Free Barbara Metzger by A Debt to Delia Page A

is not too ill to remove to the attics. I bore all three of my children without inconveniencing anyone. She belongs in the attics, if not the stables. Not,” she said with another sniff and another twitch to the beady-eyed beastie dead on her breast, “in the baronet’s suite.”
    “But then Nanny, Aunt Eliza, Mags, and I would be climbing those narrow stairs constantly. No, it will not fadge. Furthermore, it would be unnecessary. His lordship is most likely leaving on the morrow.”
    Gwen screeched, “What, before we get to meet him?” She jumped up and began rearranging the figurines on the mantel. “No, if he was as ill as we heard, then he must stay on at least a sennight. And we must be here as hosts.”
    Delia supposed moving the furniture around was Gwen’s right now, but the collection of china dogs on the mantel had been her mother’s, not part of the entailment at all. So she answered a bit more caustically than she ought, perhaps, knowing how sensitive Gwen was to her roots in trade. “Tyverne must? Who are you to give orders to an earl’s son?”
    “Pish-tosh, he will enjoy the attention. Every man does.”
    Tyverne did not seem the sort to enjoy being fussed over, but Delia held her tongue. Gwen did not. “And what are you thinking of, anyway, my girl? You need us here to lend you countenance. Consider your reputation, for once, and how it reflects on us.”
    “What reputation?” Delia asked. “You swore mine was destroyed when I gave Belinda comfort after her father threw her out of his house.”
    “But George was alive then, and we had no say in the matter.”
    They had said a great deal, however, all of it ugly, unfair, and unhelpful.
    Gwen paused in her assessment of the knickknacks to resume her seat next to Clarence, and next to the dish of sherried ginger biscuits Mindle had brought in. Delia hoped they enjoyed them. The horse had not.
    Gwen wrinkled her long nose at the biscuits, but deigned to try one, before Clarence could devour them all. “Still, that was then, and you promised it was a temporary arrangement. Your reputation might have recovered. But now we say–” She pinched Clarence’s arm, so he put down the second pastry he was holding and said, “Right. Now we say ... what?”
    “That a single gentleman in the house of an unmarried female is shocking.”
    Clarence took another bite. “Quite. Dallsworth complained to me when he got wind of it.”
    Delia started to point to Aunt Eliza as chaperone enough, when another thought struck her. “Dallsworth? What does that old reprobate’s opinion matter?”
    Clarence puffed out his cheeks. Likely so he could stuff more biscuits in. “Fine gentleman, Dallsworth. Well respected, don’t you know.”
    Delia knew he pinched the housemaids every chance he got. She busied herself fixing the tea Mindle finally brought. She thought of asking Gwen to pour, since Clarence’s wife was nominally hostess. But that was Delia’s mother’s Wedgwood on the tray, and Delia’s temper under the thinnest control. She poured.
    Gwen examined the slices of bread and butter presented, looked down her long nose, and refused. “Dallsworth is the highest-ranking gentleman of the neighborhood,” she reminded Delia, as if Delia had ever been allowed to forget. He also had the rankest breath in the neighborhood, Tom Burdock’s prize hog notwithstanding.
    His mouth full, and both of his hands, Clarence managed to say, “He’s agreed to renew his suit.”
    Delia almost spilled her tea. “He is taking you to court?”
    “Haw!” Clarence guffawed crumbs across his vividly striped waistcoat, and the damask sofa. “Told you our Dilly was a right ‘un. Still, it don’t look good, my girl,” he admonished, waving a finger of toast at her, “entertaining another gent.”
    Delia put down her mother’s teacup before she was tempted to toss it at her cousin’s head. “The viscount is ill, as you well know, so I am not entertaining anyone.