Page 62 of Appointment in Bath

She ran her fingers over the silk, marveling at the feel of it and the way it shimmered softly under her hand. “What a beautiful color it has. There’s almost a golden hue in the light.” She looked up at him, offering a tentative smile. “Thank you, father.”

He inclined his head. His own gift sat on the inlaid table beside his wingchair. He’d been measurably appreciative of it, though his gratitude hadn’t prevented him from pointing out that Dr. Spragg had forbidden him using tobacco. Which made Meg’s gift all but useless to him now.

She returned her attention to the bolt of fabric. “It’s almost too beautiful,” she remarked absently. “It seems a shame to waste it on a dress that I’ll only wear in Somersetshire.”

“A waste, is it?” Her father puffed up with indignation. “Rubbish. You’ve a position to uphold in the county. My position. The minute you’re caught in out-of-season rags, the villagers will assume I’m in financial difficulties. I won’t have people thinking I can’t afford to keep you turned out in the latest fashions.”

Meg carefully refolded the silk, returned it to its tissue-lined box. Despite spending more time with her father, and receiving a kernel more of his respect, he still didn’t recognize her as an individual. She only existed as an extension of him. A poor, feminine shadow who could never live up to the splendor he imagined was due the Burton-Smythe name.

His disappointment in her didn’t precisely hurt. Not any longer. But it never ceased to sting.

“I shall have my dressmaker m-make a ball gown,” she said quietly.

“Now that would be a waste,” he replied. “I’ll be hosting no balls in the foreseeable future. Have the woman run up a dinner dress. You can wear it when we dine of an evening.”

“Surely my f-future holds more than lonely d-dinners here at Letchford Hall?”

His brows lowered. He despised the sound of her stammer. And he hated the suggestion of her having a season even more. “What else would it hold, pray?”

Meg didn’t wish to argue on Christmas. Still… “You’ve yet to render an opinion on m-my having a season in Bath.”

“I haven’t come to a decision as yet.”

“Then you are c-considering it?”

“I consider a great many things. Were you aware that Smithson is complaining about the roofs on the tenant cottages again? Or that Leonards is talking of selling the freehold to his sheep farm? The very land we’ve leased the past decade and more? Your pleasure jaunt to a local watering hole weighs poorly in comparison to the concerns of the estate, my girl.”

“It’s not a p-pleasure jaunt. It would be my c-come out. You m-must see that I—”

“I see no such thing.”

She opened her mouth to argue.

He waved her into silence with an abrupt sweep of his hand. “Yes, I’m aware you’re eighteen. Still a young enough chit, by my reckoning. You have another year yet before we must needs be troubled by thoughts of your taking part in the season. And when we do trouble ourselves,” he added ominously, “that season will be in London, as is proper for a girl of your pedigree.”

“Mother had n-no pedigree,” Meg replied under her breath. “As you so often remind m-me.”

Her father glared at her for a long moment. “Your mother’s low birth is nothing to the Burton-Smythe name. If a baseborn scoundrel masquerading as an earl can parade his jumped-up offspring through the drawing rooms of polite society, then I bloody well can send my daughter to London to make her curtsy to the queen.”

“Must you bring Lord Allendale into things?”

“Lord Allendale—the very name is laughable! And now his son thinks to court my good opinion on the railway? I have a mind to crush the impertinent pup under my bootheel.”

Meg would like to see him try. Ivo mayn’t be a bully—he mayn’t be unreasonable—but he was no weakling. “I trust, when he c-calls on you, you’ll think of the benefit the railway would bring to Maidenbridge before you succumb to your worse instincts.”

“If he calls,” he said. “I take leave to doubt he’ll come. None of their number have darkened Letchford Hall’s door in twenty years and more. They haven’t the courage.”

“They have the reputation for b-being courageous. Even Lady Katherine. She’s just returned from a season.”

“A failed season, Church says.”

“You shouldn’t encourage Mrs. Church to gossip. What’s to stop her from spreading tales about m-my own season—or lack of one?”

“You shall have a season,” he said. “Once I’m persuaded you’re up to snuff.”

Meg set aside her gift. She doubted he would ever be persuaded. She couldn’t fully conquer her stammer, after all. Not to his satisfaction. And she had red hair and freckles, too—though he must take the blame for that.

Under other circumstances, she would have been inclined to accept his endless delays. What else could she do? But she had a particular reason for wishing herself away from Somersetshire. If only she could get to Bath—if only she could meet someone else—she might stand a chance of forgetting these wretched feelings she had for Ivo Beresford.