“The devil!” Deep disappointment swept through Alex. “If that isn’t the most curst mischance!”
“I’m so sorry, Alex.” She turned to Apple. “But of course you may remain here until I must leave.”
“When are you going?” Alex asked.
“In two days.”
“Two days?Hang it, not sure I can do the business in that time! Now what are we to do?” He saw Apple’s dismay and pulled himself together. Time enough to find another solution. “I’ll think of something, Apple, never fear. Meanwhile, dare say you’d like to freshen up before you dine. Georgy?”
His sister rose at once to the occasion. “Of course. Come with me, Apple — if you don’t object to my calling you so? — and we’ll arrange for your accommodation and —” with another deprecating look at the other girl’s costume — “I’m sure I can find something of mine that will fit you. Perhaps not tonight, but I’ll look in my wardrobe tomorrow. But at the least I can lend you a nightgown and anything else you need.”
Her voice, still chattering, receded down the corridor as she hustled Apple away.
Alex sank into a chair and set his mind to profound cogitation.
Chapter Six
A very few minutes in Lady Georgiana’s company sufficed to erode the shyness that had overtaken Apple on arrival at Merrivale House. She chattered nonstop, so that one did not actually have to answer many questions since she was in the habit of asking one and then saying something else. Except when it came to Apple’s lack of luggage, which she harped on several times.
“How in the world did you come to set forward without even a bandbox? I dare not take a foot from my door unless I have everything I may need, even if I am only going out for the day.”
Apple was looking about the bedchamber to which her hostess had led her, after a brief colloquy with a maid detailed by the butler to prepare the Blue Room for the guest. This large term turned out to designate a cosy chamber containing a tent bed with pretty lacy hangings, beribboned in blue and a blue velvet-covered base. It was not grand at all. Indeed, Apple again stigmatised it as frivolous, which she suspected was typical of her hostess.
“I hope you will be comfortable in here, Apple. I have not yet had all the rooms changed, but at least I was able to get rid of the ancient bed that used to be in here. It was quite gothic and horridly huge.”
Apple assured her she would be perfectly comfortable. “I have never been in a bedchamber half as pretty.”
“Have you not? Poor thing! Now see, if only you had some clothes, there is this charming press. I love the Chinese look, don’t you?” Hustled onto a dressing stool, Apple could hardly believe it when her hostess began deftly removing the pins in her hair. “We will comb it out and redo it. Oh, I had best ring for Nelly to bring you hot water for washing.”
Leaving Apple with her hair half falling down, she flitted to the bell-pull and tugged on it. Relieved at the notion of being able to wash the travel stains away, Apple started to remove the rest of her hairpins.
“But you haven’t yet told me about the luggage,” complained Georgy, coming back to her and examining Apple’s features in the mirror. “Gracious, you are not in the least the sort of girl I would expect Alex to befriend.”
A bubble of resentment loosened Apple’s tongue. “Why not? What sort of girl should I be?”
“Oh, dear, have I offended you?” Georgy looked contrite. “To be truthful, I’m not sure I even know what Alex likes. Mama is in despair about him, I must tell you, for he ought to have married ages ago.”
Apple was conscious of a rise of interest. “He is not all that old, surely?”
“He will be thirty in a year or two, and it’s perfectly ridiculous of him not to have secured the succession by this time. Instead, he’s evidently going about rescuing stray damsels and risking a horrid scandal.”
Apple’s cheeks warmed and she drew herself up. “There will be no scandal on my account, I assure you. And it’s not my fault he chose to insist on bringing me here.”
Georgy immediately became penitent, plonking down on the bed. “Oh, dear, I did not mean to be such a cat. I am very glad to have you, and of course it’s much less scandalous if you are with me.”
Apple swivelled to face her. “Besides, he has not rescued me. I rescued myself. Not that I have run away, if that is what you think, because it isn’t so.”
Georgy’s blue eyes widened. “But if you haven’t run away, why are you utterly without luggage?”
“If I was running away, I would have taken as much as I could carry, wouldn’t I?”
“Would you? Oh, dear, I am perfectly bewildered!”
Fortunately, at this point the maid Nelly appeared and Georgy broke off the conversation to instruct her to fill the jug with hot water and also to find a brush and comb.
“Oh, and fetch my shawl, Nelly, the one all over flowers. That will brighten up your gown, Apple. And I won’t change for dinner either,” she added as the maid dashed off upon her errands, “so you need not be put to the blush. We will wait upon the water before doing your hair up again, and in the meanwhile do for heaven’s sake tell me everything, for I am dying of curiosity.”
“There’s not much to tell,” said Apple with reluctance. “I have to go and see a — a certain lawyer in London, and — and your brother decided he ought to go in my stead.”
