Entering the room, the nurse took one startled look at her and muttered something about taking the boys upstairs. Annie waved at her irritably, giving her permission, then turned back to Matilda. “I cannot see why he would dismiss me like a—like a maid!” Although she didn’t mean that. “Or like a whore standing under Seven Dials!”
Matilda closed her eyes, while William shrieked “Whore! Whore!” in delight as the nurse led him from the room.
Annie cleared her throat.
“If you use language of that nature around Stephenson, it will give him grounds for refusing your request,” Matilda said mildly.
Annie was trying hard to calm herself, but it wasn’t working. The more she considered the pompous, stuffy earl, the angrier she became. How dare he brush her aside? She read the letter several times, but it didn’t help. After Stephenson’s condescending response, she’d had enough of being disregarded and overlooked.
Scraping her chair back, she got to her feet. “I’m going to see him.”
Matilda sighed. “Then I am, too. I can see there’s no talking to you now, so I will take my leave and get ready. Fifteen minutes, that’s all I ask.”
She wanted Annie to calm down, but Annie wasn’t about to do that in a hurry. “I will go alone. I see no reason to inconvenience you. I’ll get a cab there and back.”
Matilda sighed. “Put on your mother’s pearls. You don’t want to appear before him like some kind of—hoyden.”
Fury had her by the tail. It took Annie five minutes to locate a shawl, hat and gloves, and to change her soft indoor slippers for sturdy outdoor shoes. Recalling Matilda’s request, she located the pearls at the bottom of her petticoat drawer, and put them on, tucking the necklace roughly under her shawl. She wouldn’t bother to put on pattens to keep off the dirt and mud of a potential shower. If it rained, the mud would have to take her as it would.
She stormed out of the house and strode down the street to the main road to find a cab or a chair.
CHAPTER TWO
GERALD STIRRED THROUGH HIS MORNING MAIL with the end of his teaspoon. “Everybody wants us,” he said gloomily.
His oldest sister Damaris lifted her attention from her plate. Her blue eyes met his guilelessly. “Everybody? Isn’t that an exaggeration?”
Gerald heaved a huge sigh. “Probably. Who’d have thought a title made such a difference?”
Damaris scoffed. “Please, Gerald, be realistic. We’ve gone from comfortably circumstanced to vastly wealthy in six months. Why do you think people want to know us?”
The second triplet in age, Delphi, glanced up from her book. “I don’t want to know them.”
“I fear we must make an effort.” That was Dorcas, the youngest. “I intend to use our new status to do what I wish. I always wanted a yellow rose and now I may find one.”
Any reached for her teapot. “Isn’t the yellow rose a myth?”
“No more than the black tulip the Dutch strove for a hundred years ago.” Dorcas leaned over and shuffled through the letters and cards. “You haven’t opened this one.” She plucked out a note and handed it to her brother.
Gerald hummed under his breath and slit the seal, scanning the note quickly. “It’s from Lady Elizabeth,” he said. “She’s sent me a list of balls we must attend when the season begins.”
Damaris, sitting on his other side, snatched the note. “Good lord, there are dozens of them. Some are on the same night. What are we supposed to do there?”
Gerald picked up his tea dish. “Dance, talk, be fashionable.”
Damaris snorted. “I don’t intend for one minute to attend all these. Does Lady Elizabeth expect you to go?” Flicking back the ruffles on her sleeves, she made a determined foray for the jam pot. “Evenings and nights are the busiest times for me. I can’t break off what I’m doing to attend a ball.”
“Even if you might meet some of the luminaries of science?” Gerald asked mildly.
As he expected, his sister paused and gave him her attention. “Do they attend balls?”
“If they want sponsors.” Gerald pushed his plate away as the doorbell clanged. It probably heralded another delivery of invitations and polite introductions. Just as if they had newly arrived in London, instead of having lived here for years. Instead of leaving to plough through the masses of paper piling up on his desk, he waited to collect the latest swathe of invitations and business plans.
Despite effectively changing his name, he still felt exactly the same as always. Gerald Dersingham, man and boy. The fact that he had a new prefix and a new suffix didn’t make him different.
And that, in a nutshell, was his problem. When someone said, “Oh, it’s the Earl of Carbrooke,” Gerald looked around, expecting to see his great-uncle standing behind him, and by his side, his sons, the equally stuffy Frederick and William.