Free Lady Ellingham and the Theft of the Stansfield Necklace: A Regency Romance by Miriam Rochester

weeks.’
          Sophia Ellingham,
not one to overreact, was never the less extremely surprised and gave Richard a
disapproving look.  Richard looked at his sister exasperated and if he could
have reached across the table, he would have wrung her neck.
          ‘Richard I am
surprised, I would not have thought it of you.  I am sure that it is not quite
a respectable place to go but I do believe that you will be disappointed
because I am sure that they have long since packed up and left.’
          ‘Well I know it,’
he snapped. ‘I am afraid it is just wishful thinking on Flick’s part. No doubt,
Emily has been filling her head with such nonsense.  I do not intend to take
her to such a place. We shall be doing something a little more respectable.’
          Felicity pulled a
face and gave Richard a look of displeasure. The Countess was fond of her
children but she sometimes thought that their personalities must have been
switched at birth.  Felicity was 11 minutes older than Richard and the Countess
could only imagine that she had jostled for first position in the womb.  Life
would have been much simpler if Flick had her brother’s sedate and reliable character. 
She may then have been happy to stay at home and enjoy all the things a young lady
was meant to enjoy but she was never happier than when she was careering around
the Yorkshire countryside on Artemis, practising her shooting or trying her
hand at target and field archery. 
     Being the only girl in
her vicinity, she had romped around the countryside with Richard and his young
friends and as she got older, she could never understand why her parents had
tried to curfew her activities.  She had never ceased to get Richard into
trouble and then out of it again, but it would appear that in adulthood Richard
was increasingly called upon to help Felicity out of a fix.  She was curtailed
in London and the Countess felt guilty for dragging her to the city, but it was
necessary for Felicity to find a suitable husband and there was no one suitable
among her suitors in Yorkshire.
          Lady Ellingham
sighed and looked across at Richard; it was not that she was disappointed with her
son. Far from it, he always stepped up to the plate when it was necessary, but
if only he could do it with a bit more passion. The Countess chastised
herself.  It had been necessary for Richard to take responsibility far sooner
than he should have.  He was still very young and perhaps it was just as well
that he had a serious and sober personality.  She would have been most
distressed but not surprised if she had known of the events of the morning, but
Richard had charged Felicity with the solemn promise of keeping it strictly to
herself and if Felicity had many faults tittle- tattling was not one of them.
          After breakfast,
Felicity went to her room to decide what to wear for her morning visit to Lord Thorndale. 
She had dressed quickly that morning and realised that she must have looked a
fright and it had not helped her appearance that she had fallen humiliatingly into
a muddy puddle.  She wanted to look her best for the visit but for the life of
her she could not understand why, for she was still of the same opinion.  The
man was a rogue.
           So promptly at a
quarter to twelve, she stood in the hallway waiting for Richard. She was
wearing her best afternoon dress of mint green muslin made elegant by its
simplicity. It had a modest square, laced neckline and was tied around the high
waist with a matching ribbon in a deeper green. The dress sported long slim
elegant sleeves tapering to the wrist, a style of sleeve she favoured as it hid
the disfigurement on her forearm and alleviated the need to wear her customary elbow
length gloves.  To finish off the look she wore a cape of green velvet tailored
in the same colour as the satin ribbon on her dress.  Sarah arranged her hair
and trained it into a twist of golden ringlets that were