He laughed at the evasion. Did he really think he could get names out of her that easily?
Chapter Twelve
“IPROMISE YOU, YOU WON’Tstarve. But no one expects a lady to have a hearty appetite, darlings. So you are going to practice merely picking at the food on your plates and leaving most of it untouched.”
Kathleen Blackburn glanced from one to the other of her beautiful twin daughters sitting on either side of her at the dining table. With their perfect blond hair, light blue eyes, and identical delicate features, they were going to make superb matches this year, she had no doubt of it. She was so proud of them. They were ready for their Season, they just needed a few reminders about the small things that could enhance or detract from a successful debut.
“This food isn’t going to go to waste, is it, when I’m so hungry?” Emily complained, but at least in low tones. She knew better than to raise her voice. “You could have warned us ahead of time that we were to have a lesson in starving.”
Emily could be as willful as her older sister, Vanessa, but her twin, Layla, was completely malleable, always eager to please. Emily might start the fight, since she was the more aggressive of the two, but Layla was the peacemaker, able to defuse it. They complemented each other so well, her adorable twins.
But to Emily’s complaint she replied, “Normally you can eat something beforehand so you aren’t hungry when a lavish meal is served, which is what I was taught to do, and if that doesn’t suffice, you can eat more afterward when you are alone. Tonight we practice restraint in case you don’t arrive at your hostess’s table replete.”
“Or we just make sure that never happens?” Emily said.
“What if you’ve been invited to someone’s house for a weekend party? You can’t very well get underfoot in their kitchen, can you?”
“I would,” Emily said assuredly.
“I wouldn’t,” Layla promised.
Kathleen stared at Emily long enough for the girl to amend her answer a little petulantly. “At least I’d send our maid to the kitchen.”
“Much better and allowed,” Kathleen said. “Now practice restraint. I’ll have plates sent up to your room in a few hours.”
But after a few minutes of merely moving food around on their plates without eating, Emily’s stomach growled noisily, making her laugh. “I think that would be more embarrassing than eating most of the food on my plate, wouldn’t you agree, Mother?”
Kathleen sighed. “By all means, if you are that hungry, eat enough to avoid making that embarrassing noise, but keep in mind, there is always dessert. I hope you haven’t forgotten any other lessons I taught you.”
Layla grinned, Emily giggled, before they said nearly in unison, “Not one.”
Kathleen rolled her eyes. “Do refrain from exasperating your mother and simply prove how perfect you both—”
Loud noises were suddenly coming from the central hallway. She stood up without finishing her sentence and moved to the doorway. Just as curious, the girls crowded behind her in time to see a second large trunk being set down in the foyer. The butler was there, still holding the front door open for two of their own footmen who were coming in with a third trunk.
Kathleen approached the butler. “Did our expected guests arrive early?”
“No, mum, just these trunks.”
“Ask the driver who they belong to.”
“To Lady Vanessa.”
The twins squealed in delight at hearing their sister’s name, but Kathleen was shocked rather than thrilled. If Vanessa was going to come home, why the deuce couldn’t she have done so last spring, when Kathleen had expected her to return to make her debut? She’d assumed as much. William had promised he would send their eldest daughter back when he’d let her know that Vanessa was with him, he just hadn’t specified when. And he had never written to her again. He wrote to the twins, though, but those letters were filled with nonsense about plantation life, when he wasn’t on a plantation at all!
That had just been his suggestion for what she could tell their friends and acquaintances about where he and Vanessa had gone. To this day she still didn’t know where her husband and her eldest daughter were. Nor did Peter Wright, William’s longtime friend. Only William’s solicitor knew. All correspondence between William and the twins went through him. But that exasperating man had refused to speak to her when she’d gone to London and tried to get the address from him.
The twins were so excited about Vanessa’s imminent arrival that they began opening the trunks and rummaging through them. But after a few minutes, Emily looked up, nearly in tears. “There’s nothing of Papa’s in them.”
Of course there wasn’t, Kathleen thought. But she was hopeful he would be coming home soon, now that Vanessa was apparently on her way.
“Did you know Nessa was coming?” Layla asked quietly.
“Yes,” Kathleen lied. “I had a letter from your father earlier in the year. I was leaving it to be a surprise. But your father still hasn’t finished his business in the West Indies, so we must all be patient a little longer in awaiting his return.”
Sending men to search for William had proven to be a frustrating waste of time and money, and yet even this year, she’d sent more out to do so. But she did get an unexpected boon several years back, rife with stipulations, but still a possible way of putting her family back together again.
If everything worked out as she hoped it would, William would finally be able to come home to England. Even if he would never return to her, at least she would have assisted in bringing him back to his homeland and all his daughters, not just Vanessa. If Vanessa knew how to find her father, if she would ever volunteer that information, if she had turned out more like Layla than Emily and could be managed, and didn’t indulge in theatrics, if, if, if! Kathleen hated uncertainty, hated when her domain wasn’t exactly as it should be. All because of a harmless flirtation that had gone terribly wrong.
