The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,75
that season and that Charles did not live to see the shame you brought to his name. My poor Christabel, though…no one will have her now.”
Nick cleared his throat. The women, upon resumption of hostilities that had simmered for years, had promptly forgotten him, but he tried to bring them back to the present. “We did not come to distress you with talk of Charles, Lady Folkestone.”
She squinted up at him, suddenly suspicious. “If you mean to turn Elinor out of the main house, she is not welcome here. My poor Christabel and I can hardly fit ourselves.”
“I shan’t come here,” Ellie vowed. “The light is too atrocious. Of course, more people and fewer chairs might be a welcome change.”
Nick saw the dowager take a breath. He rushed to fill the pause before she did. “I will not ask anyone to move. But I must ask you a delicate question.”
“Is it Christabel you’re after?” She eyed him appraisingly, then rang the very loud, very shrill bell that sat at her elbow. “Can’t say I think much of the match given your antecedents. But having the title back in the family is a benefit.”
Nick tried to interrupt as soon as she said the word “match,” but the dowager was nearly uninterruptible. “I am not here for Christabel,” Nick said forcefully. “I must ask you a question of a different nature.”
Her forehead wrinkled in confusion under her equally-confused monstrosity of a cap. “What can you possibly want from me, if you won’t have your cousin? You already have everything of value.”
“It has nothing to do with money,” Nick said.
Ellie coughed. “Everything has something to do with money, as much as we all like to pretend otherwise.”
He shot her a scowl, but she smiled innocently at him. He turned back to the dowager. “Lady Folkestone, have you observed or hosted anyone new to the neighborhood in recent months?”
The dowager looked like she wanted to glower, if glowering were possible when one looked so frail. “Where do you propose I might have met anyone beyond my family? The local gentry are not suitable for Christabel to associate with, not while they still accept Elinor. And since Elinor barred me from the London townhouse and my other daughters are too busy to host me, I’ve no access to better society.”
A woman strode into the room, preempting whatever Ellie might have said in response. “You rang, Mother?”
“Christabel,” Lady Folkestone exclaimed. “I wanted to make you known to your cousin, the man who now holds the Folkestone title. He is just arrived from India.”
“So I see,” Christabel said neutrally. Her voice was forthright, almost husky — nothing like her mother’s.
“Lord Folkestone, may I present my youngest daughter, Lady Christabel? She usually does not receive callers of Elinor’s ilk, but in the interest of familial harmony I suppose I shall allow it.”
Christabel curtsied to both Nick and Ellie. “Please forgive my mother. Too many years of us shut up here like a pair of pecking hens has turned her tongue to vinegar.”
Lady Folkestone gasped, clutching the braided hair brooch at her breast. “Christabel! Have you learned nothing of manners from me?”
“Not everything you would teach me, I’ll admit. But I trust our company will take pity on me, not hold me in judgment for it.”
The girl — more a woman at twenty-five, but still fresh-faced and wearing an old lavender pinafore that would have been appropriate for someone years younger — smiled at Ellie. It was gone just as quickly, leaving her face as it had been when she had first walked in — a direct gaze, a sharp nose, and a chin that was too stubborn for prettiness.
But if she had spent the past ten years with only her mother for company, Nick found it amazing she still looked like a handsome girl rather than a raving lunatic. He bowed to her, kissed her hand, and noticed the strong odor of herbs where other ladies might have smelled of eau de toilette. “Lady Christabel, I find your manners exquisite,” he said.
She grinned again, but he didn’t know whether her pleasure came from his comment or her mother’s scandalized gasp. “You are too kind, cousin,” Christabel said. “Now, what has brought you to our sitting room? No one has bearded the lionesses here in an age.”
“Christabel, if you cannot mind your tongue, you must return to the nursery at once,” her mother said sharply.
Christabel sighed. It wasn’t an exasperated sigh, though. There was too much pity in her