The Impossible Earl

Chapter Four

The following morning Leonora drew the bolts on the door closing off the main staircase and put the key in the lock.

Dolly answered the anticipated knock to admit Madame Fleur and her assistant, loaded down with boxes. Leonora received them in her bedroom.

Juliette was on hand to assist as the boxes were sorted and opened. Clarissa took possession of hers and carried them to her own room.

Leonara’s gowns, removed from the layers of tissue paper and spread over the bed, created a breathtaking confusion of colour and texture.

In a mood of sheer delight, Leonora tried them all on. Only the smallest additional alteration was necessary to the morning gown, a mere stitch, which the modiste undertook personally while her assistant went to wait upon Clarissa.

Another knock announced the arrival of the milliner’s assistant with her hat. Leonora happened, by lucky chance, to have tried her walking dress on last and was still wearing it. She watched eagerly as Juliette took the hat from its bandbox, and sat obediently while her new lady’s maid set it upon her head.

Juliette had made a remarkable difference to her appearance already, Leonora knew, dressing her hair in a softer style, arranging her chignon in a most clever fashion, even using hot tongs to coax some curls to hang by her ears.

When she stood again to peer into the mirror over the dressing chest she was amazed and pleased by the transformation. And by what little she could see, the soft leaf-green of the costume and the darker velvet trim, together with the matching pelisse and hat, constituted an outfit of which she could be proud.

“I am going out after breakfast. I shall keep the gown on,” she decided as Juliette removed the hat. “I need new gloves and a muff.”

The modiste, busy packing up her tape measure, scissors, needles and thread, straightened up. “I am gratified that you are pleased, Miss Vincent. The other morning dress and the undergarments you ordered will be delivered in a few days, as I promised.”

“Thank you, madame. Clarissa!” Leonora exclaimed as her companion walked into the room behind Madame Fleur’s assistant. “How very à la mode you look!”

She was glad to be able to utter such a genuine compliment. She had thought the russet walking gown a good choice and her opinion was confirmed. Clarissa’s new brown bonnet went with it well.

She wore a cap, had done so for several years as the Rector’s daughter and, unlike Leonora, who had discarded her badge of servitude upon leaving Thornestone Park, continued to assume one as Leonora’s companion. It was fashioned in ecru lace, much the same straw colour as her hair, and its pretty frill beneath the dark velvet was most becoming. She looked almost attractive.

Clarissa was making the most of her change of circumstances and Leonora could scarcely blame her. She had asked her to accompany her to Bath because she needed a respectable companion and felt sorry for the quiet, repressed young woman, already dwindling into an old maid, with whom she had come to be on terms of friendship.

The modiste had scarcely left when an imperious rap on the landing door sent Dolly scuttling to open it. Leonora was still in her bedroom with Clarissa. The two ladies were discussing the things they intended buying and doing once they had partaken of the breakfast Dolly had just brought up.

Leonora recognised the voice at once. She stiffened. Lord Kelsey, and not in the best of tempers by his tone.

“I will be with him immediately,” she told Dolly when the girl came to inform her rather nervously that she had shown him into the parlour.

She drew a deep breath. Clarissa’s eyes widened. “I wonder what he can want?”

Her colour had heightened again. To her chagrin, so had Leonora’s own.

“Nothing pleasant, I’ll warrant,” Leonora snapped. “Wait here.”

She patted her hair, for the hat had squashed her chignon somewhat, and straightened her gown. Would he notice it? It did not signify whether he did or did not. With set mouth and determined tread, she marched across the lobby—which she had decided to call the hall—and swept into the room which did duty for morning room, drawing room, sitting room and parlour. It was convenient to call it the parlour.

“Miss Vincent.”

His greeting was curt and accompanied by a stiff bow. His cold gaze did not alter at sight of her improved appearance. Her mouth set in an even firmer line as she returned his bow with a slight dip of her knee.

“My lord. You wished to speak with me?”

“Indeed, madam.” He clasped his hands beneath the tails of his cutaway coat and rocked back and forth on firmly planted feet. “I reluctantly gave you permission to use the front door of this establishment before I open at ten o’clock in the morning. I can tolerate you and your companion passing through my private living quarters, though it is dev—most inconvenient. But I cannot allow your tradespeople to make use of my hall and stairs as though they had the right.”

“No?” murmured Leonora, deceptively quiet.

“No. In future, madam, whatever the time of day they may choose to call, they will mount by the service stairs. My footman has been instructed to refuse them admittance. The back entrance is designed for the use of such persons.”

Leonora went cold. He had the right of it in a way, although even if she was admitted by the service door, a modiste of Madame Fleur’s standing would be invited to mount the main stairs to see her client.

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