Read Online Miss Hartwell's Dilemma by Carola Dunn - Free Book Online Page B

dinner on Sundays, the older girls were left in charge of the younger. The three ladies retired to their private drawing room, taking it in turns to check the common-room occasionally. Sipping tea from the best Crown Derby porcelain cups, half a dozen of which Mrs. Vaux had saved when the Hartwell possessions were sold up, they discussed the past week and made plans for the coming week.
    Amaryllis found herself avoiding all mention of Bertram’s visit, and her aunt and governess tactfully made no enquiries. She was no more willing to talk about Lord Daniel, though she did tell them that Isabel would be staying. Also, she felt obliged to pass on Mr. Raeburn’s warning about his rakish reputation, which had Mrs. Vaux in a tizzy until Tizzy pointed out calmly that he was unlikely to make any attempt on the virtue of his daughter’s companions.
    Mrs. Vaux waited until her niece had left the room before she confided that she was afraid his lordship might attempt to make Amaryllis the object of his affections.
    “She has no male relative to protect her,” she said. “I daresay by the time we could get a reply from Philadelphia it would be too late.”
    “She has a great deal of common sense to protect her,” soothed Miss Tisdale. “Nor do I suppose that Lord Daniel is any more likely to seduce his daughter’s teacher than her friends. Besides, I cannot but think that Lord Pomeroy would have something to say to that.”
    Mrs. Vaux was reassured. Miss Tisdale was more dubious of her own reasoning. She had a low opinion of men, always excepting Mr. Raeburn, and she doubted that a gentleman already known as a libertine would be given pause by his daughter’s situation if his fancy should happen to alight upon her preceptress.
    Amaryllis returned to report that all was quiet and decorous in the common-room. The conversation turned to the possible hiring of a chambermaid to assist the housemaids so that one of the housemaids might assist Daisy, who was run off her feet now that there were twenty-four young ladies in residence.
    “We are sufficiently beforehand with the world to afford it,” Amaryllis assured her aunt after some discussion. “One of the housemaids will be able to help Daisy serve at table. Do you have someone in mind already? If you could hire her tomorrow we might impress the vicar when he dines here tomorrow evening.”
    “He mentioned that you had invited him when I spoke to him after church,” said Miss Tisdale, slightly flushed. “Of course he will not be able to come if Miss Raeburn is unwell. Ah, it is nine o’clock, and my turn to see the children to bed, is it not? ‘I will both lay me down in peace and sleep.’ Psalms 4, verse 8.”
    There was silence until she had closed the door behind her, then Amaryllis said, “I believe I shall make it a standing invitation for every Monday. Then he can tell his sister that it is part of his clerical duties to ensure that his pupils say grace and behave with propriety at table.”
    “An excellent notion. Augusta interferes only with his pleasures, not with his duties,” approved Mrs. Vaux.
    “Augusta?”
    “Yes, we are on Christian-name terms! I called in this afternoon after my walk and stayed quite half an hour.”
    “Splendid! I see you are a first-rate fellow conspirator.”
    “I have already discovered that she does indeed have a brother in London, and that he lives in Chapel Street, which is an excessively fashionable address,” said Mrs. Vaux with pardonable pride. “Perhaps it is not quite fair to pretend to seek her friendship, but for Miss Tisdale’s sake I will do it.”
    “Yet you always address Tizzy so formally. You are not on Christian-name terms with her after all these years.”
    “I asked Miss Tisdale several years ago to call me Eugenia, but she maintained that she would not be comfortable addressing thus the sister of her ex-employer. I would not for the world so demean her as to call her Melpomene if she will not