Apple seized Alex’s arm and leaned up with a frantic whisper. “I can’t face them!”
He glanced down, his look reassuring and turned back to the servant. “Tell Lady Mere we’ll await her in the Little Parlour, Matthew.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Breathing more easily, Apple allowed herself to be ushered, following the servant, up a wide stairway to the gallery above. The fellow Matthew turned right and Alex steered her left, along a short corridor and into a pretty room furnished with a sofa and chairs in faded and worn chintz, which had clearly seen much use.
“This was the girls’ parlour when they were young ’uns and not allowed in company. My mother preferred them under her eye and wouldn’t leave them at the Garth.”
Apple thought of Georgy’s exuberance and felt a little cheered. The room was much more the style of thing in which she felt comfortable. Not that there was any comfort in the thought of Lady Mere joining them. She sat down at Alex’s bidding on the sofa, which was turned to face the fire. He took a seat beside her and picked up one of her unquiet hands, holding it strongly.
“Dash it, you’re like ice! Here, give me the other one too.”
Possessing himself of it on the words, he rubbed her fingers with all the vigour that characterised him.
“Ouch!”
He grinned and lessened his touch. “Too rough? That’s me all over, ain’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. You can be gentle too.”
Apple met his eyes and her breath caught as his hands stilled on hers. He seemed about to speak. Then footsteps sounded outside and he released her, standing up to face the door.
Lady Luthrie entered, accompanied by another lady, elegant in a blue gown trimmed with frogging around the neckline and all down the buttoned front. She was much shorter than her hostess and looked surprisingly youthful if a trifle weighty, possibly from the onset of her middle years, but a pair of bright eyes surveyed Apple as she paused on the threshold.
Riveted, Apple stared back, wholly forgetting both her manners and her fright. The lady’s face, framed with a fall of dark hair escaping from under a frivolous feathered and lacy cap, was at once alien and familiar. A slight plumpness imperfectly hid a pair of high cheekbones, a straight nose and an odd little chin that Apple knew only too well.
In the background of her dazed mind, she heard Alex exclaim. “Good God!”
And then Lady Luthrie’s voice. “Good day to you, Appoline.”
“Where’s Lady Mere?”
“Alexander, you will accompany me to the Green Saloon.”
“Yes, but —”
“Do not argue, if you please.”
Apple glanced up, her breath now coming short and fast. “Alex…”
He put a hand to her shoulder and eyed his mother. “She don’t want me to leave her.”
The stranger’s eyes left Apple and she came into the room. Lady Luthrie flanked her, her gaze leaving her son and shifting back to Apple.
“Appoline, this is the Duchess of Melkesham, who wishes to speak with you.Alone, if you will be so good.”
Apple hardly heard Alex’s muttered expletive. Her ears were buzzing, and she had to grip her fingers tightly together as her head swam.
“Hang it, she’s going to swoon! Apple! Apple, look at me!”
She focused her eyes on Alex’s face and found him down on his haunches before her. His hands caught the sides of her face so that she had no choice but to look at him.
“You’re not to faint! I forbid you to faint, do you understand? Take deep breaths.”
Apple drew in a breath and let it out.
“Again.”
