Free A Countess by Christmas by Annie Burrows Page A

But I think I shall have to make an attempt to quench that spirit tonight. I would not wish to say something I ought not, and perhaps give His Lordship cause to think you have not brought me up to know how to behave.’
    He had already indicated that his decision regarding Aunt Bella’s future hung in the balance. He was half inclined to believe she was Aunt Bella’s illegitimate daughter, and that they had both come here to wheedle something from him to which they were not entitled. Unless she could convince him that the General had lied… She shook her head. It was out of her hands now. She had told him the truth, and thank goodness she had, but it was up to him to make up his own mind.
    As had become their custom since letting their maid go, they helped each other to get changed. On their way downstairs Helen decided that she would have to make some alterations to her gowns so that she would be able to dress and undress herself unaided in future. Fortunately she was clever with a needle.
    The liveried footman was once again on duty at the foot of the stairs, to remind them of the way to the blue saloon. There were already several of the other house guests present, ranged in groups of twos and threes.
    Her aunt took a seat on one of the sofas dotted about the room, and Helen sat beside her.
    ‘You have already met Lord Cleobury,’ she said in a low voice, cocking her head towards the gentleman who had sat next to Helen at dinner the night before. ‘And if I am not mistaken that clerical gentleman, the one who gave thanks for our meal last night, is none other than Barnaby Mullen. Another very distant connection of HisLordship’s. I should not be a bit surprised…’ she lowered her voice still further ‘…if he is not angling for a living. His Lordship has several in his gift.’
    Helen took ruthless advantage of the fact that Lord Bridgemere happened to be engaged in an earnest-looking conversation with the young cleric to turn her head and look at him. It almost surprised her to see that he looked the way he always did. What had she expected? That their confrontation this morning, which had left her so shaken, would have made some kind of physical impression on him? He did not even turn his head and look back at her. It was as though he was completely unaware she had entered the room.
    He probably was.
    At that moment Lady Thrapston walked across her field of vision, severing her tenuous connection to Lord Bridgemere.
    There was no need for her aunt to inform her who this woman was. She and her aunt watched in silence as Lord Bridgemere’s oldest sister sashayed across the room. Tonight she was wearing emeralds to complement the sumptuous outfit of green satin she was wearing.
    Helen frowned. Lord Bridgemere had said they all came to Alvanley Hall at Christmas because they wanted something from him. What could a woman as obviously wealthy as this possibly need?
    Then Aunt Bella gripped her hand, and said in a voice quivering with suppressed excitement, ‘And this boy just coming in now is the one I was telling you about. Bridgemere’s heir. The Honourable Nicholas Swaledale.’
    Unlike His Lordship, the heir—who was not really a boy at all, although he was certainly not very muchpast twenty—was dressed in an extravagantly fashionable style. There were fobs and seals hanging from his cherry-striped satin waistcoat, jewels peeping from his cravat, and he wore his hair teased into a fantastic style with liberal use of pomade. Helen tried very hard not to dislike him just because of the way he looked. For he, she recollected, was the youth who had steered the dinner conversation away from her the night before, after General Forrest had been so rude. ‘And, oh ,’ Aunt Bella continued wickedly, ‘how annoyed Lady Thrapston is that her younger sister produced him, when all she managed to have were girls!’
    ‘He does not look to me,’ Helen observed, ‘like a very happy young man.’
    ‘Money