Reforming the Viscount. ANNIE BURROWS

She snatched the letter from him with a trembling hand.

      ‘I did not want to worry you about her before,’ Robert confessed. ‘But all the reports I have received suggest she is growing worse by the day.’

      Lydia sank down on to a chair to read the letter. Rose came up behind her, so she could read over her shoulder.

      ‘Robert,’ said Rose with a soft gasp, when she came to the middle of the page. ‘How could you have kept this from us?’

      ‘Because I thought she would improve! I thought at first, when Mrs Broome wrote that she was not doing very well, that it was only to be expected, but that after a reasonable period of time, she would settle down. And I did not want to worry you. I did not want any shadow to fall over your Season, Rose.’

      He paced to the console table and began to fiddle with the flowers scattered across its surface.

      ‘Things have not always been between us as they should. I regret that now, and I wanted to…to make it up to you. I wanted this time in London to be perfect…’

      ‘And to think I was grateful for the way you took charge of the more tedious aspects of organising this trip to town,’ Lydia breathed. She’d actually told him that she could not have picked a finer house than this one he’d rented for them, nor staffed it with more suitable servants. She’d appreciated the fact that he’d seen to the provision of carriages and horses, and been incredibly impressed when he’d even managed, through the amazingly wide circle of acquaintances he had, to arrange for Rose to have a court presentation. And all the time, he’d been keeping…this from her.

      She looked down at the letter which she’d crushed between her fingers.

      ‘But no more. This has gone too far. We must return to Westdene,’ she said, getting to her feet and moving towards the door. ‘And I am sorry, Rose, but this means the end of your Season—’

      ‘Not necessarily,’ put in Robert.

      ‘Of course it does,’ cried Rose. ‘Lydia has to go to Cissy. And I cannot stay in town without a proper chaperon. And anyway, how could you think I would want to stay here now I know what it has cost Cissy?’

      ‘I didn’t, of course. It is just that I think I have found a way to deal with this problem without curtailing your Season completely.’

      ‘Cissy is not a problem,’ said Rose indignantly. ‘She is a darling!’

      Lydia looked at the way brother and sister were squaring up to each other and sighed. They’d come so far in the months since their father’s death. The Colonel had been hopeless at demonstrating his feelings for his children when they’d been little. It had left Robert resentful at being sent away to school in England while he’d kept the girls with him, and them feeling secondbest. They only saw that he’d been educated as an English gentleman, while they’d had ayahs and tutors. It had taken some time to explain that the Colonel had been afraid Robert might succumb to some tropical infection, as his English mother had done. That he was trying to protect him, rather than rejecting him. And that, conversely, he couldn’t bear to be parted from all his children.

      She could not let all their newly established rapport disintegrate, just because Lord Rothersthorpe had put her out of countenance. For that was what it boiled down to. She had been angry before Robert had even entered the room.

      ‘I think we should both try to calm down and hear what Robert has to say,’ she said wearily. ‘There is no sense in us all falling out with each other.’

      While she sank into the nearest chair, Rose flounced on to another and folded her arms.

      ‘It was meeting Lord Rothersthorpe that put me in mind of a solution, funnily enough,’ Robert began. ‘It made me recall how I used to treat the house, before Lydia married Father. How I used to invite parties of friends to row up and picnic in the grounds. And how popular those outings used to be.’

      ‘You mean, even though we will be staying at Westdene, we could still write and invite people down for the day?’ Rose sat up straighter. ‘Yes, that would work. What do you think, Mama Lyddy?’

      Lydia flushed and looked down at her feet. It had been on one of those picnics that Lord Rothersthorpe had raised her hopes, for those few brief, exhilarating minutes. Robert surely was not going to suggest she organise another? It would mean reliving the pain of rejection all over again.

      Fortunately, before she could draw breath to voice her reluctance, Robert spoke again.

      ‘That was not quite what I had in mind. I rather thought we might have a fully fledged house party. Mama Lyddy accused me of not letting you get to know any of these young men who claim to have been smitten by you. So I thought, if you have them about you all day, we will soon discover what they are really made of.’

      Rose let out a shriek of delight, leapt to her feet and flung her arms round Robert’s neck.

      ‘Robert, you are brilliant! It is just the thing. I need only invite—’ she broke off with a blush ‘—the people I really like. And we will soon see what they are really made of, by the way they react to Cissy.’

      ‘Ah,’ said Robert with a frown. ‘I had not thought of that. And really, you know, perhaps that wouldn’t be quite fair. You cannot use Cissy as some sort of…test.’

      ‘What did you expect when you suggested having visitors, then, Robert?’ Lydia fumed. ‘Did you think I would keep her hidden away?’

      ‘Well, no. But she spends most of her time in the nursery, anyway.’

      ‘If anyone,’ said Rose, ‘says one unkind word to Cissy, I will send them packing.’

      ‘It might be a little too late for Cissy by then, though…’ said Robert pensively.

      ‘She is not as fragile as all that,’ said Lydia. ‘Provided we are there to love her, she will not care what anyone else may say to her, or think of her.’

      ‘Are you quite sure?’

      ‘Oh, yes.’ Well, probably. ‘And as Rose has so astutely pointed out, what better way to find out what a person is really made of, than to force him to confront a girl with all of Cissy’s disadvantages?’