A Lady Never Tells(61)

After the governess left, the earl put the final cap on their misery by saying, “Fortunately, Miss Dalrymple is available to work right away, so the day after tomorrow you will be able to leave for Willowmere.”#p#分页标题#e#

Mary’s heart sank. As she and her sisters trooped dejectedly up to their rooms, Lily expressed what all of them were thinking: “I don’t want to go to Willowmere with that awful woman!”

“She’s horrid.” Even Rose, usually the most easygoing of creatures, agreed. “It will be nothing but ‘do this, don’t do that.’”

“And no friends. I was looking forward to seeing Cousin Charlotte and Lady Vivian again,” Lily said.

“I was looking forward to going to Astley’s Amphitheater.” Camellia scowled. “Cousin Fitz said he would take us. He said they have the most amazing spectacles, where they stage replicas of famous battles.”

“And the Tower. Sir Royce said he would show us the Tower.” Lily gave a shiver of delight. “Where Anne Boleyn was beheaded, and the little princes were murdered. And Traitor’s Gate.”

“I’d rather see the horse riding,” Camellia said flatly. After a moment’s consideration, she added, “But the Tower sounds very exciting, too.”

“Anything would be more exciting than being stuck way out in the country with Miss Dalrymple.” Mary was as disgruntled as any of them. What she would not have admitted to anyone—what, indeed, she wished were not true—was that she was filled with disappointment not for any of her sisters’ reasons but because she would no longer see Sir Royce every day or, indeed, at all.

It was the height of foolishness, she knew. Even if she had thawed toward him a great deal yesterday, it did not mean that they were friends. Certainly they were not, could not be, anything more. Yet when she thought of not seeing his eyes light up or his lips curve into a smile or his eyebrow rise in that cynical, amused way for weeks, even months to come, her life at Willowmere seemed unbearably dull and dark. And the fact that she felt that way left her decidedly irritated.

That evening at dinner, however, all the sisters were somewhat reconciled to their imminent departure when Royce and Fitz, upon learning of the haste with which the Bascombes would be leaving London, suggested that they spend the next day pursuing one of the adventures the two of them had promised. Camellia and Fitz preferred the horses and spectacle of Astley’s to the history and romance of the Tower, but they were outvoted.

Accordingly, the next morning the six of them set out from Stewkesbury House, armed with a guidebook and looking, according to Fitz, like proper gawkers. However, it did not take long for both Fitz and Camellia to be caught up in their visit to the Tower, listening with the others to the Yeoman Warder’s grisly tales of the presumed murders of Edward IV’s two young sons by their uncle Richard of Gloucester or the terror of the young Princess Elizabeth when she was taken into the Tower through Traitor’s Gate and fell to the stairs, weeping, refusing to budge, afraid that she would enter the Tower and never leave, like her ill-fated mother, Anne Boleyn.

“I don’t think I would have wanted to be a princess,” Rose said. “It sounds more frightening than romantic.”

“I have to say it seems easier to elect a president than to go about killing one’s relatives in order to be king,” Mary agreed.

“It’s not so much the way we do things anymore,” Royce said mildly.

Lily rolled her eyes. “Honestly, sometimes I wonder if I’m really related to the rest of you. How can you be so prosaic? Doesn’t your heart just squeeze in your chest when you think of that poor Lady Jane Grey—younger than I am, made queen and then in a week or so, all of that is lost, and she’s sent to her death?” She paused dramatically, her hands clasped together at her heart.#p#分页标题#e#

A snort from Camellia followed her speech. “Come on, Sarah Siddons. I want to go down and see the lions.”

“Oooh, I want to see that, too. But we mustn’t forget the jewels.” Lily followed her sister down the stairs, happily chattering.

Mary was the last in line as they descended the winding staircase. As they emerged into the courtyard, she glanced across the yard. And there, at the base of one of the towers, stood Cosmo Glass.





Chapter 12




Mary stopped and stared. How could her stepfather be here?

As suddenly as she had seen him, the man turned and walked away, melting into a knot of people. Mary broke from her frozen state and hurried toward him, but when she reached the place where he had been standing, she could see him nowhere. Cosmo was a short man and difficult to see in a crowd. But there—just turning the corner of the building—surely that was his sandy-colored hair, thin and worn too long.