A Lady Never Tells(42)
Finally, during a lull, Charlotte turned to the earl and said, “Oliver, Royce tells me that you might be in need of my help.”
The earl immediately brightened. “Indeed. Have you come to offer to sponsor our cousins through their Season?”
Charlotte responded with a musical peal of laughter. “Are you mad? With my three rampaging boys? No, thank you. I have more than enough on my hands, believe me. Besides, I am not the sort of sponsor you need to make a path for our cousins.” She turned toward the Bascombes, adding, “And, indeed, much as I like all of you, there is a great deal to be done to prepare you for your entrance into society.”#p#分页标题#e#
“I am aware of that,” Oliver told her. “In fact, I have sent round to an agency to find a chaperone who can also teach them the social skills they need. As soon as I hire her, I shall send them all to Willowmere. They will have ample time and quiet there to learn all they need to know.”
“What?” Mary glanced at her sisters, on whose faces she saw the same expressions of surprise and alarm. “You are sending us somewhere?”
“Yes, to Willowmere, the Talbot family estate. It is north of here, in the Lake District.”
“I see. Someplace far from London. Where we will be less trouble to you,” Mary said caustically.
Lily sucked in a breath. “Oooh … you’re locking us away? Like the wicked duke in The Shield of Montague !”
“Who?” Oliver looked at her, startled.
“It’s a book.” Mary shrugged her sister’s remark aside. “Don’t you think, sir, that this is a bit high-handed?”
“Don’t mind Oliver,” Charlotte told her. “He is high-handed with everyone. Isn’t that true, Fitz?”
“Absolutely.” He gave the Bascombes a wink. “You mustn’t hold it against him. He cannot help giving orders.”
“But what if we don’t want to go?” Camellia protested.
As the earl’s brows drew together, Charlotte jumped in. “You will like it there, honestly. Willowmere is a wonderful place—so beautiful, and such a relief after the bustle of London. Actually, it is the perfect plan. I know it’s maddening, but that’s the way it is with Oliver—he is invariably right. You don’t want to be thrown into the Season with no preparation. It could be an absolute disaster. I am sure that it is very different here from what you are used to.”
“That’s an understatement,” Camellia muttered.
“There, then you know what I mean. You have been in America all your lives; you can’t be expected to know what’s what. But the sad truth is that everyone will expect it anyway. Looks, I fear, will only take you so far. In any case, the Season is almost over, and everyone will leave, and it will be deadly dull. In the meantime, you will be at Willowmere, learning all you need to know, and—”
“But what is that?” Mary asked. “What are we going to learn?”
“Deportment, dances—whatever you’ll need.” Charlotte gave an airy wave of her hand. “This woman Stewkesbury is hiring will take care of that. Then when you come for the Season next year, you will be ready to take the ton by storm. And I know just the woman to introduce you to society, if she will do it. Lady Vivian Carlyle.”
“Vivian Carlyle?” Oliver echoed. “You mean that annoying, carrot-haired, skinny chit who used to plague us at Willowmere?”
Cousin Charlotte cocked an eyebrow at him. “Vivian Carlyle is a leader of the ton, as you would know if you spent more time in London.”
“I do know,” he retorted. “But from all I’ve heard, Lady Vivian is a sad romp. It can’t help these girls, who are much too wild already, to have an example set for them by someone with as little regard for propriety as a Carlyle.”
The Bascombes all bristled at this description of them, but before they could speak, Charlotte was already saying, “Oh, Oliver, don’t be such a prig. I’m not talking about them living with her, after all. And they would keep their chaperone, of course. But if Vivian were to sponsor them—”
“I am sure that one of our aunts is fully capable of sponsoring them.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Please. I will be the first to agree that the Talbot name is old and well respected. But it hardly carries the weight of the Carlyles’. Besides, you could not be so cruel as to saddle these poor girls with Aunt Euphronia. It might be too much to ask Vivian to sponsor all four of them. But if she were to invite them to a few of her parties or single them out at a ball or let them share her box at the opera, that sort of thing—well, it would mean their instant acceptance into the ton. Lady Vivian is all the crack.”#p#分页标题#e#