Free Crossed Quills by Carola Dunn

clichés like the plague.
     Her chief worry, she realized, was lest she fail Lord Selworth. A speech was very different from an article, Papa had taught her, but he had always written his own. By the time she took over the greater part of the labour of writing his articles, he was too ill to make speeches. Suppose, after all Lord Selworth’s and his sister’s kindness, she proved incompetent to improve on his own efforts?
      Cross that bridge if and when you come to it, she reminded herself.
     “Mama,” cried Kitty, “do look at those celandines, how they shine in the sun. I should like a ball gown that colour.”
     “White and pastels, my love, for a girl making her début, though perhaps a satin underdress would be acceptable. Mrs Debenham will know. But Pippa would look very well in a bright shade of yellow, I fancy. What do you think, Pippa?”
     Pippa glanced out at the hedge-bank, golden-yellow with the shiny little flowers. “Perhaps, Mama,” she said cautiously, but a surge of hope took her by surprise.
     She had forgotten she was no longer condemned to the pale colours which suited her so ill—made her look ill, in fact. In vivid shades, and without the need to skimp quite so much on fabrics, maybe she could show Lord Selworth she was not altogether an antidote.
     Rouge? she pondered. If she was practically on the shelf, surely she was old enough to try rouge, just a little bit, carefully applied. She must consult Bina.
     Kitty tapped her arm. “You are lost in a brown study again,” she said with a smile. “I asked you what Mr Debenham is like. Mama has no more than the haziest recollection of him, but you were Mrs Debenham’s best friend so you must recall the gentleman she married.”
     “I did not see a great deal of him. For the most part he moved in circles we did not aspire to. The Debenhams are a very old and well respected Kent family, I collect, connected to the nobility by marriage though not titled. Once Bina had caught his eye, she was invited to the houses of the best hostesses.”
     “But what was he like?”
     “Tall, dark, and handsome, like the hero of a romance.”
     “Oh, handsome! I do not care about his looks, only his character. He sent his carriage and is to let us stay at his house, so he is kind and generous, but so is Mr Postlethwaite.”
     Pippa laughed. “As like as cheese and chalk—both can be cut and crumbled! Generous he may be, but I suspect his kindness has more in it of indulgence for his wife. As I recall, he impressed me as being decidedly high in the instep, frequently satirical, and not a little cynical.”
     “Then he must positively dote on Mrs Debenham,” Kitty marvelled. “He must have fallen desperately in love with her to marry her before her brother became a lord. And she has reformed his character. Oh, excessively romantic!”
     “Such high flights,” Mrs Lisle reproved with a smile. “I daresay desperation had nothing to do with it, simply they found they should suit, a far sounder basis for marriage.”
     “I expect Bina does suit him very well,” Pippa concurred. “Like the two of you, she is calm and cheerful, and no doubt bears with his crotchets to admiration. However, I may be slandering him! Remember, I did not know him well.”
     “You are too prosaic, I vow,” Kitty exclaimed. “I am sure it is a love-match. Never fear, though, Mama, I shall not require a tall, dark, handsome gentleman who loves me desperately. I shall be quite satisfied to find someone who suits.”
     “As long as he indulges your every whim?” Pippa teased.
     “Kitty is by far too sensible to take odd whims into her head,” said their mother. “Yet I would not have you suppose suitability precludes love. My dearest wish is for each of you to find a gentleman with whom she can be as happy as I was with your dear papa.”
     Pippa vowed to do everything within her power to make sure her sister found happiness. For herself she had no such