coughed and tugged on his ear; something Sian knew he did when he was uncomfortable about something.
“They are asking why Sian was out in such awful weather, and so eager to get away from the house, and are looking to your sister-in-law and her – guest – as the cause,” Ryan explained. “There is curiosity about why they turned up in the middle of the night as they did, and why Sian was so eager to get away from them.”
“People are gossiping but not about us,” Mabel repeated dully. “They are talking about you, Wilhelmina. I would ask you to be a little circumspect about what you do. I mean, it won’t do your reputation any good to go gadding about the countryside with a man half your age, now will it?”
Wilhelmina blinked at her. She opened her mouth, clearly outraged at any hint of an intimate relationship between her and the much younger man.
“It won’t do to influence my daughter’s marriageable status by being connected to someone who behaves so scandalously,” Mabel added.
Lucinda and Martha looked at each other but struggled to keep their amusement off their faces. Sian shook her head so faintly that Ryan would have missed it if he hadn’t been watching her closely.
Their eyes met. Sian was so busy staring lovingly at him that she missed what Wilhelmina said next. It was only when Wilhelmina whirled around and stalked toward the still waiting carriage, that Sian realised the woman was leaving. She blinked and looked up but found her gaze meeting Cedrick’s far too intent stare.
“Your father demands your return home. We have our betrothal to discuss,” Cedrick announced. He slid an insolent gaze over Ryan before promptly bowing and backstepping until the carriage came into view.
