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“B-but… Argghhhh. Do I have to?”
The door slammed. A knock.
“Who is it?” Isabelle delicately intoned.
“You know who.”
Isabelle waited.
“Oh. Er. It’s Miss Mari Cadogan. Next-room neighbour and promising actress. And Mrs Pugh, housekeeper and distinguished teller of tales. Both bringers of simply good tidings.”
It would have to do. “Enter.”
Mari drifted in on tiptoes and curtseyed. Excellent.
Mrs Pugh clattered a tea tray to the side table. Bad influence.
“What a simply splendid morn, Miss Beaujeu,” simpered Mari with all the sincerity of a fortune teller at the Bartholomew Fair. “And I also have such pleasant news to impart. For we have both been invited to pass the afternoon with the guests picnicking beneath the tower of Castell y Ddraig. Isn’t that simply splendiferous?”
Sacre bleu.
“But I intended us to pass the entire day studying Moral Instruction for Young Ladies, Volume IV by Mr Perkins.”
Mrs Pugh sniggered.
Mari contorted her bared teeth into some semblance of a smile. “But we simply cannot refuse Cousin Elen and my uncle. They wish to make amends.”
“Amends?”
“For Lord Gwilym’s horridness. Our estimable Mrs Pugh heard Uncle explaining to Cousin Elen that you were tricked into following him to the gardens.”
“Heard?” She turned to Mrs Pugh.
The housekeeper scratched her chin. “Aye, from the hall, like, but they did leave the study door open a dash, so they obviously wanted me to listen in.”
“I’m…”
“Cousin Elen says that as long as we remain at a suitable distance, it would be appropriate.”
“But we…”
“Please,” wailed Mari. “For all of yesterday I was inhumanly tortured – pins from the dressmaker, hot irons from the maid, shoes that pinched, and evening stays that rearranged my ribs.”
“Well…”
“And Lady Gwen said she’d like to converse with you. And Miss Vaughn too. We can ignore Lady Bronwen, her father hasn’t thruppence to scratch with and is up to his monocle in debts, and Miss Pritchard’s had five Seasons thus far and her floppy-wigged drunkard of a father won’t pay for another, so she’ll have to live in the Mumbles, and that’s why they are all over Uncle like a putrid rash and–”
“Mari! Do not spread such gossip.”
“Pleeeaaaasssseeee.”
Some days, Isabelle just wished to return abed and sleep it all away.
“Very well…” She held a palm to the squeal. “But we remain silent. We observe how the other ladies conduct themselves and do not become drawn into any conversations.”
“I’ll be like a nun who’s taken silent orders,” declared her charge.
Mrs Pugh guffawed.
