Deadly Inheritance by Janet Laurence

picked up her tray. ‘I’ll leave you now, Miss Grandison. If there is anything else you require, please ask Miss Seldon to send me a message. And, Miss Seldon, luncheon will be served very shortly.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Ursula said, stroking Belle’s shoulders; the girl seemed really distressed. ‘You have been very kind and I am sure I have everything I need.’
    The housekeeper sailed out of the room.
    Belle buried her head in Ursula’s shoulder and burst into tears.
    ‘Come, come, dear. I am fine, merely a sprained ankle that will soon heal. Finding the remains of that poor girl was very unsettling but I have experienced worse things.’ Ursula was not sure she had but her task at the moment was to calm Belle. ‘Now, tell me about your visits.’
    Belle released herself. ‘I must be careful not to hurt your poor ankle. Is it aching very much?’ She looked at the bandaged foot, which had the bedclothes neatly folded back from it so that the ice pack, a collection of ice chunks in a calico bag, did not make them wet.
    ‘Not nearly as much as it did.’ This was true. Having it raised up, together with the anaesthetising effect of the ice had reduced the angry throbbing to a dull ache. She sat back and attempted to coax Belle into better spirits. ‘Who did you meet?’
    ‘Oh, they were all boring, boring, boring.’
    Ursula waited.
    ‘Helen got me in that room she calls her boudoir,’ Belle sounded so scornful, Ursula could not help smiling. ‘She lectured me for at least half an hour on how disgracefully I had behaved last night. I nearly told her she did not own William, that is, Mr Warburton.’
    ‘It was foolish of you to disappear into the garden like that with him,’ Ursula said gently. ‘You must have known it was wrong.’
    ‘Oh, don’t you start! I am so tired of being told what I should not do and what I should do. Ursula, if I had had any idea of what it would be like, I should not have pestered Papa to send me over.’
    ‘You will soon find your way around. Did you not like anyone you met? How many houses did you visit?’
    ‘Only two – and no young men at either of them. First we went to Lord and Lady Anstruther. They live in a darling old house with low ceilings and lots of porcelain everywhere and two sweet little Pekingese dogs. I was allowed to have one on my lap. Lord Anstruther was awful. He was like a dried bean pod, tall and thin and wrinkled. All he said was “hello” and would we mind awfully but he had some business to see to on the estate.’ Belle aped an English accent and giggled. ‘After he left, Lady Anstruther said what a pretty girl I was and how Anthony, her son, would have liked to meet me but he was on the Continent somewhere, and how she wished her daughter was with her but she had gone to stay with a friend in Scotland. So Helen had dragged me over there for nothing.’
    ‘Not for nothing, Belle. Now Lady Anstruther has met you, she will send an invitation as soon as her son and daughter return. Where did you go next?’
    ‘That was even worse! We went to see the mother of the man who was with you when you dragged William and me out of the shrubbery.’
    ‘That must have been Mrs Russell.’ Ursula felt a rush of warmth as she recalled how friendly and amusing Max Russell had been at dinner.
    ‘Lady Frances Russell,’ Belle said with a note of triumph. ‘Helen explained that daughters of an Earl are always called Lady, even when they are married to men with no title. But the sons, apart from the eldest, are only “The Honourable”, not lords. I don’t think that’s fair, do you? Helen said Lady Frances was married to a vicar, the Very Reverend George Russell.’ Belle giggled again. ‘How would you address them if they were both together?’
    ‘The Very Revered George and Lady Frances Russell,’ Ursula said, remembering the lessons in etiquette she and Helen had suffered at their Paris finishing school.
    ‘Oh, my, such a mouthful! Anyway, I did not