“If she had children of her own, why did she leave her fortune to you, Alice?”
“Her daughter died and she had no other relatives,” Alice said. Her former employer’s eccentric decision to leave her vast fortune to her housemaid had caused uproar in the tight-knit local society. It had been a shock to Alice, too, but it was also understandable and deeply poignant for her. “You know that she had been a recluse for many years,” she said. “She had no family or friends and she had turned against the local vicar years ago, so there was no way in which she would choose to leave her money to the church.”
“I can see myself ending like that,” Lydia said, with a flash of bitterness. “Alone and with no one in the world…”
“No, you will not,” Alice said fiercely, grabbing her hand. “You have friends about you, and anyway, this baby of yours thrives and is strong. Perhaps when he or she is born your parents will relent—”
“God forbid,” Lydia said involuntarily, and they both burst out laughing. “Lady Membury must have loved you,” Lydia added. “You would have been a great comfort to her, Alice. I imagine she was very lonely and saw you as the daughter she had lost.”
“Perhaps she did,” Alice said. There was a lump in her throat. “We used to talk about all manner of things,” she said, thinking back, “and go driving together, and drink bohea tea and gin, and play cards together.”
“And I suppose you let her win,” Lydia said.
“Well, of course,” Alice said. “She was my employer—and she had a fortune of eighty thousand pounds!”
They both burst out laughing again but then Alice sobered. “All the same, Lydia,” she said, “I sometimes wish that she had never left me her money. It can be a curse as well as a blessing.” She stopped, finding that she was on the verge of blurting out the truth of Miles’s blackmail to her friend. “I’m sorry,” she said, with a little constraint. “That sounds most appallingly ungrateful when my life is materially so much easier now than it was a few years ago.”
“Being an heiress is not always a fortunate thing,” Lydia said bitterly. “Look at the depths of greed it has driven Sir Montague to, with his ghastly plans to fleece us all with the Dames’ Tax and all his other medieval laws! And then there is Tom…” Her voice faltered a little, and Alice saw her knuckles whiten as she pressed her hands together in her lap. “I do not think he would have paid me the slightest attention had I been penniless. I think he knew that as he is a rackety younger son, Mama and Papa would never countenance his attentions to me. He deliberately sought to get me pregnant so that I would be obliged to marry him. The plan only went wrong when his criminal actions were exposed and he was arrested.”
“Oh, Lydia!” Alice was appalled at the heartless tale her friend was outlining. The same thoughts had occurred to her but she had hoped that Lydia had kept at least a few of her illusions. “I am sure that Tom cared for you—” she began, knowing that she did not believe it but wanting only to give comfort.
“Oh, pish!” Lydia said. “Tom cared for no one but himself. Which is why you should be careful of Miles Vickery, Alice.” Her gaze sought Alice’s and there was anxiety in the depths. “I know he is different in that he is a marquis, even if an impoverished one, and so has a title to trade for your money, but in terms of character I think him even more of a rake than Tom, more ruthless, more dangerous.”
“How right you are,” Alice said with feeling.
Both girls looked around as there was a clatter in the hall outside. Lizzie had evidently arrived back from her ride with Nat Waterhouse, for she could be heard chattering and laughing with Marigold, and then Alice heard her mother’s voice rising with excitement as she gave Lizzie the news.
“And the Marquis of Drummond called and I have every expectation of an engagement being announced shortly between him and Alice…”
The drawing room door crashed open. “Your mama tells me that you are going to marry Miles Vickery, Alice,” Lizzie announced as she rushed in. She pulled off her riding gloves and dropped them carelessly on the table. “Am I to congratulate you?”
“That would be premature,” Alice said.
“Ha! I thought so!” Lizzie said, flinging herself down on the window seat. “I told her you should be clapped in Bedlam if you were even considering it!”
“Well,” Alice began weakly, thinking that perhaps she should take the opportunity to start preparing the ground, but then she realized that Lizzie was not attending, anyway.
“You will not believe what has happened!” Lizzie said, sitting bolt upright and fixing her friends with a furious glare. “Nat Waterhouse is to marry that pea brain Flora Minchin!”
“Good gracious!” Alice said, startled. She remembered Miles’s lazy observation that Lizzie was in love with Nat even though she had known him forever and treated him like a brother. Miles had not, she realized now, said that Nat felt the same way. And everyone knew that Lord Waterhouse was yet another impecunious fortune hunter out to snap up a rich prize.
“How do you feel about that, Lizzie?” she asked.
“Oh, it is none of my affair if Nat chooses to throw himself away on a featherbrained heiress who will bore him silly within a se’nnight!” Lizzie said crossly. “I could not care one iota!”
Alice exchanged a look with Lydia. “I expect you told him that, too,” Lydia said.
“Of course!” Lizzie wriggled impatiently. “But I need not concern myself because it will never happen. Nat could not be so stupid as to marry that henwit. He will see sense before the knot is tied.”
Once again Alice’s eyes met Lydia’s. Lydia raised her brows slightly and Alice shook her head. Both of them knew that Nat Waterhouse was eminently capable of going through with such a marriage for money and that if he had already made Miss Minchin an offer he could not now, in honor, back out. There was no point in telling Lizzie that, of course, for she was in no mood to listen.
“Flora Minchin is a sweet-natured girl,” Alice said.
“Only because she is too stupid to be anything other than agreeable,” Lizzie snapped.
“I don’t think she is anywhere near as stupid as you think, Lizzie,” Lydia said surprisingly. “I think you misjudge her.”
“I don’t care about Flora,” Lizzie said impatiently. “The problem is that now I do not even have Nat’s escort to the ball at the Granby tomorrow, for he is to accompany Flora and her family!”
“How thoughtless of him,” Alice murmured. “Well, we shall both have to make do with my brother, Lowell. He has promised to escort me and I am sure he will be happy to do the same for you, Lizzie. Besides, you are seldom short of admirers.”
“I like Lowell,” Lizzie said, brightening. “That will be delightful.”
“He likes you, too,” Alice said dryly, “but he is wasting his time. You would make a terrible farmer’s wife.”
Lizzie laughed, her good humor restored. “With my fortune he could be a gentleman of leisure. It is worth a thought.…”
“No, it is not,” Alice said quickly. The idea of Lizzie and Lowell making a runaway match was, she thought, the worst scheme since Lizzie’s last bad idea about robbing the gown shop. Lizzie would run rings around Lowell. She needed a firm hand and Lowell was far too easygoing. “Lowell likes working for a living,” she said. “I know that may seem strange but some of us require occupation.”
“Oh, do not worry.” Lizzie yawned. “I know Lowell prefers to work morning, noon and night. We would see a great deal more of him here at Spring House if it were not so. Last time we met I told him how very tedious and bourgeois it was of him!” She slewed around in her seat so she could look at Alice properly. “And do not think that I have not noticed how restless you become when you feel you