by Fig. But I had a wedding to plan for, and I didn’t want Fig suspecting that I’d spent the night with Darcy.
“No, I really should get back, I’m afraid,” I said. “It was so good to see you.”
“We’ll want to hear all about it when you come back from wherever it was,” Granddad said. “You take care of yourself, traveling in foreign parts.”
“I wish I were a man, then I could take you as my valet,” I said wistfully, thinking how much nicer it would be traveling across a continent with him at my side.
“You wouldn’t catch me going to heathen parts like that,” Granddad said. “I’ve been to Scotland now, and that was quite foreign enough to last my lifetime, thank you kindly.”
I laughed as I walked up the front path.
Chapter 8
I arrived home, cold and wet, to be told by an almost gloating Fig that Mr. O’Mara had called and been told that Lady Georgiana would be attending a royal wedding in Europe, at the request of Their Majesties, and should be left in peace to make her preparations. She also hinted that she’d admonished him for preying on innocent girls and suggested that he should not stand in the way of my making a suitable match.
This made me furious, of course, but it was too late. The damage had been done. All I could do was console myself with the thought that Darcy would probably have found Fig’s lecture highly amusing.
The next morning they left, abandoning me for the warmth and luxury of Claridge’s for their last night in London. I breathed a long sigh of relief. Now all I had to do was to pack for my trip to Europe and hope that the promised maid materialized. A telephone call from the palace informed me that my chaperon had had to put forward her traveling date, so it was hoped that I could be ready by Tuesday next. Tickets and passports would be delivered to me and, yes, tiaras would be worn. I had to telephone Binky at Claridges and I imagined Fig was gnashing her teeth at the expense of sending a servant down from Scotland with my tiara. But one couldn’t exactly have put it in the post, even if we had the time. Then I realized that I would now not have time to place an advertisement in the Morning Post or the Times. It would have to be Mrs. Huggins’s relative or nothing.
For a while it looked as if it was going to be nothing and I was just about to rush to Belinda and confess that I had changed my mind when there was a timid tap at my tradesman’s entrance. Luckily I was in the kitchen at the time or I would never have heard it. I opened the door and standing outside in the dim and damp November twilight was an apparition that looked like a giant Beatrix Potter hedgehog, but not as adorable. It then revealed itself to be wearing an old, moth-eaten and rather spiky fur coat, topped with a bright red pudding basin hat. Underneath was a round, red face with cheeks almost matching the color of the hat. When she saw me a big smile spread ear to ear.
“Whatcher, love. I’m ’ere to see the toff what lives here about the maid’s position, so ’ere I am. So nip off and tell her, all right?”
I tried not to let her know that I found this amusing. I said in my most superior voice, “I happen to be the toff that lives here. I am Lady Georgiana Rannoch.”
“Blimey, strike me down with a feather,” she said. “Begging your pardon, then, but you don’t expect to find a lady like you opening the back door, do you?”
“No, you don’t,” I agreed. “You’d better come in.”
“Awful sorry, miss,” she said. “No hard feelings, I hope? I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot. My mum’s aunt ’ettie knows your granddad and she told me you was looking for a personal maid and she said why didn’t I give it a try.”
“I am looking for a personal maid, that’s correct,” I said. “Why don’t you take off your coat and I’ll interview you here. It’s the warmest place in the house at the moment.”
“Right you are, miss,” she said and took off the fur coat, which was now steaming and smelling rather like wet sheep. Underneath the coat she was wearing a rather too tight mustard