"That's true, of course, but it was most dreadfully draughty. The windows didn't fit properly, and I'm certain the mattress was damp." She dabbed at a reddened nose with her handkerchief.
Since Sylvester knew that his sister was afflicted with a permanently red and dripping nose, he made no comment, turning instead to look for Theo, who was standing at a little distance, hands clasped in front of her, a tentative smile on her face.
A picture of conciliation, he thought, half-amused despite his very real anger.
"Theo, let me make you known to my mother," he said, beckoning her forward, keeping his voice deliberately cool, his mouth unsmiling.
Not promising, Theo thought, coming forward. Maybe if she charmed his mother and sister, he'd be inclined to forget her earlier offense.
"Lady Gilbraith." She bowed, and extended her hand, smiling. "I'm delighted to make your acquaintance."
Lady Gilbraith ignored the hand, raised her lorgnette, and examined her. "Goodness me, what a brown creature you are," she declared. "It's most unfashionable. I'm surprised your mother should allow you to run around in the sun and ruin your complexion in that fashion."
She was not going to like her mother-in-law! And that, Theo reflected, was the understatement of the year. But she would demonstrate to Sylvester that she could behave with impeccable courtesy, despite provocation.
"I have a dark complexion, ma'am," she said. "I take after my father. My sisters are much fairer."
She glanced up at Sylvester and saw a glimmer of relief in his eyes. "Theo, this is my sister, Mary."
Mary sniffed and shook hands. "Theo? What a strange name. You must mean Thea, surely."
"No," Theo said. "I have always been called Theo. It was my father's name for me."
"How very strange." Another sniff accompanied the comment. "Mama, we should go inside. The air feels very damp."
Lady Gilbraith surveyed the gracious Elizabethan facade with a critically proprietorial air that sorely tested Theo's resolution. "Quite a handsome house, I suppose. But these half-timbered buildings can be abysmally cramped inside."
"I don't believe you will find Stoneridge Manor cramped, ma'am," Theo said stiffly. "It's generally considered to be a most spacious example of Elizabethan architecture."
"We shall see," her future mother-in-law stated in a tone that indicated she didn't believe a word of it. "Gilbraith House is a most elegant gentleman's residence. I trust my son will not find his inheritance lacking in any of the amenities." She sailed toward the steps, her daughter at her heels.
Theo stared in disbelief at Sylvester, who met her gaze with a rueful smile. "All right, gypsy," he said. "You've earned yourself a suspended sentence dependent on continued good behavior."
Theo ignored this. "Why didn't you warn me?" she demanded.
"Warn you that my mother is a witch?" His eyebrows lifted in ironic question mark. "Be realistic, Theo." He drew her hand through his arm. "Come, let us go in and do what we can to support your mother. It's not for long. You can curb your tongue for two days."
There was a distinct "or else" lurking behind the last statement, but threats or not, Theo decided she owed him the effort to endure his mother's incivilities with a good grace. She certainly owed it to her own mother.
However, she could strike a bargain as well as the next man. "I can curb my tongue if you can curb yours, sir."
She looked up at him, her head on one side, a challenging spark in her eyes. "Promise me you won't accuse anyone in the stables until I've had a chance to talk with them."
Sylvester's lips tightened, but he remembered the revulsion on the head groom's face. The standards and conditions in the stables would be set by him. Maybe Theo had a point. She certainly knew these people as he didn't.
"Very well. But if you let your tongue run away with you in my mother's company, Theo, you will pay in full measure for that outrageous display of incivility. Is it understood?"
Theo grimaced at this uncompromising tone but then reflected she'd won both a reprieve and a vital victory. She shrugged. "Crystal clear, my lord."
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."