Amanda Scott by Madcap Marchioness Page A

Adelaide when, the wedding having been fully discussed, the subject of the visitors had come up again.
    “Of course,” Chalford replied, smiling at her. “I invited a good many, because I thought it would help Adriana adjust to her new home if she had lots of her friends around her. I daresay we shan’t have more than ten or a dozen at a time, though, so there is no need for any extraordinary preparation.”
    Adriana blinked at him. She remembered with a shudder the sort of upheaval that had occurred at Wryde whenever guests of any number were anticipated. How could Chalford be so casual about ten or a dozen arrivals?
    Lady Adelaide nodded, however, and over the next few days, Adriana learned that, just as he had said, there had been no need for alarm. Guests arrived and were dispatched to bedchambers without the least upheaval or rearrangement of their routine.
    Viscount and Lady Villiers were the first to arrive, late Monday afternoon. Sunday had continued stormy, with heavy rain into the night, but by midmorning Monday the skies began to clear, and when the stately barouche lumbered into the quadrangle and up to the entrance of the castle, it could be seen that the coachman, though bundled in yellow oilskins, was perfectly dry.
    Adriana saw them from the long gallery and hurried downstairs, grateful that she had decided to dress in one of her most becoming gowns in order to offset the gloom of the day. Her rounded bodice and puffed sleeves were in the latest fashion, as were the high waist and slim skirt of the green gauze gown. If the dress did little to protect her from the chilly drafts in the castle, she ignored that detail, particularly now with Sally just stepping down from her carriage. Not for worlds would Adriana trade fashion for comfort. Feeling with one hand to be certain that her tawny hair, dressed by Nancy in a riot of curls atop her head, was still neatly confined there by her pale-green bandeau, she hurried down to greet her first houseguests. Only when she reached the entry hall did it occur to her that a marchioness ought properly to receive visitors in her drawing room.
    Lady Henrietta, however, was already in the entry hall. “Who is it? Do you know? Oh, isn’t this exciting? I cannot think when it was that we last had real houseguests—other than Lydia and the children, of course, or Ned and Molly, or one of Chalford’s schoolfriends, you know. Oh, who is this, my dear?”
    Adriana had a sudden sense of being carried back in time. Many times in the days before her mother’s death had she perched in the curve of the grand stairway at Wryde to peer through the banister at newly arriving guests, wondering who they were and how long they would stay. Lady Hetta made her feel like one of a pair of conspiring children. She smiled at her. “’Tis Viscount and Lady Villiers,” she said in a low voice. “He is Lord Jersey’s son and she—”
    “Oh, yes, of course, I know all about Sally Fane,” said Lady Hetta, her cheeks reddening slightly. “Or all about her poor mother, that is. I think it was dreadfully unkind of Sarah Child’s father to leave all his money away from her and her husband to her daughter, don’t you know. A wicked thing.”
    “Well, it made Sally Fane the greatest heiress of our time,” said Adriana with a small sigh. “She took London by storm. Left the rest of us standing entirely in the shade.”
    “Oh, I do hope Adelaide will be civil to her.”
    “Why on earth would she not be?”
    “Well, my dear,” Lady Hetta confided, “banking is all very well in its way. Indeed, I do not know how we should go on without them—bankers, I mean. But it is still trade, don’t you know? At least, so Adelaide regards it, and though dear Sally Fane’s papa is the Earl of Westmorland—not that I’ve heard much good of that man, I can tell you—her money derives from Robert Child, who was only a banker when all is said and done.”
    Adriana choked on laughter. “But, my dear