“The Duchess of Bewcastle is a very amiable lady,” she had said. “I cannot help wondering, though, if the duke does not regret condescending to marry her. She was once a teacher in a village school. Her father was once a teacher. Her sister teaches at Miss Martin’s school in Bath. And now she has all those charity girls staying at Lindsey Hall and speaks of them as if they give her as much pleasure as the children of the duke’s own family. They ought not to be there. For their own good they ought not.”
“For their own good?”
“They need to learn their proper station in life,” she had said. “They must learn the distinctions between themselves and their betters. They must learn that they do not belong in places like Lindsey Hall. It is really quite cruel to them to allow them to spend a holiday here.”
“They ought to remain at the school, then,” he had said, “kept busy with mending and darning and fed bread and water?”
“It is not what I mean at all,” she had told him. “You must surely agree with me that those girls ought not even to be at a school with other, paying pupils. Those others are only the daughters of merchants and lawyers and physicians, I daresay, but even so they are middle class, not lower, and there is a definite distinction.”
“You would not want to see your own daughter go there, then?” he had asked.
She had turned her head to look at him and laughed. She had looked genuinely amused.
“Our own daughters,” she had said, “will be educated at home, as I am sure you would expect.”
“By a governess who may have been educated at Miss Martin’s school or one like it?”
“Of course,” she had said. “By a servant.”
And so now, a mere few moments later, in another silence, Joseph felt his spirits slide all the way down to the soles of the riding boots he was still wearing. There was no hope, no ray of light, ahead. He ought to have insisted upon a decent period of courtship before committing himself to offering for her. He ought…
But there was no point in such thoughts. The reality was that he was betrothed to Portia Hunt. He was as firmly bound to her as if the nuptials had already been solemnized.
The sound of feminine voices in merry conversation with one another came from the terrace behind them, and soon Lauren and Gwen and Lily and Anne Butler stepped into the garden.
“Ah, your peace is being invaded,” Lauren called when she saw them. “We are going to climb to the top of the hill and admire the view. Have you been up there?”
“We have just been relaxing here,” Joseph said with a smile.
“We are going to sit up there and makeplans,” Lily said.
“Plans?” Portia asked.
“For a picnic the day before the anniversary celebrations,” Lily explained. “Elizabeth and I have been telling everyone about the delightful scene that met our eyes when we arrived at Lindsey Hall earlier, children everywhere, all enjoying themselves enormously.”
“And it struck my mother-in-law and me,” Lauren said, “that there are lots of children here too and yet all the official celebrations virtually exclude them. And so we decided on the spot to organize a children’s picnic for the day before the ball.”
“How delightful,” Portia murmured.
“But now we have to plan it,” Mrs. Butler said. “And because I was once a teacher, I am expected to be an expert.”
“Lauren and Lady Redfield are going to invite all the children from Lindsey Hall too,” Gwen said. “And some of the other children from the neighborhood. There will be an army.”
“Miss Martin’s girls too?” Joseph asked. He had been wondering how he could arrange to see Lizzie again.
“But of course not,” Portia said, sounding shocked.
“But of course,” Lily said simultaneously. “They were a delight, were they not, Joseph, all dancing about the maypole? And that little blind girl was quite undaunted by her affliction.”
“Lizzie?”
“Yes, Lizzie Pickford,” she said. “Lauren is going to invite them all.”
“Alvesley may never be the same,” Lauren said with a laugh. “Not to mention us.”
Joseph, smiling back at her, could remember a time when Lauren had been every bit as straitlaced and apparently lacking in humor as Portia. Love and her marriage to Kit had transformed her into the warmhearted woman she was now. Was there a glimmering of hope for him after all? He must persevere with Portia. He must find a way to her heart. Hemust. The alternative was too dreadful to contemplate.
“Do you want to come up with us?” Gwen suggested, looking at Portia.
