I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin

notice. And not only her forehead, but her eye …

      ‘The astrakhan-trimmed costume, Hawthorn?’

      ‘No, miss.’ Not fur-trimmed. Not in May.

      ‘The blue, then?’

      Alice pursed her lips and shook her head. The blue, hobble-skirted costume brought back memories of a young lady’s ankles and knees shamelessly exposed, and made her blush.

      ‘Then what?’

      ‘An afternoon dress.’ Alice had long ago made up her mind. ‘The flowered voile.’ So lovely and floaty, with full sleeves. And the pretty pink shoes, perhaps, and the wide-brimmed hat with the flower trim. That was what a young lady wore for a walk in the park with a young man. A romantic dress.

      ‘You think so?’

      ‘Oh, yes.’ A dab of rosewater at her wrists and on her handkerchief, perhaps, and a little face powder to tone down the bruising. ‘And if you walk on his left, he’ll not even see it – your eye, I mean.’

      ‘It’s worse than I thought. Mama’s going to want an explanation.’

      ‘She is. So how about the truth?’

      ‘I couldn’t. She’d never let me out alone again!’

      ‘She won’t if you lie to her and get found out. All you have to say is that –’

      ‘Is that we were walking in Hyde Park – innocently – and got caught up in a meeting and running away – in my hobble skirt – I tripped and fell and hit my head on a kerbstone.’

      ‘No, miss. We were walking in the park – never mind the innocently – and a policeman set about a young woman who did nothing more than buy a news-sheet and you went to help her. And I’ll tell her ladyship that a great policeman went his length and took you down with him.’

      ‘And a kind young doctor took me home?’

      ‘That a doctor happened to be passing and came to your assistance,’ Alice amended, ‘and said you should send for Miss Sutton’s doctor, should the need arise.’

      ‘Of course! And it’s almost the truth, isn’t it?’

      ‘As near as makes no matter.’ It wasn’t right to tell lies to her ladyship. Not deliberate ones.

      ‘And we needn’t mention it was you sent him flying?’

      ‘Best not, miss.’

      ‘You are quite right. Not only would London be out of bounds for me but for you, too. We’d never be able to come here alone again.’

      ‘But I’d never –’ Not for a minute had Alice thought to have so fine a jaunt again.

      ‘Never see London again? When we’re having such a good time? Oh, but I intend to come as often as Aunt Sutton will allow. Suddenly, I seem to have a fondness for London – and for –’ She stopped suddenly, meaningfully.

      ‘For young doctors?’ Alice supplied, amazed at her forwardness.

      ‘One particular young doctor,’ Julia laughed. ‘So are you going to be on my side, Hawthorn? Are you going to help me and never, ever, say so much as a word about him until I say you can?’

      ‘I’m on your side, miss. I’ll never ever tell on you and anyway, it isn’t likely you’ll ever meet him again, is it?’

      ‘Never again? Oh, Hawthorn!’

      She smiled, and all at once the bruises didn’t seem to matter, because all at once Julia Sutton was beautiful, just like Mrs Shaw said she would be if only she’d let herself.

      ‘See him again!’ Alice gasped. Oh, my Lor’. Miss Julia was in love!

      Elliot Sutton left the house by the conservatory door, walking quickly across the croquet lawn, making for the kitchen garden and the birch wood that lay beyond it. He should, he thought viciously, have brought a gun. He felt like blasting at something; felt like killing. But there was no shooting until August – only vermin, and that was for keepers.

      Moodily, he kicked at a cobble. He was sick of Holdenby; sick of Mama who held her Ironmaster’s money over him, an ever-present threat. But she’d never leave it to Nathan, his holier-than-thou brother, though she’d said, more than once, that she would.

      He could never be sure of his mother; never certain when she would open her mouth and let him down. Most times, of course, she carried her corn well, but when angered or defiant, her Pendennis temper showed through and her Pendennis tongue too.

      This morning, he thought with savage disdain, she had screeched at him like a fishwife, showing a side to her not all the iron gold in the world had been able to breed out. There was a defiance about her that screamed, ‘All right, my fine aristocrats – so you’ve got the breeding, but I’ve got the brass, and don’t ever forget it!’

      He was ashamed of her, of his own mother; ashamed of the half of him that came from trade, even though his other half – his Sutton blood – was without equal. It was a pity his father could hardly bear to be in the same room with him, let alone treat him like a son to be proud of, because he, Elliot, was tall and handsome, and charming too, when he needed to be, and could get any woman he wanted with no effort at all. He was rich as well, and would be richer one day, so why did everyone seem to prefer his younger brother? Why did Julia show preference for Nathan when she knew he’d end up a parson, with nothing in his favour but his sick-making goodness?

      But Albert had had the right idea. Albert had found himself a well-heeled old woman – and the best of luck to him! His youngest brother had struck it rich, and lived a life of luxury in the best hotels and on the most luxurious liners in the world. Clever young Albert!

      Elliot climbed the boundary fence, making for the rising ground and Holdenby Pike. There would be a wind up there, even in May, that would blow away his black mood. Up there he could look down on Pendenys Place and wonder how long before it was his; could wonder, even, what it was like to bed an old woman, for his brother’s wife must be well into her forties. Did Albert, on such occasions, close his eyes and think of the money that would one day be his? Come to that, would he, Elliot, have to close his eyes too when he wed the ugly daughter of a penniless peer, and think instead of Maudie’s soft, warm lips, her small, round breasts, her eager thighs?

      He wished, sometimes, that he belonged to the working class and could marry any Maudie he pleased, but the working classes had to work, it was as simple as that. He would marry fairly soon, he supposed; some simpering, well-bred virgin bitch with more titles to her pedigree than was decent. She might even have one in her own right. Mama would like that; she’d envy it, but still she’d like it.

      But there would be no title for Elliot Sutton. That had eluded him. All Mama’s money had failed to buy the knighthood she so desperately wanted for her husband – to pass down to her son, of course. The Garth Suttons had that. Cousin Robert, just one year older, had inherited the baronetcy at twenty-four, then hared it back to Assam to his precious tea garden. And even supposing Robert never married, never got a son, then Giles would inherit the title. It would remain at Rowangarth for another three hundred years, like as not. Only if his cousins were to vanish from the face of the earth would his father get lucky.

      God! Imagine Mama; Lady Clementina at last! She’d be good for a touch, then; would even forgive him his Maudies, provided he kept them quiet and didn’t rock the boat. Yet it would never be, he knew it. The Garth Suttons would hang on to what they had. Though they were nowhere as well-off as the Suttons at the Place, they had the esteem of the entire Riding, which was better than riches.

      Temper spent, he flung himself down on the grass, lit a cigarette, then gazed down on Pendenys. He felt badly done by, and bored, misunderstood and miserable. He would go to London, keep out of Mama’s way until the edge had worn off her temper. His allowance had just been paid into the bank – where better to spend it?

      Or maybe