“Sorry but quite true. I hate him. Keeps us in poverty — his own children.”
He pulled at the sleeve of his coat, and she could see now that although it was of good quality, it was shabby and frayed. His neckcloth, too, had a slightly grey tinge, as of linen that has been laundered too many times. Somehow, that was even more shocking, to Sophia’s mind, that the children of an earl, a man who must be supposed to have a vast income, should not spend a little to keep his son and daughter clothed in a manner suitable for their station in life.
They had gone round most of the ground floor and had reached the library, where Mr Payne was distracted by the architectural drawings of Staineybank on one wall, when Froggett came in.
“There you are, Miss Merrington. Your bath is ready, Mr Payne, if you would care to step upstairs.”
“Oh, goodness, I forgot to watch the time,” Sophia said guiltily. “I am so sorry, Mr Payne, and half these rooms have no fires lit. You must be frozen. It is unconscionably rude of meto monopolise your attention in this way, but I was so enjoying your thoughts that everything else went out of my head.”
He smiled at her, a warm smile that made her insides melt just a little. “My pleasure. Perhaps we might continue later?”
It was hard to catch her breath. “I am not sure… it will depend. Do go and warm up, and I will see you at dinner, if not before.”
With another smile, he bowed and meekly followed the butler, while Sophia was left alone to calm her pattering heart and wonder at her own foolishness.
***
Juliet was waiting for Simon when he emerged, bathed and changed, from his dressing room.
“Oh, good, you got the message about knee breeches,” she said, looking him up and down. “The duke is most particular, it seems, and we want to keep on his good side.”
“The footman told me, and also not to be late. He sounds… difficult.”
“Possibly, possibly. What do you make of it?” she said, pacing back and forth between the bed and the window. “Is it not extraordinary?”
“Beautiful,” he said. “The brushwork on the drawing room ceiling—”
“Not thehouse, Simon. The letter! This letter from the supposed attorney — Mr Goodenough. I have been hearing all about it from the duchess. In June last year, Miss Rowena Hood… Hodd… no, Holt, that was it. Miss Holt received just such a letter inviting her to come to Staineybank, where she would discover something to her advantage. She was looking for a post as a governess at the time, so naturally she supposed that was what it was about. A man turned up — she was livingin Oxfordshire at the time — gave her a purse of one hundred pounds, if you please, and carried her here in just such a style as we have been conveyed. Whereupon she discovered that no one from the family had ever summoned her, and the carriage, with the fraudulent Mr Goodenough, had vanished. Just as he did to us today. Is it not the most peculiar circumstance?”
Simon pondered that, frowning. “We did not get a hundred pounds.”
“That is hardly the point, Simon dear.”
“It would have been useful,” he said sadly. “A hundred from Mama and another hundred from the attorney — we could have lived very well on that for months. Years, perhaps. All the bills paid.”
“Yes, yes, but there was no money from the attorney, who is not an attorney at all. He is a rogue and a charlatan, and I do not understand the purpose of all this. Thereisa plan for an orangery, but this Mr Richard Merrington is to design it.”
“She married him,” Simon said, suddenly struck.
“What? Who married whom?”
“Miss Rowena Something, who got the hundred pounds. She married Mr Richard Merrington. Who is he? Oh, I remember, duke’s heir. Second cousin.”
“Is he? Did she? Simon, what does any of that matter? We have been brought here on false pretences, but we can still make something of it. We cannot leave until the snow has cleared, and that gives us an opportunity to talk to this Mr Richard Merrington about the orangery — offer him advice, draw up some plans of your own, that sort of thing. We must spin it out for as long as we can, for at least we will be housed and fed — andwarm, Simon! Look at that fire! And the scuttle full of the best coal, and it will be replenished every day. Oh, the bliss!”
“Plenty of hot water, too,” he said, smiling. “I had a glass of brandy while I soaked in the bath, and now I feel very warm, inside and out.”
“Oh, yes, brandy! There is none in my room, only sherry and some kind of wine, but yes, it does help. Let us see if we can spin this out for a week, at least. If the weather is obligingly bad, we may get ten days out of it, so enjoy the brandy, brother, and the dinner — two full courses every night, the maid assures me. The luxury! Better even than Edlesborough, I imagine.”
“Are we invited to join the family for dinner?” Simon said, startled.
“Of course! The duchess sees us as children of the nobility — which we are, of course — and treats us as honoured guests. Is it not wonderful? She is so kind! So very young to be a duchess. How old is the duke, do you know?”
“I know nothing about him.”
“But you knew this was his house.”
“The house, yes, but nothing about the owner.”
