her mother had married Keith Waring, she had not kept in touch with those friends she had known when they had lived in the country. Instead she knew only those people who her husband had introduced to her in London.
It was with her money that they had rented the house in Islington.
It was the furniture that had belonged to Hugo Sherard which was arranged in the small and, Ivana thought, rather pokey rooms.
Because they were in London, it enabled Ivana to attend a Seminary for young ladies to complete her education
She and her mother had also visited Museums and Art Galleries, which she had enjoyed a great deal.
Now that she thought of it, the only people they entertained had been the rather raffish friends of her stepfather.
And the majority of them were men.
“Where can we – go, Nanny?” she asked again this time in a whisper.
“I’m just thinkin’,” Nanny answered.
“Perhaps – as we have – no money at all,” Ivana proposed, “I ought to – try and find some – work to do.”
“I’m not havin’ you doin’ menial tasks,” Nanny countered, “not while I’m alive!”
“But we have to eat – and food costs money,” Ivana pointed out in a practical tone.
She sat back on her heels and then crossed her arms over Nanny’s knees.
“Now let’s think this out carefully,” she said. “We have to think quickly, because it is now Tuesday and that leaves only – two days before that – ghastly man will take me away in his – phaeton.”
The terror in her voice was very obvious and Nanny was aware that she was trembling.
She was not surprised.
Lord Hanford, she knew, was well over forty and he had already had two wives.
Although she had no intention of telling Ivana, it was rumoured that he was responsible for his second wife being certified as a lunatic.
The servants had gossiped that it was because he treated her in the same cruel way as he did his horses.
“There must be – something that I – can do,” Ivana was saying. “After all I have had an extensive education and – ”
She stopped and gave a little cry.
“But, of course!” she exclaimed. “I did the accounts in the country when Papa was in the War and, after he was killed, Mama left everything to me. I could be a secretary!”
Looking at her, Nanny thought it was very unlikely that anyone who looked as lovely as Ivana would be employed by a woman.
And if a man should do so, it would undoubtedly be dangerous.
“Perhaps,” she said after a moment, “you could be a reader to an elderly lady. After all they needs someone to read to them when they’re gettin’ old and goin’ blind and you have a really lovely reading voice.”
“That is what Mama used to say,” Ivana answered. “I would read the Collects to her on a Sunday and then the poems of Lord Byron. They made her cry because they reminded her of Papa.”
She sighed deeply and recalled how happy she had been reading to her mother before Keith Waring came into her life.
Then, as if forcing herself to be practical, she asked Nanny,
“How can I find out if there is a position out there waiting for me? Would there be an advertisement for a reader in the newspapers perhaps?”
“You have to go to an Employment Agency, dearie,” Nanny replied. “I’ll try and find out from Mrs. Bell downstairs which is the best one in London.”
When they first came to London, Mrs. Bell had been engaged to clean the house and help Nanny with the cooking.
Nanny was a very good cook and had started to cook when they had been in the country.
After she was bereaved, Mrs. Sherard had to be tempted to eat anything and, after they came to London, Nanny had continued cooking because she enjoyed it so much.
What was more she was far cheaper than anyone else they could have employed.
Mrs. Bell charged very little for coming to the house for only two or three hours every morning. She cleaned out the fireplaces, scrubbed the floors and made the beds.
“Yes, ask Mrs. Bell,” Ivana said, “and ask her quickly, Nanny, because there is no time to lose.”
She felt a sense of terror surging through her body and it was making her feel incredibly agitaed.
Every minute was drawing her closer and closer to the moment when Lord Hanford, with his red face and his swimming eyes, would pull her roughly into his phaeton beside him and drive her away to unmitigated hell.
He would carry her away to the country where she would be imprisoned and never have any chance of escape.
Nanny rose from her chair.
“Now, you sit here,” she said, speaking as if Ivana was three years old, “and be careful, if your stepfather comes in here not to let him know what you have overheard him talkin’ to Lord Hanford.”
“No, of course – not,” Ivana said, “but hurry – do hurry – Nanny, I am frightened – I am terribly – frightened!”
Nanny went from the room and Ivana sat down in the chair that she had vacated and put her hands over her eyes.
How can this have happened?
How could the future be so degrading and so utterly abominable and menacing?
It was like being a dark room that she would never be able to escape from.
She knew well that her stepfather was a weak character and he was quite incapable of making money, only of losing it at the gaming tables.
He had, however, she had to admit even now at this time of terror, been really in love with her mother.
That was not so surprising since Mrs. Sherard had been exceedingly beautiful and lovely in every sense of the words.
There had been a great many men in love with her before she had met the Honourable Hugo Sherard.
They had both fallen in love with each other virtually at first sight and been ecstatically happy.
Years later, the Dragoon Guards, the Regiment that he was serving in, was sent to the Peninsula to fight for his King and country. They had formulated a brilliantly conceived plan to attack Napoleon where he might least have expected it.
However, after less than a year abroad, Hugo Sherard was killed.
At first Ivana thought that
