his offer proved true. A short time later, while her father still pondered his latest diatribe, there was a knock on the door. Outside, the same coach that had deposited her waited for the liveried servant who held a properly sealed and decorated invitation and a package of books.
Before her father could say otherwise, her mother had snatched it from the poor man’s hand and instructed him to wait upon the response. Then she pushed her husband’s work aside and reached for paper and pen.
‘As usual, Satan sends his handmaidens in fine garments to tempt the unwary,’ her father barked.
The footman looked rather alarmed and peered behind him, unaware that he was the handmaiden in question.
‘Nonsense, dear. It is an invitation to the manor. Nothing more. It can do us no harm to accept, surely?’
‘Well, then.’ Her father beamed. Then he waved a hand at the man who waited. ‘My regards to Lord Clairemont, his wife and his daughters. Tell them to be wary, just as they are merry.’ Then he opened the first of the books and immediately forgot the source of his discomfiture.
The man gave a hesitant nod, and waited upon the hurriedly scribbled response from her mother before returning to the carriage.
Mother and daughter returned to the kitchen.
‘You cannot mean for us to go, Mama,’ Barbara whispered. ‘Look at Father. There is no way for us to keep the pretence that it will be as it was. And no way to predict, once he is there, what he will say in front of Mr Stratford and his guests. It would be better if we refused politely and stayed home.’
‘It would be better if your father and I stayed away. But there is no reason why you cannot go,’ her mother said firmly. ‘While I like dinner and a ball as well as the next person, I am content to sit here with your father and allow you to get the benefit of an invitation. He said there might be gentlemen?’
‘Friends from London.’
‘Stratford means to marry Anne. She and her parents will be there to recommend and chaperone you. I am sure, if you wrote to her, she would offer you a space in their carriage so that you needn’t walk to the manor.’
‘That was what Mr Stratford suggested as well. He said he would speak to them. But I do not think they would like it very much. Perhaps there is another way.’ Although Barbara could think of none.
‘I will not let you walk to the manor in dancing slippers. Nor will I allow you to refuse this invitation,’ her mother said, giving her a stern look. ‘I will write to the Clairemonts about it. I will choose my words with care. Perhaps, after six years, you should not blame yourself for something that was no fault of your own, and they should find it in their hearts to forgive you.’
It was not nearly enough time, Barbara was sure. It had been just this morning that she’d met Lady Clairemont walking down the street and seen the way the lady looked sharply in her direction, and then through her. ‘Please, Mother, do not.’
‘There is no other way. This is an opportunity that you dare not turn down. If there were other suitable men anywhere in the area I might think twice. But if there is a chance of a match amongst Mr Stratford’s guests we must seek it out for you. One of your old gowns will have to do. But we can trim it up with the lace you bought this morning and I am sure it will look quite nice.’
‘Mother!’ Despite her best efforts, her mother had seen into the shopping basket. ‘That was intended as a gift.’
‘For someone who has less need of it than you,’ her mother said, laying a hand on hers, ‘it would do my heart good to know that you are out in society again—even if it is only for a day or two. I will write the letters, and then we will see what can be done with the gown. You must go where you are invited, Barbara, and dance as though your future depended on it. For it very well might.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
JOSEPH went to his bed that night in the knowledge that his rest would be well and truly settled. He had managed his guests—impressing the men with his plans for the mill, and charming the ladies without appearing ill-mannered or common. He had skated Miss Anne Clairemont twice around the millpond without falling or precipitating a fall in her. Then he had gone into the village, located Miss Lampett and presented his proposition.
If the ghost, or whatever it had been, had meant to upbraid him on the fate of that poor girl, he had done his best to return her to the society to which she was accustomed. Although why her fate should fall to him, he had no idea.
Perhaps it was because he was the one with the most power to change it. When his future mother-in-law had protested that she would not be seen in the company of ‘that girl’, he had explained tersely that it would be so because he wished it so, and that was that.
He wondered for a moment what Barbara had done to deserve such frigid and permanent rejection, but concluded it was nothing more than the usual fall from grace involving some young man—possibly a suitor of Anne or the departed Mary. If that was the case Miss Lampett had well and truly atoned for it, after years of modest dress and behaviour.
And more was the pity for it. If the kiss they’d shared had been any indication of her capability for passion, he’d have liked her better had she not found her way back to the straight and narrow. He smiled, imagining a more wanton Barbara, and the sort of fun he might have had with her.
The clock in the hall struck two.
‘Leave off having impure thoughts about the poor girl, for your work is far from finished.’
Joseph sat bolt upright in bed at the sound of another unfamiliar voice, booming in the confines of the chamber. He had not even risked wine with supper, and had shocked his valet with a request for warm milk before bed. But now he wondered if perhaps it might have been better to forgo the milk and return to a double brandy in an effort to gain a sound and dreamless sleep. ‘Who might you be, and what makes you think you can read the contents of my mind?’
‘You are young enough, and healthy enough, and smiling at bedtime. If you are not thinking of a young lady then I do not wish to know what it is you do think on.’
This night’s ghost wore a scarlet coat of a modern cut trimmed in gold braid. His buff trousers pulled tight across his ample belly as he laughed at his own joke. The brass of his buttons was gleaming as bright as the gold leaf upon the coach he must drive. But tonight it seemed to be even brighter than was natural, as was the coachguard’s horn he carried in his right hand as further indication of his job.
‘As to who I am, you may call me Old Tom, and know that I departed this life just a year ago, along the Great North Road. You would not have had to ask my name had you lived any great time in this country. All know me here. At least those who are not so high and mighty as to have no need of public conveyance.’
Joseph snorted. ‘Although I have no real memory of you, I’ve heard of you—driving drunk and taking your passengers with you to the next life when you upset the coach. I must be running out of ideas. I am reduced to populating my own dreams with little scraps of facts that do not even concern me.’
The driver laughed again. ‘You give yourself far too much credit, Joseph Stratford. Even if you think yourself clever with machines, you are rather a dull sort for all that, and not given to colourful imaginings.’
‘Dull,
