Angelica snorted. “Even worse! A lone female may be subjected to every sort of annoyance. No, no, if you must go, you must be escorted.”
“Exactly so. Moreover, she will find it a great deal easier to institute enquiries under my aegis.”
“That I won’t deny.” Angelica’s eyes brightened. “I have it! You may go yourself and leave Felicity with me in the meanwhile.”
“No!” This from Miss Temple, chin up and clearly determined. “Grateful as I am to his lordship, I will not be excluded. This is my quest.”
“Yes, I know. But this scheme won’t do, Felicity, believe me.”
Raoul sighed. “There is little point in my going without her, Angelica. I may be able to open doors, but only Miss Temple knows the pertinent questions to ask. I could be stumped by an answer, whereas she is likely to have it trigger a memory, just as she found, as she says, in reading the journal.”
Angelica’s expression was changing as she looked from him to the girl and back again. Raoul groaned in spirit. He could practically read her mind.
“Then there is only one thing for it. I shall have to accompany you.”
Raoul said nothing for a moment, beset by a plethora of rising objections. They would be obliged to go in a coach, which would slow them down. He had meant to drive his curricle, affording both speed and a modicum of respectability to the venture. Adding his cousin would add also to the expense. Not that he cared for that. It came to him, with a sense of shock, that his chief objection was the introduction of a gooseberry between himself and Miss Temple. The realisation threw him into speech.
“I thought you were obliged to go home.”
Angelica gave him one of her more astute looks. Had she divined his real reason? “They can very well manage without me for a little longer.”
Raoul cast about in his mind for some legitimate excuse to exclude her, but Miss Temple forestalled him.
“I could not reconcile it with my conscience to incommode you so far, Angelica. You have already done so much.”
“But, my dear girl, you have no notion how your reputation will suffer if it becomes known you have been in Raoul’s company.”
“More than if it becomes known Lord Maskery introduced me under the aegis of his mistress?”
Raoul winced. He had withheld that tale from her ears. “Did you have to tell her that, Angelica?”
His cousin went a trifle pink, but did not buckle. “She had to know, Raoul. Besides, you are perfectly aware Felicity prefers to be told the truth.”
“Yes, I do, ma’am, and I am glad you told me. It has given me just the spur I needed to quit this sphere and return to my proper place.”
Angelica looked aghast. “You are not planning upon returning to that wretched academy? Was that the letter you received this morning?”
Raoul’s attention snapped to this new fetch. “What letter? Not from Maskery?”
Miss Temple flicked him a faintly amused look. “No, thank heavens. I hope I may never hear from him again. It was from Mrs Jeavons.” Her face closed. Had she not said yesterday she was expecting a letter from her erstwhile headmistress?
“And?”
“And what, sir?”
Angelica huffed. “What did she say, for heaven’s sake?”
Miss Temple’s gaze dropped to the journal in her lap. Why was she reticent? The reason leapt to mind.
“Your place is taken, is that it?”
Her eyes flew up, meeting his with a fleeting expression of anguish. Her voice was flurried. “She has appointed one of the pupils. A girl like me, in need of a future. Mrs Jeavons believes I could not wish her to undo an advantage from which I also benefitted.”
“Well, I am glad of it,” said Angelica stoutly. “This means you must accept my invitation.”
Miss Temple did not look happy. “Yes, that is what Mrs Jeavons suggested. At least, she supposed from my direction that I am in good hands.”
“Which indeed you are, my dear child.” Swooping upon her, Angelica hugged the girl.
