Mary Nichols - The Westmere Legacy

That was a mistake, she realised. ‘No, we did not,’ the Comtesse said. ‘It was a great inconvenience. No time to pack properly, no time to arrange accommodation on the road and everyone most uncivil…’

‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Bella said, refraining from adding it was the lady’s own fault—she had not been invited. Why she should have assumed that her presence was required, Bella did not know. What would her grandfather say? He had never dealt well with this particular niece.

Louis had completed his inspection and now turned his attention to Bella. He swept her an exaggerated bow and took her hand. ‘Bella, your servant. Looking pretty as a picture, I see.’

Determined to make herself as unattractive as possible, she had chosen to wear a plain jaconet gown in an unbecoming grey, with a straight bodice and high neckline, lined with lace. Her skirt was full and stiff and hid her trim figure. Her hair was dressed simply and had no ornament. They would have to overcome an aversion to her looks before embarking on courtship. And it seemed that Louis was already learning to do this. Or else he was extremely short-sighted.

Bella led the way into the drawing room where the Comtesse stopped in the middle of another tirade against the ostlers at the last inn they had called at when she saw James and Edward. ‘What are you two doing here?’ she demanded.

‘Sent for, same as you,’ Edward said, bowing. ‘How are you, Aunt?’

‘Sent for?’ she queried, not bothering to return his greeting. ‘I did not know it was to be a party. Thought his lordship had asked for Louis to talk about his inheritance. Decided I’d best be here to hear it.’

‘Mama, doing it a bit too brown,’ Louis murmured, while he examined James from head to toe through his quizzing glass as if he were a prize animal at market. ‘I say, coz, you could at the least have had a wash before presenting yourself. Insult to Mama and Miss Huntley, don’t you know.’

‘It’s none of your business, sir. I earn my keep in honest toil and if our kinsman is so thoughtless as to give me no time to make other arrangements, then he must needs take me as he finds me.’

Bella thought it was time she intervened. ‘Edward, if you are sure Robert is not going to come, I think I had better go and tell his lordship you are all assembled.’

She hurried from the room, glad to escape, though how her grandfather would react when he saw the Comtesse she did not dare to think. Nor what he would say when he realised Robert had not deigned to obey his summons. Perhaps she ought to tell him that she had seen Robert in Ely, but that would mean explaining what he had been doing there. But he had only been listening, as she had. It did not mean he was colluding with the dissidents, did it?

Sylvester answered Bella’s knock on the door of the Earl’s apartments. ‘Please, tell his lordship Mr Trenchard, the Comte de Courville and Sir Edward have arrived, but he does not think Captain Huntley will have received his invitation in time to obey.’ She paused. ‘And warn him the Comtesse is here, too.’

‘Oh, is she?’ came a bellow from an inner room. ‘Well, I shall give her a right about, poking her nose in where it’s not wanted.’ He appeared at the door, dressed in a mulberry velvet jacket and matching breeches and clutching a walking stick. ‘Take my arm, girl. Let’s see what those young bloods are made of.’

‘Do you need me?’ she asked timidly. ‘Could I not wait in my room?’

‘No, you could not. Want to see their faces…’

‘But I don’t.’

‘Yes, you do.’

To which there was no answer, and they made their slow and stately way down to the withdrawing room. Before entering, the Earl stood in the doorway and surveyed the company gathered there. Edward bowed slightly, James gave a curt nod and Louis flung out his arm in an extravagant gesture and bowed low. ‘Your servant, my lord.’

The Earl grunted and, leaning heavily on Bella’s arm, made his way over to a high-backed armchair and lowered himself into it. Then he turned to the Comtesse. ‘What are you doing here? I do not recollect asking you to come.’

She dipped a curtsey. ‘An oversight, I am sure, Uncle. How do you do?’

‘Well enough. Not about to shuffle off, at any rate.’

‘I should hope not!’ she said with false brightness. ‘But if you are about to settle your affairs, then I must tell you it is not before time.’

‘What has it to do with you, madam?’

‘Louis is your heir.’

‘Is he? We shall see.’

‘What do you mean by that? My goodness, if you mean to try and disinherit him, it is as well I decided to come, too.’

‘You take too much upon yourself, madam. I wish you to leave us. Find something to amuse you while I talk to these reprobates.’

Elizabeth looked as though she were about to throw a fit, but then, realising he would not proceed while she stayed, flung her head up in disgust and sailed from the room. Bella, who was standing beside her grandfather’s chair, bent and whispered, ‘Should I go, too, Grandfather? She is truly upset and I could keep her company.’

‘No, you will stay here. Sit on that stool.’ He indicated a stool at his feet, then looked up at the three young men. ‘Sit down, you will give me a crick in the neck from peering up at you.’ And as they obeyed he added, ‘Edward, where is that cork-brained brother of yours?’

‘He was in Town when your letters arrived, my lord. I forwarded his, but he may not have received it in time to make arrangements to be here.’

‘More likely demonstrating his independence.’ He gave a grunt of amusement. ‘And he the least independent of the lot of you.’

‘He may yet come,’ Bella ventured, wondering where Robert was. She would not put it past him to keep them waiting on purpose, doing as her grandfather had suggested and asserting his independence. Or proving to her he would not be coerced by anything she had said. She wouldn’t put it beyond him to invite those argumentative labourers to join him in a glass of something at one of the many inns in Ely. ‘We could wait a little longer.’

‘I am not in the habit of waiting on ill-mannered jack-at-warts.’

‘My lord,’ Edward protested. ‘There is nothing wrong with my brother’s manners.’

‘Well, we shall proceed without him.’ He paused to look round at them, smiling slightly. ‘What a gaggle of fine geese you are, to be sure. But you are all I have, bar Bella. You don’t deserve her, not any of you, and if I had any choice I would not let her within a mile of you.’ He sighed heavily. ‘But my mind’s made up. One of you shall have her.’

Bella, who had been sitting looking at her feet, risked a glance at them. She was confronted by three open mouths, though no sound issued from any of them. They had obviously been struck dumb.

‘Well?’ the old man said. ‘Haven’t you anything to say for yourselves?’

‘What would you have us say?’ Edward was the first to recover. ‘Miss Huntley is a dear child. I am very fond of her but—’

‘That, at least, is a start. But are you so blind that you cannot see what is before your eyes? She is no longer a child. While you have been sowing your wild oats, she has become a marriageable woman.’