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seamstress shall make your gowns.” He smiled. “Maria is satisfied with her work, so she must indeed be excellent.”
    Disregarding this pleasantry, Laura demurred. “I am perfectly capable of making my own dresses. I enjoy sewing.”
    “I am aware of that. Please, content yourself with embroidery and such. Though I'm vague about the details, I'm sure dressmaking involves considerably more exertion.”
    “I cannot afford a seamstress and I will not hang upon your sleeve.”
    “Have you no regard for my reputation?” he demanded, half in earnest, half quizzing her.
    “What do you mean?”
    “What will the neighbours think when they call and find a relative of mine dressed in the dowdiest fashion? I shall become notorious as a pinch-penny, a veritable nip-farthing.”
    “But—”
    “Or else they will suppose that I am all to pieces, one step ahead of the bailiffs.”
    “Surely—”
    “No, I shall more likely be condemned as a clutchfist, since Maria is constant complaining that I will not set her up in her own household in Town.”
    “Is she really?” Laura asked, shocked. When he nodded, she went on unwillingly, “Oh, very well, I shall let you frank me—oh dear, that sounds shockingly ungracious. Thank you, Cousin Gareth. I appreciate your generosity and I shall like to have some pretty gowns.” Even though they would all be black and big enough for an elephant, she thought with a mental grimace. On the whole, she was quite glad he had won his point this time. Gentlemen hated to lose, and she had no desire to vex him beyond bearing.
    “Good, then that's settled.” He drove around the stables and pulled up at the front door, where a groom was waiting to take the gig back to the carriage house.
    “But I should still like to go to Ludlow,” Laura said as Gareth handed her down, “to see the shops and the castle.”
    “So you shall, in full state in the carriage with coachman and footman and your maid, as soon as you have something to wear that will not disgrace me!”
    Laughing, they went into the house.
    Lloyd met them in the Great Hall. “If your ladyship is not otherwise occupied,” he said, bowing, “Miss Burleigh would like to see you in her sitting room as soon as is convenient.”
    Laura threw a glance of panic-stricken appeal at Gareth. He pressed her hand.
    “Are you too tired to speak to Aunt Antonia now?” he asked solicitously.
    She shook her head, with the greatest reluctance. If she claimed fatigue he would never let her forget it, and she had to face Miss Burleigh sooner or later.
    He continued in a low voice, “My aunt is straitlaced but charitable. You need not fear her.”
    It was easy for him to talk, she reflected forlornly as she trudged after Lloyd. Gareth, Baron Wyckham, had doubtless never given his aunt a moment's cause for uneasiness, never transgressed against the rules of propriety.
    Would that she could say the same of herself.
     

Chapter 6
     
    “What a pleasant room,” Laura exclaimed. She had unconsciously expected Miss Burleigh's private apartment to be furnished in greys and duns. The reality of flowered chintz curtains and upholstery gave the room a cheerful, airy feeling.
    Miss Burleigh, seated at an inlaid drop-front desk, bowed her head in response to the compliment. “Pray be seated, Lady Laura.” She rose as Laura sat down on a low cabriole chair, and took a similar chair facing her, her thin face composed, her hands folded sedately in her lap. “I am willing to hear what you have to say.”
    Laura perched on the edge of the seat, her back stiff, trying to marshal thoughts that slithered and slipped from her grasp. Only the fact that she had begged for a chance to present her story enabled her to begin.
    “It all started when my grandmother died just before my first Season,” she said slowly, unfocused gaze fixed on her memories. “I was not expected to 'take,' being too thin and insufficiently docile, but I might have had a chance, that year, on