none of your business, sir. I earn my keep in honest toil and if our kinsman is so thoughtless as to give me no time to make other arrangements, then he must needs take me as he finds me.’
Bella thought it was time she intervened. ‘Edward, if you are sure Robert is not going to come, I think I had better go and tell his lordship you are all assembled.’
She hurried from the room, glad to escape, though how her grandfather would react when he saw the Comtesse she did not dare to think. Nor what he would say when he realised Robert had not deigned to obey his summons. Perhaps she ought to tell him that she had seen Robert in Ely, but that would mean explaining what he had been doing there. But he had only been listening, as she had. It did not mean he was colluding with the dissidents, did it?
Sylvester answered Bella’s knock on the door of the Earl’s apartments. ‘Please, tell his lordship Mr Trenchard, the Comte de Courville and Sir Edward have arrived, but he does not think Captain Huntley will have received his invitation in time to obey.’ She paused. ‘And warn him the Comtesse is here, too.’
‘Oh, is she?’ came a bellow from an inner room. ‘Well, I shall give her a right about, poking her nose in where it’s not wanted.’ He appeared at the door, dressed in a mulberry velvet jacket and matching breeches and clutching a walking stick. ‘Take my arm, girl. Let’s see what those young bloods are made of.’
‘Do you need me?’ she asked timidly. ‘Could I not wait in my room?’
‘No, you could not. Want to see their faces…’
‘But I don’t.’
‘Yes, you do.’
To which there was no answer, and they made their slow and stately way down to the withdrawing room. Before entering, the Earl stood in the doorway and surveyed the company gathered there. Edward bowed slightly, James gave a curt nod and Louis flung out his arm in an extravagant gesture and bowed low. ‘Your servant, my lord.’
The Earl grunted and, leaning heavily on Bella’s arm, made his way over to a high-backed armchair and lowered himself into it. Then he turned to the Comtesse. ‘What are you doing here? I do not recollect asking you to come.’
She dipped a curtsey. ‘An oversight, I am sure, Uncle. How do you do?’
‘Well enough. Not about to shuffle off, at any rate.’
‘I should hope not!’ she said with false brightness. ‘But if you are about to settle your affairs, then I must tell you it is not before time.’
‘What has it to do with you, madam?’
‘Louis is your heir.’
‘Is he? We shall see.’
‘What do you mean by that? My goodness, if you mean to try and disinherit him, it is as well I decided to come, too.’
‘You take too much upon yourself, madam. I wish you to leave us. Find something to amuse you while I talk to these reprobates.’
Elizabeth looked as though she were about to throw a fit, but then, realising he would not proceed while she stayed, flung her head up in disgust and sailed from the room. Bella, who was standing beside her grandfather’s chair, bent and whispered, ‘Should I go, too, Grandfather? She is truly upset and I could keep her company.’
‘No, you will stay here. Sit on that stool.’ He indicated a stool at his feet, then looked up at the three young men. ‘Sit down, you will give me a crick in the neck from peering up at you.’ And as they obeyed he added, ‘Edward, where is that cork-brained brother of yours?’
‘He was in Town when your letters arrived, my lord. I forwarded his, but he may not have received it in time to make arrangements to be here.’
‘More likely demonstrating his independence.’ He gave a grunt of amusement. ‘And he the least independent of the lot of you.’
‘He may yet come,’ Bella ventured, wondering where Robert was. She would not put it past him to keep them waiting on purpose, doing as her grandfather had suggested and asserting his independence. Or proving to her he would not be coerced by anything she had said. She wouldn’t put it beyond him to invite those argumentative labourers to join him in a glass of something at one of the many inns in Ely. ‘We could wait a little longer.’
‘I am not in the habit of waiting on ill-mannered jack-at-warts.’
‘My lord,’ Edward protested. ‘There is nothing wrong with my brother’s manners.’
‘Well, we shall proceed without him.’ He paused to look round at them, smiling slightly. ‘What a gaggle of fine geese you are, to be sure. But you are all I have, bar Bella. You don’t deserve her, not any of you, and if I had any choice I would not let her within a mile of you.’ He sighed heavily. ‘But my mind’s made up. One of you shall have her.’
Bella, who had been sitting looking at her feet, risked a glance at them. She was confronted by three open mouths, though no sound issued from any of them. They had obviously been struck dumb.
‘Well?’ the old man said. ‘Haven’t you anything to say for yourselves?’
‘What would you have us say?’ Edward was the first to recover. ‘Miss Huntley is a dear child. I am very fond of her but—’
‘That, at least, is a start. But are you so blind that you cannot see what is before your eyes? She is no longer a child. While you have been sowing your wild oats, she has become a marriageable woman.’
Edward turned to Bella, smiling to soften what appeared to be a rejection of her. ‘I beg your pardon, Bella, I meant no offence. You are beautiful and a man would have to be blind not to see that, but—’
‘But you do not like being coerced,’ she put in quickly, so that he might know it was not her idea. ‘And neither do I. Please, do not consider it.’
‘Then what is the point of this meeting?’
‘I’ll tell you, shall I?’ the old man said. ‘Isabella cannot have the management of a fortune, though I have no doubt she would make a better job of it than you, Louis.’ He looked at the young man’s extravagant clothes. ‘Your tailor’s bill alone would bankrupt the estate. I could appoint trustees until she married but I ain’t keen on the idea. I want to see her married before I hand in my accounts.’
‘Very laudable,’ Louis said. ‘But I shall choose my own wife.’
‘Indeed, I hope you may,’ Bella said, very near to tears, not at being rejected but at the humiliation of it all.
‘Bella, please, do not cry,’ Edward said. ‘There is plenty of time for you to make a good match whatever the old greybeard says.’
‘And I could rule you out for such impertinence.’
‘I have already ruled myself out, sir, but you forget my brother is not here to speak for himself.’
‘Who is to blame for that? I have told Bella she shall have her choice, but if she is sighing after that ne’er-do-well, she must find a way of bringing him to the mark.’
‘Grandpapa, I am not sighing after him. I am not sighing after anyone and I wish you would not speak of me as if I were not in the room. I might as well go and bear the Comtesse company.’ It was unlike her to be so bold but she was being driven beyond endurance.
‘Then it must be one of the others,’ he said, ignoring her.
‘I am your heir,’ Louis said. ‘But that does not mean you may dictate…’
The old man smiled. ‘You are sure of that, are you?’
‘No, of course he is not,’ Edward said. ‘The estate is entailed and must