two of them hadn’t been alone together since they’d left the ball last night. In fact, Frances had all but avoided Joanna, upholding her end of the bargain with Major Preston. His threat would be more potent while he was here, sleeping in a room below Joanna’s, eating at this very table, walking the halls where she might glimpse his confident stance and dominating eyes.
Stop thinking about him!
Lady Huntford fixed on her eldest daughter, her voice snapping Joanna out of her daydream. ‘It appears we have even more reason for you to try and impress him.’
‘I don’t see why. He’s only the second son and it could be years before he inherits, if he does at all. A woman might waste her life waiting for nothing.’ Frances crossed her arms over her chest in a huff.
Joanna balled her hands into fists at her sides, her nails biting into her palms. After last night, and the quick way Major Preston had defended her, Frances should be grateful. Joanna would give her eye teeth to be able to speak freely with him. All Frances could do was cast him aside and pout over her rake of a lieutenant. Her behaviour disgusted Joanna, but she buried it deep down, afraid it would show in what she did or said. Her one consolation was Major Preston having seen Frances’s true personality. She doubted a man as honourable as he would take a genuine interest in a woman like Frances. Though if he didn’t, why had he accepted the invitation? Lady Huntford had lamented the lack of a response from the Inghams for days. Joanna wondered what had changed his mind and if it had something to do with her.
Of course not. She was nothing to no one. Not even her mother or father, who’d cast her on the charity of Madame Dubois instead of raising her themselves, had wanted her. It was foolish to think the second son of an earl would defy his parents’ and society’s expectations to woo her. His concern for her well-being last night had been a fluke, like Catherine completing her French lessons without an argument yesterday. While Major Preston was staying at Huntford Place, he wasn’t likely to be kind or attentive to Joanna, but to ignore her like everyone else did. There was no reason for him to behave differently when there’d be so many other eligible ladies here to hold his attention.
Lady Huntford gathered up her correspondence and beckoned her eldest daughter to follow her. ‘Come along, we must choose the gowns you’ll wear. We can’t waste this opportunity.’
‘What about me? Can I attend the house party?’ Catherine sat up straighter in her chair in eager anticipation.
‘Of course not. You’re not out yet.’
‘Even if you were, he isn’t likely to favour you,’ Frances sneered at her sister as she trudged after their mother.
Catherine slumped over her breakfast, struggling to hold back tears. Unlike her sister, Catherine had her father’s dark hair and long face with thin lips which seemed perpetually fixed in a downtrodden frown. Her one blessing was lacking the petty streak which permanently marred her older sister’s personality and beauty. At eighteen, Frances was only two years older than Catherine. Given their closeness in age they should have been friends, but Frances’s churlish nature, and Catherine’s more retiring one, discouraged it.
The grand clock in the entrance hall began to chime nine times.
‘Come, girls, it’s time for your French lesson,’ Joanna urged, feeling sorry for Catherine and wanting to distract her from her sister’s insults with activity.
‘I’m too old to be hustled into the schoolroom by a governess.’ Catherine’s defiance weakened Joanna’s pity.
Anne, the blonde seven-year-old, turned around and stuck her tongue out at Joanna. ‘We’ll tell you when it’s time for our lessons.’
Ava, her twin sister, ignored Joanna and continued to eat her half-burned toast.
Joanna stared at the back of their three heads and the bows wound through their curls. The twins were no better behaved or obedient than their eldest sister. She wondered how she would get them to the schoolroom when, to her surprise, it was their father who interceded.
‘Girls, get up at once and stop being contrary,’ he commanded as he strolled into the room, his large, black hunting dog muddying the carpet as it trotted beside him.
With deep pouts the girls shoved away from the table and stood up to form something of a straight line in front of Joanna.
‘That’s how you command charges, Miss Radcliff,’ Sir Rodger tossed at Joanna as he took his place at the head of the now-empty table. ‘One would think you’d have learned such things at that school of yours.’
Joanna’s cheeks burned at the insulting rebuke and the sniggering it elicited from the girls. After their father’s public reprimand, they’d be even more difficult to deal with once they got back to the schoolroom.
Gruger, the withered old butler, shuffled in and tossed the London newspaper down beside his employer’s plate with no attempt at ceremony. Sir Rodger didn’t correct the surly man with the pocked and wrinkled face, but picked up the paper and snapped it open in front of his face. Gruger shuffled out, mumbling insults about the cook under his breath.
‘Come along.’ Joanna led the girls upstairs to another day of fighting to get them to obey her and to do their work. With each step up the curving staircase in need of a polish, past the maids gossiping while the ashes remained in the fireplaces, she wished she could slip off to her room and pour out her heart to Rachel, or Grace or Isabel like she used to do at the school. It wasn’t likely anyone would notice her not working since half the staff hid in corners and shirked their duties, but what they did or didn’t do wasn’t her concern. Her pride in her work and her responsibility for the girls was what mattered and she would see to them, even if it proved as difficult as shooing Farmer Wilson’s cow out of Madame Dubois’s garden.
The single comfort she found in the long trudge down the halls kept dark to save on candles was the knowledge Major Preston would soon be here. While they crossed the second floor and made for the steep and unadorned third-floor stairs, her excitement faded. He wasn’t coming to visit her, and even if he was she had no interest in a dalliance which might result in a child as Grace’s had done. After the way he’d assisted her last night, she doubted he’d be anything but well behaved around her. Still, the strange feeling in her chest at the memory of him beside her at the ball made her wary. It wasn’t so much his weakness she worried about, but her own. She’d already made one mistake in talking to him at Pensum Manor and allowing his kindness and humour to make her forget herself in a room full of people. She feared what might happen between the two of them during some chance meeting in a darkened hallway.
Nothing will happen. She was too sensible of her place and all Miss Fanworth’s old warnings about gentlemen to be corrupted by a man’s fine words. She would do her duty and if she found herself alone with him, she’d smile, nod and continue on her way, no matter how much she wanted him to flatter and protect her as he had at the ball.
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