“Yes. We lived above it.”
“You lived there! Four young girls!”
“We were not terribly young by that time,” Mary pointed out. “We were all old enough to help—cooking, serving the food, sweeping up, that sort of thing. I kept the books, as Papa was not fond of that.”
“Dear Lord,” Aunt Cynthia murmured.
“The pistols were handier there, of course,” Camellia said judiciously, “when you had to break up a fight. The rifle simply wasn’t practical for close-in situations.”
Fitz let out a bark of laughter, and Sir Royce closed his eyes, quickly covering his mouth with his hand. From the end of the table, the earl shot a look at his brother and stepbrother, then regarded Mary and her sisters sternly.
“Heathens!” Aunt Euphronia exclaimed. She swung round to the earl. “Stewkesbury, they are absolute heathens! I hope you are not contemplating trying to bring these girls out in society. It simply would not do. We would be the laughingstocks of the beau monde.”
“A Talbot living above a tavern!” Aunt Phyllida chimed in. Across the table, Aunt Euphronia’s daughter nodded vigorously.
“Flora must at least have taught them how to speak, for their English is decent, if somewhat spoiled by that accent—but everything else!” Aunt Euphronia fairly quivered in her outrage.
“We are sitting right here,” Mary pointed out, anger rising in her like steam. “If you wish to criticize me, you should say it to my face.”#p#分页标题#e#
The older woman swung to look at Mary, her gaze so haughty that Mary was sure it had withered many another person. What it engendered in Mary was a strong desire to hit her. “I was speaking,” Aunt Euphronia said in a slow, measured way, as if she were addressing someone hard of hearing or mentally deficient, “to the earl, as he is the one who has charge of you lot. It is he who must exercise some control over you, God help him.”
“He is not in charge of Mary or any of us!” Camellia shot back.
“As long as you are living on his generosity, I should think he has every right to control your behavior! Heaven knows, someone needs to. A more rag-mannered group of girls I have never seen.”
All four of the Bascombes jumped into the conversation at that remark, and as Aunt Phyllida, Lord Kent, and Aunt Euphronia also chimed in, the result was pandemonium.
“Silence!” The earl’s voice cut like a knife through the din, and the table immediately fell quiet.
“Now.” He looked at Mary and her sisters. “You will not speak to your elders in that way. It is most impolite. Aunt Euphronia, Aunt Phyllida, I would remind you that these young women are indeed my charge and not yours. I assumed that you might welcome the opportunity to meet your late sister’s children.” He swung his head back to the Bascombe girls. “And I thought that you might wish to meet your relatives. Clearly I was wrong on both counts. You do not have to like one another. However, I do insist on everyone behaving with some decorum when you are seated at my dinner table.” His gaze moved around the table, taking in each of the combatants.
Mary flushed, abashed. “You are right. I am sorry.”
These women were her mother’s sisters, and she should have reached out to them, not judged them on the basis of their clothes or their manner. She knew, deep down, that part of her resentment was based on her own embarrassment.
She turned to her aunts. “I apologize for behaving rudely. I should not have spoken as I did. I assure you that my mother taught me to treat my elders with respect, and she would be most upset to see me ignore her lessons.”
Her sisters chimed in with subdued apologies. Aunt Cynthia smiled at them, and Lady Euphronia answered with a frosty nod of acceptance. Mary noticed that neither she nor Lady Phyllida was moved to respond with an apology to their nieces.
The rest of the dinner continued in a more subdued manner. As soon as the meal was finished, Mary asked that she and her sisters be excused, pleading tiredness. Beside her, Sir Royce jumped to his feet, pulling back her chair, and offered his arm.
“Pray allow me to escort you.”
“I think I would be able to undertake the long trek to our rooms on my own,” Mary replied with a twinkle. But she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.
Her sisters went ahead of them, obviously eager to escape the dining room. Mary strolled along more slowly at Royce’s side.
“I hope you will not allow the aunts to, shall we say, discourage you …” Royce began.
Mary cast a sideways glance at him. “I am afraid you do not know me very well if you think that they will discourage me.”