An Unusual Bequest. Mary Nichols

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      Dinner was a nightmare. Charlotte tried to keep up a normal polite conversation, but it was impossible. Everything she said, they seemed to twist, and they asked such impertinent questions that she refused to answer, which made Cecil laugh, though his laughter was hollow. How long had the Hobarts occupied Easterley Manor, they wanted to know, and did she know the value of everything in it? And when she said she did not know and it was the province of his lordship’s man of business to provide him with an inventory, they had laughed loud and long. ‘I expect him tomorrow,’ Cecil said. ‘Then we shall see.’

      Worse was to come when he insisted she send for her daughters. ‘I wish to make their acquaintance,’ he said. ‘After all, they are part of the job lot, aren’t they? Kith and kin I must include in my reckoning.’

      ‘You are mistaken there, my lord,’ she said, reluctantly nodding to Foster to fetch Miss Quinn and the girls. ‘They are my responsibility.’

      ‘But only this morning you were reminding me of my duty towards them.’

      ‘I did not mean you should tot them up on your inventory.’

      ‘You mean I am not to be responsible for their keep? How glad I am of that. Food, clothes, wages for that Miss…What’s her name?’

      ‘Miss Quinn.’

      ‘Miss Quinn. From now on you pay her yourself.’

      Charlotte did not protest. She would not throw herself on his mercy, though how she was going to manage she did not know. She looked up as the door opened and Miss Quinn ushered her charges into the room. They looked very fetching in white muslin dresses, with deep satin sashes and their hair brushed until it gleamed and tied back with matching ribbons. Lizzie’s was blue and Fanny’s pink. Quinn gave them a little poke in the back and they both executed a neat curtsy.

      ‘Very pretty,’ Augustus chortled, surveying them through his quizzing glass. ‘What say you, Roly, ain’t they pretty?’

      ‘Yes, remarkably handsome. Cecil, old man, I think you should be more generous with your dead brother’s children. Put them on the inventory.’

      Cecil pretended to laugh. ‘Come, girls, come to me and let me see you properly. Don’t be afraid. No one will hurt you. I am your Uncle Cecil, home from abroad to take care of you.’

      They approached the table to join their mother, reluctant to go to him. ‘They are shy,’ Charlotte said. ‘Not used to strangers.’

      ‘I am not a stranger!’ he shouted, banging his fist on the table, making the crockery rattle. ‘I am Lord of the Manor, Squire of Parson’s End. Home from abroad. Home, do you hear me?’

      ‘My lord, please do not shout. You are frightening them.’

      His voice softened, but was no less menacing. ‘Then remember not to behave as if I were an uninvited guest you cannot wait to get rid of. It is you who are the guests, you and your daughters, and that one…’ He nodded towards Miss Quinn hovering in the doorway. To the children he said, ‘Would you like to sit with us and have some apple pie?’

      Both girls, too frightened to speak, shook their heads. He beckoned to Miss Quinn. ‘Take them away, they are not as amusing as I thought they might be.’

      Quinn disappeared with her charges and a few moments later Charlotte made her excuses and left the men to their port and cigars and went up to her room to sit in a chair by the window, gazing out with unseeing eyes. Her head was reeling. How could she endure living under the same roof as her brother-in-law, she asked herself, supposing he did not decide to throw her out? Even so soon after СКАЧАТЬ