The Rake's Unconventional Mistress. Juliet Landon

she asked, rather too sharply.

      ‘I mean your seven young ladies, who else?’ They had reached the pavement where Mr Waverley’s horse was being held by the young groom. Taking the reins with a nod of thanks, he spoke to Letitia in a confidential whisper. ‘As a matter of fact, there is a young lady who might fit your Perdita’s description, up to a point. The lass from Scotland. One of the boarders.’

      ‘Edina Strachan? In what way?’

      ‘Nothing I can quite put my finger on, but you must have noticed how inattentive she’s become this new term. Her mind certainly isn’t on her household-management accounts, and I’d swear she’d been weeping before she came to the dinner table yesterday. She moons about like a lovesick calf.’

      ‘You don’t think she might be in love with you, do you, Bart?’

      ‘Good grief, no, I do not. She’s either still homesick or lovesick, I tell you. Perhaps something happened while she was at home at Easter. You might keep an eye on the situation.’

      ‘Yes, thank you for the warning. I will. I’ll ask Mrs Quayle what she knows about it.’

      But Mrs Quayle, the widow in whose house next door the three boarders had rooms, had nothing to add to Mr Waverley’s observations. ‘Homesickness, my dear,’ she said that evening. ‘It’s only her second term away from home. We may have to work harder on her Scottish lilt, for if she cannot be understood, she’s not going to make much headway in the marriage mart, is she? Perhaps we could get Mr Thomas to give her an extra half-hour each week?’

      ‘So you don’t think she’s in love?’

      ‘Who knows? With all those young Hussars swarming about, it wouldn’t surprise me if all seven of them were. Don’t worry, I’ll keep a look out.’

      ‘Yes. Thank you.’

      That same evening, Letitia sat with the attractive seventeen-year-old Edina, whose guardian grandparents lived at Guildford. After talking at length about her family, it seemed that Edina was relieved to be away from their strait-laced Presbyterian influence and more involved with the kind of social life she had previously been denied. The symptoms that Mr Waverley had identified could not be homesickness, Letitia decided, therefore it must be love.

      That evening, Edina’s early signs were written into the notebook with some elaboration to make up for what Letitia had not personally observed.

      * * *

      The remainder of the week passed uneventfully except for the visit on Thursday of Miss Garnet and Miss Persephone Boyce in the company of Uncle Aspinall and Aunt Minnie, the latter requiring a tour of the house and redesigned gardens. Sir Penfold Aspinall, a bluff, good-natured giant who had done so much to help his sister’s eldest daughter to set up house, approved of everything he saw, partly because he trusted her good taste and partly because he liked the idea of being surrogate father to his remarkable niece. His wife, shrewish and disapproving, had come chiefly to take note and then to convey to Lady Boyce every detail to which they could mutually object.

      The twins’ main purpose in visiting their sister seemed to be to catch sight of Lord Rayne, whose absence had been the cause of some concern. They asked if it was true that he was visiting her.

      ‘Visiting me? You must be bamming!’

      ‘Has he?’

      ‘Of course not. Why would he visit me?’

      ‘We heard he was riding with you on Monday.’

      ‘Me and about twenty others on the way to Garrick’s Temple.’

      ‘Oh, well, if that’s all.’

      ‘That is all. I suppose he’ll be escorting you on Saturday?’

      ‘No,’ said Persephone, pouting.

      ‘Too busy with preparations for the foreign visitors. Apparently they’ll all need mounts,’ said Garnet. ‘We shall go to Almack’s, anyway.’

      ‘It won’t be the same. He’s such a tease.’

      ‘Is he?’ said Letitia, relieved to hear that his commitments would keep him away from Richmond that weekend. ‘Come to the garden and see my new summer-house. I think you’ll like it.’

      Aunt Minnie had found it first. She was taking tea there, dunking an almond biscuit in her cup before she heard them coming. ‘Ridiculous waste of money, Letitia,’ she said, brushing away dribbles of tea from her lace tippets. ‘What are your fees for this place?’

      ‘With extras, usually twenty pounds a term. More for the boarders.’

      ‘Hmm! I don’t know what your mama will say to that.’

      Uncle Aspinall chuckled. ‘It has nothing to do with Euphemia,’ he said. ‘Cheap at the price, I’d say. What are your young ladies doing now, Letitia?’

      ‘French, with Madame du Plessis, Uncle.’

      ‘Tch! French indeed,’ said Aunt Minnie, sourly. ‘That monster Bonaparte has a lot to answer for.’

      But Uncle Aspinall had nothing but compliments to offer about the way his niece had furnished the rooms, the feminine colour schemes, the new garden layout and the adjoining conservatory. The hanging baskets, potted palms, window-boxes and newly planted vines had brought the garden well into the white painted room. ‘Like a jungle!’ Aunt Minnie carped. ‘Ridiculous!’

      It was not until Saturday evening when Letitia gathered her pupils into the downstairs parlour for a last check that she discovered an unwanted addition to the guest list that she could do nothing about when the invitation had been issued by Miss Sapphire Melborough, the daughter of their hosts.

      Letitia kept her annoyance to herself, though she would like to have boxed the pert young woman’s ears. ‘I don’t mind you inviting Lord Rayne, Sapphire dear,’ she said, fastening the pearl pendant behind her neck, ‘but it might have been more polite if you’d asked me first. And your parents. We have to be very careful about the audience, you know.’

      ‘But they like Lord Rayne,’ said Sapphire, understating the case by a mile, ‘so I know they won’t mind him coming with Lord and Lady Elyot. And I didn’t think you’d disapprove, now that you and he have made up your differences. I told him about our concert and he said he’d like to hear me sing.’

      ‘Next time, dear,’ said Letitia, turning Sapphire to face her, ‘ask me first, will you? He may be one of Richmond’s haut ton, but the 10th Light Dragoons, or Hussars, whichever you prefer, have quite a reputation.’

      Sapphire’s bright cornflower eyes lit up like those of a mischievous elf. ‘The Elegant Extracts is what I prefer, Miss Boyce. It’s so fitting, isn’t it?’

      ‘It’s also one of the more repeatable tags. There now, let me look at you. Yes, I think your family will be proud of you. Nervous?’

      A hand went up to tweak at a fair curl, and the eyes twinkled again. ‘With Lord Rayne watching me, yes.’ Provocatively, she lifted one almost bare shoulder in a way that some women do by instinct. It would only be a matter of time, Letitia thought, before this one and her parents managed to snare the Elegant Extract, unless one of her own sisters did first.

      ‘Stay close to Edina, Sapphire. I think she feels the absence of her parents and guardians at a time like this.’

      ‘Yes, Miss Boyce. Of course I will.’

      There was more to Letitia’s annoyance than having to show friendship to a man she would rather have avoided. He had told her sisters that he would be too busy on Saturday to escort them when he must already have accepted Sapphire’s invitation to hear her sing. Persephone and Garnet would be sadly out of countenance to learn that he was not as committed to them as they thought. Their mother even more so. All that was needed now to set the cat among the pigeons was for them to believe that she had invited him to the Melboroughs’.