Free Enlightening Delilah by MC Beaton Page A

learn that he had let a desirable lady escape.
    And then on the afternoon before Lady Burgoyne’s ball, a row erupted which roused even Amy from her dreams.
    Delilah had gone out with Effy to make calls. At Mrs Busby’s, Delilah had met a young miss called Mary Williams who, like Delilah, was in London for the first time. Mrs Busby was her aunt. While their elders were talking, Delilah and Mary shared their first impressions of London. Mary confided in Delilah her hopes of being engaged soon so as to spare her parents the expense of a full Season.
    ‘I am sure
you
will not have any worries,’ said Mary. ‘The Misses Tribble are accounted very successful at puffing girls off.’
    ‘Indeed!’ exclaimed Delilah. ‘Do they have nieces they have brought out?’
    ‘No, just the people they advertise for. I assume your papa read their advertisement.’
    ‘What advertisement?’ asked Delilah.
    It was then obvious to Mary that Delilah knew very little about the Tribbles. But she was jealous of Delilah’s glowing beauty and said, ‘They advertise for difficult girls, you know, girls whose parents cannot do anything to get them wed. I know this cannot be true in your case, dear Miss Wraxall, but it must make you feel very odd, everyone wondering what is up with you.’
    ‘The Misses Tribble are old friends of my father, that is all,’ said Delilah coldly.
    Mary moved away to talk to someone else. Delilah thought furiously. She thought of all the tutors, the constant admonitions as to how to behave, Lord Andrew’s odd remarks. She could feel her face beginning to burn.
    As soon as they returned to Holles Street, Delilah faced the sisters. Some instinct told her that if she asked them whether her father had answered their advertisement, then they might stick to the fiction that he was simply an old friend. Instead she lied. ‘My father informs me he is paying you to school me,’ she said.
    Amy looked startled, and then said, ‘Well, he might have told us he had told you. He instructed us to say we were old friends of his.’
    ‘So it
is
true!’ raged Delilah. ‘Why? I have had more proposals of marriage than most women in England.’
    Effy twittered in dismay, but Amy said roundly, ‘You didn’t accept any of ’em. What worries your father is that you led them all on shamelessly, or they would never have come up to the mark. He turned to us because he was at his wits’ end.’
    ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ cried Delilah.
    ‘Probably thought you wouldn’t listen,’ said Amy. ‘He says you never got over that Sir Charles Digby turning you down. Took your revenge on everyone else.’
    ‘Sir Charles Digby means nothing to me, never did,’ said Delilah. ‘I shall leave this day.’
    ‘You will not leave,’ said Amy, who now viewed herself as Delilah’s stepmother. ‘It is high time you started thinking of other people. Yes! What of your father? How can he get married again with you hanging around his neck?’
    ‘Meaning you hope he will marry you,’ said Delilah.
    Amy threw back her head. ‘Yes,’ she said defiantly. ‘He has more or less declared himself.’
    ‘Oh, poor, poor Amy,’ sighed Effy. ‘How your wishful thinking does mislead you so.’
    ‘Bitch and hell-cat,’ raged Amy. ‘How can you know anything about love, Effy, you with your chin-straps and face creams and with that embroidered pincushion you call a brain?’
    ‘Listen to both of you,’ jeered Delilah. ‘
You
are supposed to tell
me
how to go on? You have the manners of the gutter, Miss Amy.’
    ‘And you have the manners of a slut,’ shouted Amy.
    ‘I am going to write to my father now,’ said Delilah, ‘and I am going to ask him to come to London immediately and take me away.’
    She swept from the room.
    The sisters looked at each other in dismay. Amy sat down and tugged at her hair.
    ‘We handled that very badly,’ said Effy quietly. ‘We cannot afford to lose Delilah. It seemed like a miracle to have work for the