Free The Battling Bluestocking by Amanda Scott Page A

knowing we would help her. Unfortunately she does not appear to be English and does not seem to understand what we say to her.”
    “Well, she still needs to get dry and warm,” Lady Gordon said firmly. “Take her upstairs, Andrew. Mrs. Borthwick will show you. Perhaps if you soothe her the way one would soothe a wild bird, it would help.”
    He nodded gratefully, then began to murmur soft nonsense to the girl as he followed Mrs. Borthwick up the wide stairway. The girl seemed to settle more quietly into his arms as he spoke.
    Jessica looked at her sister. “You handled that very well, Georgie.”
    Lady Gordon straightened a little, smiling. “Yes, I did, did I not? I expect it comes of playing Lady Bountiful so often. One learns what to do in certain circumstances.”
    “You speak as though a refugee washing up on the beach is a common occurrence,” Jessica teased.
    “No, of course not,” Georgeanne said with dignity. “It is simply a matter of using one’s common sense and doing the most important thing first. It was perfectly clear that the most important thing was to get the poor creature dry and warm with some nourishing English food in her.”
    “You are a good person, Georgie, but something feels odd in all this.”
    “Time enough to sort it out once she’s on her feet again,” Lady Gordon said practically. Then, with a spark of mischief in her eye, she added, “Perhaps you ought to seek Sir Brian’s advice in the matter.”
    “Don’t be ridic—” Jessica broke off when she noticed her sister’s laughing eyes. “You rogue, Georgie. You know how I detest receiving advice from that man.”
    “Or from anyone else,” her ladyship pointed out with sisterly bluntness. “I have frequently noted, however, that Sir Brian quite enjoys being asked for advice. Or have you not observed that fact?”
    “He has a habit of thrusting it upon one whether one asks it or not,” Jessica replied, not without a touch of tartness in her tone.
    “I expect it comes of being a justice of the peace and deciding other people’s lives for them,” said Lady Gordon placidly, “and since he will learn about this business soon enough, you might as well be prepared.”
    Jessica smiled at her. For once she didn’t think she would mind at all hearing what Sir Brian would have to say. It was a puzzling situation. Andrew, when he came downstairs again, agreed with her.
    “Uncle Brian will know what to do,” he said. “But I think before I ask him, I shall just ride round to the nearest villages to see if I can discover any information that will help us.”
    Whether he discovered anything or not, Jessica had no way of knowing, for he did not return that day to Gordon Hall. The stranger slept most of the afternoon and was still asleep that evening when Borthwick announced Sir Brian.
    They had gathered, as was their custom, in the first-floor drawing room after supper. Lord Gordon sat near the cheerful little fire, a glass of port and a branch of working candles on the low parquetry table beside him and the ever-present stack of estate papers in his lap. Lady Gordon, in a chair on the opposite side of the parquetry table from her husband, worked diligently at her tapestry frame, chatting all the while with her sister, who was attempting to convince a square of cardboard, a pile of gaily colored ribbons, and some yellow netting that they ought somehow to form themselves into the exact sort of elegant reticule pictured in the copy of La Belle Assemblée that rested upon the settee beside her. The instructions which accompanied the drawing in the fashionable magazine repeated from time to time the assurance that the pattern in question was simple enough to enable the most inexperienced hand to achieve excellent results. So far Miss Sutton-Drew had failed to achieve anything remotely resembling the exquisite drawing. She looked up with undisguised relief when Borthwick announced Sir Brian.
    That gentleman had condescended to