Free Finessing Clarissa by MC Beaton

time. I fell over my sword.’
    ‘Yes, but you did not stab anyone to death with it.’
    ‘Come, Miss Vevian, I am sure you have not killed anyone.’
    ‘Not yet,’ said Clarissa gloomily.
    ‘I must take my leave,’ he said, getting to his feet. He bowed to the company, obtained permission from the delighted Tribbles to take Clarissa driving, and bowed his way out.
    ‘Well,’ began Effy and then squawked as Amy gave her a surreptitious kick. ‘Don’t refine too much on it,’ muttered Amy, ‘or you’ll get her in a flutter and she might break something.’
    Clarissa made her excuses and went up to her room. Her heart was beating hard. A handsome man was to take her out, not just any ordinary handsome man at that, but the Catch of the Season. Hubbard undressed her for bed, running around her, pulling tapes free, looking like a bad-tempered villager who did not want to dance round the maypole.
    ‘I can do the rest, Hubbard,’ said Clarissa, coming out of a dream. ‘I wonder if Miss Yvette will have any of my clothes ready.’
    ‘A disgrace, that’s what it is,’ grumbled Hubbard. ‘A woman in her condition ought to have been turned out in the streets where she belongs. But that’s the French for you.’
    ‘And that’s a lack of Christian compassion for you,’ snapped Clarissa, who had grown quite fond of the French dressmaker. ‘Be off with you, Hubbard, and say your prayers.’
    Clarissa was so excited, she thought she would not be able to sleep, but she soon plunged down into the depths of a pleasant dream where she was dancing at Almack’s and everyone was exclaiming at the intricacy and style of her steps.
    In her dream, the quadrille finished and she saw the Earl of Greystone approaching her. He had a smile in his eyes. He held out his hand. She went to take it, but a little fluffy miss with bobbing curls and big blue eyes moved in front of her. The earl’s arm encircled the fluffy miss’s waist and they moved off together.
    Somewhere in the depths of her dream, Clarissa told herself it was only a dream and that she ought to wake up. She opened her eyes and looked bleakly up at the ceiling. She remembered that fluffy creature. Her name had been Chloris Deveney. Clarissa had been sent to a seminary in Bath for a year but had only lasted a few months. She had insisted on having a bath and had gone to sleep in it. She had had a nightmare and had rolled out of the tin bath, upsetting the contents onto the floor, and water had seeped down and ruined the ceiling of the assembly room underneath. Chloris had been at the seminary at the same time. She was everything Clarissa was not, small and dainty and deft.
    Clarissa was brought abruptly back to the present by the feeling that there was someone in her room. At first she only sensed a presence. Then she wrinkled her nose. There was a faint smell of patchouli. Then she heard the creak of a floorboard and quick shallow breathing.
    ‘Who’s there?’ she cried, starting up.
    There was a little gasp and then the soft opening and closing of the door.
    ‘Help!’ shouted Clarissa at the top of her voice. She climbed from the bed and lit a branch of candles with a spill which she thrust between the bars of the still-glowing fire.
    She looked wildly about. Everything was in its place. Nothing had been disturbed.
    The door opened and Amy erupted into the room, clad in a voluminous nightgown. Effy appeared behind her, her head covered in curl-papers.
    ‘There was someone in my room,’ said Clarissa.
    ‘You must have been dreaming,’ said Amy crossly. ‘Who would want to come into your room?’
    ‘I don’t know. But there was definitely someone here,’ said Clarissa stubbornly.
    ‘Is anything the matter?’ came Harris the butler’s voice from the passage outside.
    Amy turned round. ‘Miss Vevian claims there was someone in her room.’
    ‘No one could have got into the house,’ said Harris. ‘With so many burglaries, I go round each night before