“Well, perhaps he will relent in time…”
“No.” Olivia’s lovely face was pale but proud. “I do not wish to return to their house…ever. What I did was right, and I shall not grovel to be forgiven.”
The subject was dropped, for Beatrice did not like to see her sister so upset. Instead, she exclaimed over the gowns they were unpacking, especially the one made by Madame Félice, the extraordinary French modiste who had suddenly arrived in town some months earlier.
“It is very lovely,” she said, holding it against herself. The jewel green of the fine silk actually became Beatrice very well, setting off the colour of her hair, and was, of course, far more stylish than anything she had ever made for herself. “No wonder everyone is so anxious to order from her—but does no one know where she worked before she came to London? Was it in Paris?”
“No one seems to know anything about her before she set up her shop…but they whisper that she is the mistress of a very rich man.”
“Oh, why do they say that?” Beatrice looked at her curiously.
“They say she brought money to Madame Coulanges’s salon. It stands to reason. She must have a protector—where else would she get the money to set herself up in a fashionable establishment? If she had no money, she would be desperate to take any order…”
“Yes, I see the reasoning behind such gossip,” Beatrice replied. She frowned. Her education had been to say the least unusual, and her opinions were strong in such matters. “But I do not see that the money must have come from a protector. Why cannot a woman be successful for herself, without the aid of a man? Why must everyone always assume the worst? There could be other reasons why she was able to bring money to Madame Coulanges. Perhaps she inherited some from a wealthy relative, and used it to set herself up in business. She might even have won it in a game of cards.”
“It is intriguing, isn’t it?” Olivia said. “I dare say her story will come out eventually—and that will set the tongues wagging again. For the moment, she can do no wrong—no one would think the worse of her for having a wealthy protector. She does not mix in society, other than to dress her wealthy clientele, of course, and could never hope to marry into a good family.”
“Alas, I fear you are right. We are all too much governed by convention. I am sure we shall hear more in time,” Beatrice said. “The news may be slow in filtering through to the four villages, but it arrives in due course.”
“The four villages…” Olivia stared at her in bewilderment. “I am not sure what you mean?”
Beatrice laughed. “Oh, I am so used to that way of speaking of our neighbours. I mean the villages that lie to the north, south, east and west of Steepwood Abbey, of course: Abbot Quincey, which is really almost a small market town these days, Steep Abbot and Steep Ride…which is tiny and remote, and lies to the south of the Abbey—and our own.”
“Oh, yes, the Abbey. We passed by its outer walls on our journey here. Is life affected much by what goes on there?”
Once again, Beatrice laughed. “We have a wicked Marquis all our own,” she said. “The stories about him would take me all night to relate, but I will only say that I cannot vouch for any of them, since I have scarcely met him—except for the night he almost knocked me down as he rushed past on his horse, of course.”
“That was very rude of him,” Olivia said. “If he is so unpleasant I do not wonder that you do not care to know him.”
“No one cares to know the Marquis of Sywell—except perhaps the Earl of Yardley. I am not sure, but I think there is some story about them having belonged to the same wild set years ago, before either of them had come into their titles. It was a long time ago, of course. Before the old Earl, who was the seventh to bear the title, I believe, banished his son to France, lost the Abbey, which had been in his family for generations…since the middle of the sixteenth century…to the present owner, and then killed himself.”
“Indeed?” Olivia looked intrigued. “Why was the son banished? Oh, pray do tell me, Beatrice—was it because of a love affair?”
“Have you heard the story?”
Olivia shook her head. “No, but I should like to if it is romantic…to die for love is so—so…”
“Foolish,” Beatrice supplied dryly. “Perch on the window-seat, Olivia, and I will sit here on this stool. It is a long story and must be explained properly or you will become confused with all the different Earls and not know who I mean.”
Olivia nodded, her face alight with eagerness. For the first time since her arrival, she seemed truly to have forgotten her unfortunate situation. Beatrice took heart, determined to make her story as interesting and entertaining as she could for her sister’s sake.
“Well, the present Earl of Yardley, the eighth if I am right, was not born to inherit the title or the estate. His name when this story begins was Thomas Cleeve, and his family was no more than a minor branch of the Yardleys. It was then that he and his cousin (the last Earl before this one: I told you it was complicated!), some folk say, were both members of the rather loose set to which Lord George Ormiston belonged—he, to make things plain, is our wicked Marquis of today.”
“Yes, I see. He is now the Marquis of Sywell and he owns the Abbey,” Olivia said. “Please do go on.”
“Lucinda Beattie, the spinster sister of Matthew Beattie, who was our previous vicar and died in…oh, I think it was eleven years ago…told our mother that Thomas Cleeve was disappointed in love as a young man and went off to India to make his fortune. That part was undoubtedly true, for he returned a very wealthy man. I know that he married twice and returned a widower in 1790 with his four children (twin boys of fourteen years, Lady Sophia, who I dare say you will meet, and his elder son, Marcus). He built Jaffrey House on some land he bought from his cousin Edmund, then the seventh Earl of Yardley…Are you following me?”
“Yes, of course. What happened to the romantic Earl?” Olivia asked, impatient for Beatrice to begin his tale. “Why did he banish his son—and what was his son called?”
“His son was Rupert, Lord Angmering, and I believe he was very romantic,” Beatrice said with a smile. “He went off to do the Grand Tour, and met a young Frenchwoman, with whom he fell desperately in love. It was in the autumn of 1790, I understand, that he returned and informed his father he meant to marry her. When the Earl forbade it on pain of disinheritance, because she was a Catholic, he chose love—and was subsequently banished to France.”
Olivia was entranced, her eyes glowing. “What happened—did he marry his true love?”
“No one really knows for certain. Some of the older villagers say he would definitely have done so, for he was above all else a man of honour, others doubt it…but nothing can be proved, for the unfortunate Lord Angmering was killed in the bread riots in France…”
“Oh the poor man—to be thrown off by his father…” Olivia’s cheeks were flushed as the similarity to her own story struck her. “But you said his father killed himself?”
“As I have heard it told, the Earl was broken-hearted, and when the confirmation of his son’s death reached him in 1793, he went up to town, got terribly drunk and lost everything he owned to his friend the Marquis of Sywell at the card tables. Afterwards, he called for the Marquis’s duelling pistols and before anyone knew what he intended, shot himself—in front of the Marquis and his butler—the same one who remains in Sywell’s employ today.”
“It was sad end to his story, but it had a kind of poetic justice—do you not think so?” Olivia asked. “He blamed himself for the loss of his son and threw away all that had been precious to him…”
“It may be romantic to you,” Beatrice replied with a naughty look, “but it meant that the people