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“Do you not know how improper that was?” Agnes demanded. “A young woman such as yourself should not have been alone in the woods with my son in any case. There was no chaperone around, and anyone could have seen you.”
Louisa could feel her frustration rising, but she did her very best to answer the dowager duchess as calmly as she could. “I am well aware of that, Your Grace, but I thought that perhaps as Mr Quince and I had a respectable reason for talking that it would not be such a scandalous affair,” she explained, minding her tone.
Agnes practically rolled her eyes. “No one who happened to be passing by would have known that your intentions were honourable,” she said gruffly. “How do I know that you are not going to do to my son what your sister did to that man?”
Louisa’s blood froze in her veins. She had been sneered and glared at by many of the members of the community who used to be her friends but had never been so directly confronted with this kind of judgement. She so desperately wanted to fly off the handle and put Agnes in her place, but she knew that would be just about the worst idea in the world right now. And so, Louisa knew that she had to continue with her charm tactics and try to convince Agnes that she was not the same person as her sister.
“Your Grace,” Louisa responded very level-headedly, “I do not know how to assure you that I am not my sister. I must ask that you allow me to show you through my actions that I will only ever have the most honourable intentions with every member of your family. I understand your concerns, and they are all valid, but I must tell you that they are not ones that you need to concern yourself with. I amnotEvelyn, and I hope that you will do me the honour of allowing me to prove myself to you.”
At last, Agnes seemed to ever-so-slightly drop the wall that she had been keeping up between her and Louisa. The corner of her mouth turned upwards, and she nodded seriously to Louisa. “Those were all very reasonable explanations and requests. I shall endeavour to keep an open mind in your presence. I shall take my leave of you for now, and I will see you before you leave tomorrow afternoon,” Agnes said, making her way towards the bedroom door.
But as she passed by the other side of Louisa’s bed, she paused and looked at Lloyd. The dog immediately knew when someone was looking at him, and so he began drumming his tail happily against the floor once more and grinning at her as only dogs can. Agnes sighed and then slowly walked over to the dog and gave him another few pats on the head.
“You two are both very good at charming people; you know that right?” she said very quietly, and then exited the room without looking back at Louisa. When the door clicked shut behind her, Louisa breathed a sigh of relief.Well,she thought,that was just about the best outcome from that conversation.
