Free VIscount Besieged by Elizabeth Bailey Page B

she
suspected Isadora might make an unexpected dash to get
out.
    ‘ Dora, calm down,’ she pleaded. ‘You have not even told me what
he has said to cause you such distress.’
    ‘ Distress?’ echoed Isadora, whipping about to face her. Could
not Harriet see what was the matter with her? ‘I am not distressed,
Harriet, I am livid. Do you know what he said?’
    ‘ No,
I don’t,’ Harriet snapped. ‘I have just said so.’
    ‘ He
asked Thornbury if I had a suitor,’ Isadora told her, biting out
the words. ‘Because, if you please, he wants to parcel me off in
marriage.’
    ‘ He
said that?’
    ‘ Well, not exactly that.’ Really, why must Harriet quibble? She
knew what she had heard. ‘But it is what he meant, you may take it
from me.’
    ‘ That,’ said Harriet sceptically, ‘is what it seems to me I
can’t do. I know you, Dora. You always manage to make something out
of nothing. What exactly did he say?’
    ‘ How
in the world should I remember it exactly?’ exclaimed Isadora
impatiently. What did it matter, in any event? She knew what
Roborough was about.
    ‘ It
is plain enough what he intends. He means to sell the estate. That
much I did not mistake, I assure you. And if I don’t miss my guess
he is looking to marry me off as soon as he may, and so be rid of
the whole concern of us.’
    Harriet blinked.
‘Dora, what are you talking of? How could he possibly get rid of
all of you by your getting married?’
    ‘ Easily,’ Isadora responded evenly. ‘My husband would assume
responsibility for the rest of my family, would he not? In the
circumstances, he could scarcely refuse. That is, of course,
presuming the existence of this local suitor Roborough has invented
for his purposes.’
    All at once
Harriet’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, Dora, you don’t suppose Thornbury will
tell him about Edmund, do you?’
    ‘ I
should not be at all surprised.’
    ‘ But
Edmund could not possibly afford to take responsibility for your
family.’
    ‘ No,
and I would not wish it on him either, be sure.’
    For a moment or two Harriet gazed at her friend, an appalled expression on her face, while Isadora paid no heed,
instead pacing to and fro about the little parlour, her mind full
of Roborough’s iniquities.
    Now she
understood why he had been so pleasant to them all. He was trying
to curry favour, to put himself in a situation of sympathy with the
family, that he might the more easily persuade them to accept this
hideous decision to sell off the only home they had all of them
known.
    Such duplicity!
Such a barefaced, unmitigated liar! He did not know what he would
do. It must depend upon circumstance. Yes, on the circumstance of
finding someone stupid enough to wish to buy this ugly old
house.
    Well, let him
try. She would be very much interested to see what he would do when
he discovered that no one in their right mind would give him so
much as a penny piece for the place. She had almost forgotten the
presence of Harriet until her friend, dropping into the nearest
chair, spoke at last in accents of reproach.
    ‘ Really, Dora, you are dreadful. You are making me think as
absurdly as you do yourself. As if you have any real idea of what
Roborough intends. You cannot take a few words overheard through a
shut door and assume an entire history upon them in this
way.’
    ‘ I
don’t see why not. And if he did not wish me to make such
assumptions he should have told me to my face what he intends—as I
asked him to.’
    ‘ And
what did he say?’
    ‘ He
would not tell me, of course. Now I see why.’ She nodded in a
determined manner. ‘Well, he will find he has made a very serious
mistake.’
    ‘ Yes,’ agreed her friend drily, ‘when he discovers that there
is no suitor—except Edmund. And he must guess at once that he
doesn’t count.’
    ‘ I
don’t mean that. It is plain enough that he does not wish to take
responsibility for us all. He may or may not be planning to foist
it all off on to me. But I shall