That glimmer snuffed out abruptly as the marquess turned his attention to Aubrey. His greeting was stiff and formal, icily polite and Aubrey knew his misgivings had been well-founded.
Violette gave her brother an impatient look before demanding that they go immediately to the kitchens.
“Whatever for?” Edward demanded, his face one of bewilderment.
Violette gaped at him in horror. “Eddie!” she exclaimed, his name spoken with such reproach that the towering fellow actually looked a little guilty. “It’s stir-up Sunday!” she said, as though this made everything perfectly clear, which apparently it did.
“Oh,” Edward replied, nodding. “I’d forgotten. Do we still do that?” he asked, looking rather doubtful.
“Yes, Edward,” Violette said, her voice firm as she tugged at her brother’s arm. “We do.” She gave a sad shake of her head as she regarded her brother, clearly wondering what else he had forgotten. “Puddy will be so disappointed if we don’t turn up. You know how she loves these traditions. And so do I,” she added, glaring at him in a way that defied any possibility that he could escape her plans.
The marquess seemed to swallow whatever objections he might have given, though he didn’t exactly look thrilled, and Aubrey could only admire his wife’s determination. She turned to beam at Aubrey and gestured for him to follow as they made their way down an incomprehensible twist of corridors and stairs until they reached the kitchens. “Mrs Puddleton is our cook, Aubrey,” Violette called over her shoulder. “But we have always called her Puddy. She’s an absolute marvel, just you wait and see.”
From the wonderfully decadent smells emitting from the kitchens ahead of them, Aubrey could only anticipate great things as his stomach woke and reminded him that their last meal had been some hours ago.
“Oh,” Edward said, hesitating a moment before they reached the kitchen doors. “I forgot. I think Lady Russell was just arriving ...”
“No, Eddie,” Violette replied, keeping a tight grip on his sleeve. “Garrett will deal admirably with Lady Russell, who will be anxious to rest before dinner. Come along now.”
Aubrey bit back a smile as the unwilling marquess submitted to his diminutive sister and was dragged into the kitchens to stir the Christmas pudding.
Chapter 2
“Wherein we meet our heroine and one of many villains.”
Belinda looked up from the cuff she was turning and regarded her younger half-sister with a wry smile. She found herself little surprised to see that Lucretia’s mending had been set aside and her lovely nose buried in a book. Belle knew better than to be fooled by the innocent cover, however. It may look like the lovely young woman - who had been compared to everyone from Aphrodite to Helen of Troy, much to the girl’s disgust - was reading the collective poems of Wordsworth. However, Belle knew that the book that was actually gripping her sibling’s full attention was a blood-curdling collection of ghost stories. The cover was of Crecy’s own making, and her entire book collection looked the same. Apparently, it was to keep the books in good order. In truth, it was actually to hide a number of titles that would shock most young ladies of frailer sensibilities. Heaven help anyone picking up a copy of what purported to be Gulliver’s Travels. They’d be in for a shock.
Belle often wondered if the books were like Crecy herself, that exquisitely lovely exterior, hiding something far more tangled and complicated.
“Don’t bite your nails, Crecy,” she scolded, her tone mild as the beauty looked up with a scowl. With a tut that seemed to imply such things were of little importance, she returned her attention to whatever gory highlight she was currently finding so gripping.
Belle sighed and stared at the cuff she was turning with dejection. They ought to be excited. Their very first season was about to begin, and by some miracle, they had secured one of the most coveted invitations that there was. That at least was something Belle had done right. She had met Lady Russell only briefly, but the rather daunting old lady had taken a shine to her and promised her that she could come to the glamorous party being held by the dashing and rather heroic figure of the Marquess of Winterbourne.
Lady Russell was organising the party with the marquess’ sister who had recently married Lady Russell’s grandson, Aubrey. There had been rather a lot of scandalous talk about that, as well as murmurs of an elopement, and Belle suspected the party was to hush up any further gossip. Whatever the reason, she was grateful. Their opportunities to marry well were slim indeed, and they needed all the help they could get.
Though from a respectable family of good ton, their impecunious father had died and left them at the mercy of his appalling sister. Things after that had deteriorated with predictable and depressing speed.
Whilst Belle’s mother had lived, everything had been fine and rather wonderful, if her perhaps rose-tinted memories were to be relied upon. But her mother had died when Belle was very young, and her father had married again: this time to a beautiful and flighty creature who had led their father into gaming and debt. Lucretia had been born soon after they married, but her mother had died, too, only three years later whilst delivering a brother to the girls. The poor boy had followed her to the grave within hours.
Their father had managed, in a manner of speaking, lurching from one crisis to the next, until four years ago when his liver finally succumbed after too many years of relying on drink to cure his woes.
Since then, they had been thrown on the mercy of their Aunt Grimble, and mercy was something she did not have in abundance. Indeed, any of the softer human emotions seemed to be a foreign concept to the wretched woman who was a muck worm of the worst variety. Happy enough that her nieces should live in penury, shivering in their beds, whilst her bedroom fire blazed all hours of the day and night. She treated Belle as her own personal slave as far as Belle would allow it, and looked at poor Crecy like she was the key to her fortune.
Aunt Grimble didn’t care that Crecy was in no way a conventional beauty. Crecy despised polite conversation, romantic poetry, dancing, and all the things that young ladies ought to find enthralling. The things she did find of interest, even Belle found daunting, so she could only imagine what any amorously inclined young gentleman might make of her. But all that woman saw was a face and figure that could snare a duke, and Belle was terrified that marriage wasn’t the only option the woman would consider.