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Chapter Ten

"Sylvester, you must change the furnishings in this salon without delay; they're positively shabby." Theo lifted an imaginary lorgnette and frowned, her mouth pursing, as she delivered this uncannily accurate mimicry of Lady Gilbraith amid delighted whoops of laughter from her sisters.

"Theo, you mustn't," Emily protested halfheartedly when she'd stopped laughing.

"But you sound just like her," Clarissa said. "And you have that exact manner with the nose." She tried an imitation, and Theo flung herself onto a cheerful chintz sofa, clapping vigorously.

"Would someone help me wrap these rabbit skeletons?" Rosie asked from the schoolroom table, where she was hard at work packing up her museum, listening with half an ear to her sisters' irreverent conversation. They were frequent visitors to the schoolroom, particularly when they wished to be undisturbed by other members of the household.

"Here, I'll help you." Clarissa came readily to the table. "Although I really don't care for skeletons."

"But they're beautiful," Rosie said, carefully aligning a spine.

"It's Mama I feel sorry for," Emily said. "Lady Gilbraith's done nothing but complain since she arrived. The bedchamber was too drafty, the bathwater wasn't hot enough, the servants are too slow."

"She's insufferable," Theo stated, fierceness replacing the laughter in her eyes. "She behaves as if she owns the place. Anyone would think we were the usurpers. I don't know how much longer I can continue to hold my tongue."

"You are being remarkably forbearing," Clarissa observed, delicately wrapping a thighbone in tissue paper. "Even when she told you that you don't make the best of yourself and you need the guiding hand of a fashionable woman."

"At least she didn't say that in front of Mama," Emily said, joining the two at the table. "But I really expected you to fly off the handle, Theo."

"Unfortunately, I can't. There's a sword of Damocles hanging over my head," Theo said crossly.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Damocles had a sword suspended over his head by a hair at a banquet so he didn't dare eat anything in case he disturbed it," Rosie explained earnestly.

"Yes, I know the story. I want to know what Theo particularly means by it," Clarissa said, looking inquiringly across at Theo, who had jumped off the sofa and was pacing restlessly around the sunny schoolroom. "Who's holding it over your head?"

Theo sighed. She should have known better than to have started this. "Stoneridge, if you must know. But there has to be a statute of limitations, and when it's up, that old bat isn't going to know what's hit her!"

"Theo!" Emily protested, but with a chuckle.

"A statute of limitations on what?" Clarissa persisted.

Theo sighed. "We were at outs, and I said something he didn't like, so I'm paying for it by being impeccably polite to his mother in the face of unbearable provocation."

"Oh." Clarissa looked as if she'd like more details, but to Theo's relief Emily diverted the subject.

"Perhaps you won't see too much of her after you're married."

"My only comfort is that Stoneridge thinks she's a witch too," Theo said.

"He gave his sister such a set-down yesterday," Clarissa remarked. "Did you notice… when she was moaning about ringing and ringing for morning chocolate? He said it wasn't fair on the staff to be expected to provide chocolate ten minutes before nuncheon, and if she woke up at a decent hour and bestirred herself a little, she'd be a lot less invalidish."

Theo grinned. "Yes, I enjoyed that. But he doesn't give his mother set-downs, and I'd dearly like to oblige."

"I could put one of my white mice in her bed," Rosie offered. "She was horrid to me yesterday. She said I was too young to be in the drawing room, particularly with dirty nails. I didn't think they were dirty… but they might have been," she added. "I'd been digging for worms."

"I think the white mouse is more likely to suffer than the Witch Gilbraith," Theo said. "She'd probably squash it. Actually, it'd probably die of fright if she so much as looks at it."

"Oh, then I won't," Rosie said matter-of-factly, bringing a sheet of pinned butterflies close to her bespectacled eyes for examination.

"We'd better go downstairs," Emily said reluctantly. "We can't leave Mama holding the fort for too long."

"This time tomorrow they'll be gone." Clarissa rose to her feet.

"And we'll be installed in the dower house."

"And Theo will be a married lady," Rosie finished for her sisters. "I wonder what that'll be like."

"Are you nervous?" Emily asked, linking her arm in Theo's as they left the schoolroom.

Theo shook her head. "About the future, perhaps, but not about tomorrow."

"Or tomorrow night?" Clarissa gave her a sharp glance as they turned out of the west wing into the central hallway.

Theo grinned. "No, most definitely not about that."

"But has Mama told you what happens?"

"Yes, but I already knew, only I couldn't really tell her that."

"How did you know?"

"Stoneridge has been very informative," she said mischievously.

"Theo, you haven't already -"

"Not quite, because Stoneridge wouldn't," she explained. "But I'm not expecting any surprises."

"Surprises about what, cousin?"

The three gasped at the earl's cool voice coming from the corridor behind them. How much had he heard?

Theo spun round. Sylvester was laughing, his eyes bright, and she knew he'd heard a great deal more than he should. "Were you eavesdropping, my lord?"

"Not at all. I just happened to come up behind you," he said, raising his hands in a gesture of disclaimer. "But I'll tell you something, my love, if you're not expecting any surprises, you might be in for a shock."

He let his eyes rest on their flushed faces as they absorbed this. They were all three distinctly unnerved by his sudden appearance, and he enjoyed the sensation of having the upper hand for once in the massed company of Belmont females. Deliberately, he cupped Theo's chin in the palm of his hand and kissed her mouth.

"Life is full of surprises, cousins." Releasing Theo's chin, he offered a bow of mock formality and turned aside into the long gallery.

"I'm glad Mama wouldn't let him choose me," Clarissa said thoughtfully, examining her younger sister's countenance. "He's very worldly and… and, well…" She searched for the right word. "Mature." She settled for that, although it wasn't quite what she meant. "Not that I don't like him," she added hastily. "I do… but he's a little intimidating."

"An understatement," Emily declared. "But he seems to understand Theo." She knew this was what her mother believed, although Elinor had confided to her eldest daughter that she expected the marriage to be punctuated by fireworks.

"I believe that disposes of my marriage quite satisfactorily," Theo said dryly. "I'm going to my room. There are things I have to do."

Her sisters watched her retrace her steps, then exchanged a speaking look and went downstairs to support their mother in her continuing ordeal with her guests.

Theo closed her bedroom door with a sigh of relief. Tonight would be her last night in this room. Since her grandmother's death, the apartment traditionally occupied by the Countess of Stoneridge had stood empty, the furniture under holland covers, but now, after twenty years, it had been prepared for the new countess.

Apart from new curtains and bed hangings, the furnishings were the same as they'd been for three hundred years. The feather mattress had been refilled, the paneling and cherrywood furniture polished and waxed, the tapestry carpet new stitched where it had frayed, the heavy silver candlesticks polished until the old silver seemed almost translucent. And yesterday she'd seen Dan, the handyman, oiling the hinges on the connecting door between the conjugal bedchambers.