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Freeman, who had obviously been lurking just outside the door, entered carrying a tray full of dishes containing a rather unwholesome looking blob of dark spotted grey... something.
“Ah! Spotted Dick!” Sir Mordecai cried with the most pleasure in his voice I had ever heard.
While it could scarcely have tasted worse than it looked, the pudding was not to my taste even though I dutifully ate every scrap while longing for the sweet, fruit-laden confections Naomi prepared for us at every meal. As I choked down the last stodgy bite, I felt a rush of pride for having done so without allowing my feelings to show through, assured that after this, things could not get worse.
I was wrong.
Basil appeared with tea.
Apparently, he had arrived while we were at table, but being unwilling to sit down to table in all his travel dirt, had eaten and changed in his room, making an entrance into the drawing room just as Freeman appeared with the tea tray. Both were instantly unappetising.
He entered with the attitude of a famous actor appearing on the stage, pausing in the door to survey the room as if appraising it - or to allow the audience to applaud his appearance. Whip-thin, with absurdly finely drawn features which immediately made me think of the rats infesting an abandoned old barn back at our country house, Basil was not impressive, no matter how obviously he thought he was. To my abraded senses it seemed as if the temperature dropped precipitously, though good manners - however strained - prevailed. There were chilly and palpably insincere greetings between all, with Basil greeting everyone in strict order of precedence and taking care to put the whisper of a kiss on every lady’s hand.
Every lady except me. Greeting me lastly, he stood in front of me, resembling nothing so much as a horse dealer considering a purchase. I did not extend my hand and he did not reach for it, instead eyeing me through what had to be an unnecessary quizzing glass.
“So this is our little American cousin,” he said. His voice was soft, well-modulated and so oleaginous it almost dripped. “Welcome, dear Miss Wentworth.”
“Thank you, sir,” I murmured neutrally.
Almost unconsciously I raised my chin, an attitude that to those who knew me was indicative of defiance.
“Lovely. A true Wentworth. Well done.”
Then, abruptly he turned to Sir Mordecai and began speaking of other things, mainly about his successes and powerful friends in London.
It was a long time before I could escape to my room, where Patience was waiting for me. I had noticed her absence from the tea ritual, but knowing she had duties had thought little of it.
Unpinning my dress, she very carefully did not meet my eyes.
“I hear Mr. Wentworth has arrived.”
“Yes,” I said neutrally, though after just part of an evening in his company I felt like I should take a bath. Every time he looked at me it was as if he were stripping away all my clothes and claiming me as a prize - an altogether unpleasant feeling. “Does he come here often?”
This time Patience stared at me directly and, after obviously making a decision, said, “All too often in my opinion, usually when he needs to ask your grandfather for money.”
“So he is a gamester.”
Her laugh was short and bitter.
“Yes, and a very bad one. He cannot wait to get his hands on what is left of the Wentworth fortune, the Hall and the title. Did you like him?”
“No,” I said baldly. “I did not.”
She gave me a pitying look as she pulled my nightgown over my head, then began to remove the pins from my hair. No matter how I quizzed her she would say nothing more about Basil, but only brushed my hair - with not nearly the skill nor the gentleness Temperance possessed - before wishing me a good night and almost running from the room. It was intensely frustrating, as there was so much I needed to know, and I suspected that she was the only one who might tell me the truth, but I was wrong. What I needed to know surprisingly came from the lips of Sir Mordecai himself.
I was in bed and the night candle extinguished when the door opened, admitting Sir Mordecai himself. There was a fat moon out which, through the undraped window gave enough light that no artificial illumination was needed. He was still dressed in what he had worn at dinner, and in his hands carried a small lap desk for writing.
“Sir Mordecai?” I asked, struggling into a sitting position.
“Be quiet, girl,” he snapped in a sharp whisper, pulling a chair so close to my bedside that once he sat his knees pushed against the mattress. “Sound carries in these old halls. Now that you have met Basil it is time you know what needs to be done.”
“Needs to be done? You mean by me?”
Even in the watery moonlight his frown was very evident.
“Of course by you. You must save the Wentworths and the Hall.”
That alarmed me, but by the time he had finished outlining his plan - which he obviously thought I would acquiesce to without question - I was blank with shock and outrage.
