Free Vice and Virtue by Veronica Bennett Page B

spring day, and Aurora hoped her attempt to lighten it by wearing pale-coloured shoes and a modestly trimmed hat had succeeded.
    “Thank you.” She found herself drawn into the hall, where the man-servant waited at the foot of the stairs. “Please call me Aurora.”
    “And you must call me Celia,” said her hostess, thrusting Aurora’s cloak into the man-servant’s arms. “Harrison, find Mr Joe.”
    Upstairs, they entered a large salon decorated in a tasteful, though not highly fashionable, style. “Joe will be here in a minute,” said Celia happily. “I was at the window and saw you looking at the house from the street, but Father says I must always leave Harrison to open the door because I am the mistress of the household. You seemed very interested in our house! Do you approve?”
    “Oh, yes!” Aurora gazed round the room. She saw a Turkish carpet, upholstered furniture, large portraits tastefully arranged upon pale walls, a carved fireplace, a pile of books upon a small table, work abandoned on a chair. Light streamed through tall windows, one of which was open to the spring air and the sounds of the city. The room gave off an atmosphere of calm content, as if pleasant people conversed here, and pleasant things happened.
    “My father wishes to change this room,” said Celia, also looking around. “He says it has too much of a woman’s hand upon it. I believe it was furnished by the wife of the previous owner.”
    “You have not lived here long, I understand?” ventured Aurora. She sat down on the chair Celia indicated, adjusting the fall of her skirt. Her stomach seemed to be trying to escape from the top of her bodice. She tried to breathe steadily.
    Celia pushed aside her crumpled work and sat down to consider Aurora’s question. “Father was left this house in a will,” she said, “and it is grander than where we lived before, in Tavistock Street. Joe is so pleased to be living at such a smart address!”
    “You are fond of your brother,” observed Aurora with a smile.
    “Very fond.”
    “As I am of mine.”
    “Do tell me about your brother!” demanded Celia. “He is in ill health, is that correct?”
    Aurora sighed. “I am afraid so.”
    “And he will not receive visitors or go out?”
    “Cannot, rather than will not. He is in a consumption. Not quite at the end, but he is very ill.”
    “And you nurse him? How noble!”
    “We have servants,” said Aurora, thinking ruefully of taciturn Mary and workshy William. “And he keeps himself occupied. He is a writer.”
    Celia frowned. “A playwright, you mean? Or is he a – you know – a political man?”
    “He is neither. He writes for his own pleasure,” said Aurora gently. “And I think, under the circumstances, we can none of us begrudge him the indulgence.”
    “Quite so.” There was a short, uncomfortable silence. Then Celia took one of the books from the table and slid Aurora a sheepish look. “Joe gave me these to read. Father says I must read, or I will be empty-headed, and he does not approve of empty-headed girls. But I confess I do not very much like reading.”
    Aurora smiled indulgently. “Neither do I. And like you, I have a brother who is very attentive to my education, I’m sorry to say.”
    She had in fact recently been working her way through the plays of Shakespeare with great enjoyment, and was looking forward to resuming her study whenever she could. But Miss Aurora Drayton’s apparent ignorance of the world must be made to work in her favour as an impostor. Frowning, she inspected the titles Joe had selected for his sister. A book of sermons, a history of China, a compendium of moral tales translated from German and a small volume of household hints.
    She was about to make a light-hearted comment on the choice, when she realized that the books she was handling were probably Edward’s. He or his father might have sought them out and placed them upon the chosen shelf in the library, the very room where she