Free Carola Dunn by The Actressand the Rake Page A

Nerissa. Defenceless as she seemed, she showed occasional flashes of an indomitable spirit. It took courage and determination for a young lady to travel on her own by the stage from York to Dorset. She was no milk-and-water miss who would turn tail at the first difficulty.
    And she faced difficulties aplenty. Miles’s compliance with his godfather’s terms was entirely within his own control. Nerissa, on the other hand, had to win the favour of the neighbouring gentry. Learning to run a houseful of servants would be child’s-play in comparison. Not that her manners were in any respect vulgar, as Sir Barnabas had expected, but there was a great deal more to being a lady than a lack of overt vulgarity.
    Miles had noticed that when he swore in her presence--”Devil take it!” he had said--she had not so much as blinked. A well-bred lady would have appeared shocked and reproachful. No doubt her theatrical life had accustomed Nerissa to blasphemous and obscene language. Even Shakespeare was full of it!
    She’d have to become unaccustomed, and learn how to show it. She had a great deal to learn, and there was no one but Miles to teach her.
     

Chapter 6
     
    “But really, Effie, in the library?” said poor Cousin Sophie. “It seems so very unlikely.”
    Sir Barnabas, comfortable in his favourite chair at last-- everyone still automatically avoided it--shook his invisible head at Sophie’s innocence. Effie voiced his thoughts.
    “That sort of person,” she said magisterially, “will seize the slightest opportunity to misbehave.”
    “Anyone might have gone in at any moment,” Sophie continued her brave protest. “Indeed, Mrs Hibbert did, and dear Miles left, which is why I stopped lurking in the hall. So very mortifying to be caught lurking.”
    Mrs Hibbert had gone to see Nerissa in the library? Sir Barnabas sat up straight. So the impudent chit was already taking over the reins! Cousin Effie would be in high dudgeon.
    Indeed, her face was rapidly attaining a hue to rival her purple gown. She opened her mouth, but before her wrath exploded Neville spoke.
    “Sophie has a point,” he said. He quailed before Euphemia’s glare but continued, “If they were always together we might manage to watch them every moment of the twenty-four hours, but there are simply not enough of us when they go off in different directions. Where did Courtenay go, Sophie?”
    “I fear I don’t know, Cousin.”
    “You should have followed him,” Effie chided.
    “Oh, I could not! He saw me!”
    “Bungler!”
    Sir Barnabas knew better than to expect Sophie to defend herself with the obvious truth that there was nowhere to hide in the passage outside the library. Effie would never accept so feeble an excuse anyway. He was rather surprised when his brother came once again to the rescue.
    “There are places where it is impossible to remain hidden,” he said pompously, “and times and places where it is indeed unlikely that debauchery will occur. We must strive to know at all times where Courtenay and Nerissa are, but to concentrate our full efforts on the most likely moments.”
    With a snort of disgust, Sir Barnabas floated from the room. Miles and Nerissa had only been in the house a few hours and already his allies’ resolve was weakening. He always knew they were a bunch of incompetent loobies.
    Mrs Hibbert, on the other hand, was both competent and strong-minded. He’d like to see how a hussy bred up in the theatre was dealing with his fastidious housekeeper. However, he could only keep his eye on one at a time and Nerissa was under observation. He sniffed the air, found a faint trace of Miles--not so much a scent as a hint of his passage--and followed it towards the stables.
    He was perfectly capable of drawing Harwood’s attention to any breach of the rules, even if he hadn’t quite worked out how to manifest himself to anyone else.
    While Sir Barnabas endured a tedious conversation between Miles and his head groom, in the