Wicked Godmother by MC Beaton Page B

they were too busy to worry about Lizzie, running hither and thither, as the house prepared for those two all-important callers. Harriet sent up a prayer that the marquess would not, please not, talk about her rude and bold behaviour all over London. Enough to be snubbed by him, but how ruinous for poor innocent Sarah and Annabelle to be snubbed by everyone else.
    By the time Lord Vere called, Harriet was in a miserable state, imagining she had brought down social disaster on the twins’ heads. She was subdued and so colourless that Lord Vere, in an effort to raise her spirits, made much of her two darling goddaughters, flirting with them and flattering them. He went so far as to try to pat Beauty, but even that brave gesture failed to raise a smile on Harriet’s lovely face. At last, it was time to take his leave. He assured Harriet he would engage a box at the opera for her. He longed to have words with her in private, to find out what had distressed her so much, and resolved to call the next day early in the morning when he could be sure of finding her irritating charges still in bed.
    It was too early to go on the strut in Bond Street, too early to drive a carriage in the Park. Lord Vere set out for the Marquess of Huntingdon’s town house, which was an undistinguished building in Charles Street, the marquess belonging to the breed of aristocrat who considered money spent on town property a waste of time.
    He found the marquess in his library, going through a pile of bills and invitations.
    ‘Why so gloomy?’ asked the marquess, glancing up at his friend’s lowering face.
    ‘I have just been paying a call on Miss Metcalf.’
    ‘Ah, that explains everything,’ said the marquess, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands behind his head. ‘Quite a little shrew is our country blossom.’
    ‘How can you say that?’ demanded Lord Vere. ‘She was sweetness itself, but so unhappy, so miserable, I longed to get her alone so that I might beg her to tell me what ailed her.’
    ‘I’ll tell you,’ said the marquess with a malicious grin. He outlined the morning’s events, ending up with a description of Harriet’s rude remarks.
    ‘You must have goaded her quite dreadfully,’ said Lord Vere. ‘And she was so wretched.’
    ‘Of course she was,’ said the marquess cynically. ‘She must fear my broadcasting her social gaucherie to the
ton
, and that would most certainly be social damnation for those two dreary debutantes of hers.’
    ‘But you would not!’ cried Lord Vere. ‘Miss Metcalf is unaccustomed to our ways. In the country, it is not the practise to flaunt one’s mistress openly in public.’
    ‘When were you last in the country, dear boy?’ said the marquess. ‘The woods and copses of England are thick with members of the Fashionable Impure. One cannot enjoy a peaceful dinner with the Quorn without some jade rapping on the dining-room window and crying her favours.’
    ‘But she is so innocent, so easily hurt . . .’
    ‘Then she should learn not to hurt others. It is only human to want to retaliate.’
    ‘But you will not!’
    ‘No, not I. After this afternoon, I shall cut Miss Metcalf dead.’

SIX

    About three o’clock or four o’clock the fashionable world gives some sign of life, issuing forth to pay visits, or rather leave cards at the doors of friends, never seen but in the crowd of assemblies; to go to the shops, see sights, or lounge in Bond Street – an ugly inconvenient street, the attractions of which it is difficult to understand.
    LOUIS SIMMOND

    Harriet was in a terrible state of nerves as the time approached for the arrival of the Marquess of Huntingdon. She was now sure he would not come.
    Sarah and Annabelle sat attired in thin muslins and ribbons and modish bonnets.
    ‘Tell me, Sarah,’ essayed Harriet timidly, ‘would you be so very disappointed if Lord Huntingdon did not come?’
    ‘Stoopid. He
is
coming, so what’s to do?’
    Harriet glanced nervously at