Page 2 of The Cornish Lyon

She shook her head. “Yes, I have said so, haven’t I? But no thank you to your offer. I shall indeed be residing there from now on, as it is my house. I intend to proceed there after my interview with you is finished, and when I’ve secured access to the funds necessary for my projected lifestyle. The house itself will require a considerable sum to bring it back into the state I require. More servants, for a start. I trust you can see to that immediately?”

She fixed him with yet another hard stare, her eyebrows raised in question.

He nodded. “Yes, of course, Miss Frampton. I can furnish you with some cash from my own funds here, and you will have access to your father’s money from tomorrow, rest assured.” He sounded flustered. In all probability, he was unused to young women who knew their own minds. Unused to dealing with young women altogether.

She rose to her feet, the thought that it was so liberating to be finally free of Aunt Patience’s rules and temper foremost in her mind. “In that case, I shall bid you good day. You know my address if you wish to contact me in any matter.” And she swept out of the room, effectively preventing him from passing any comment. If he had dared, which she doubted.

As her papa had once said to her, “In business, know what you want before you begin negotiations, and do not allow yourself to be side-tracked in any way.” Advice she’d always taken to heart.

A short interval after she’d tugged on the bell pull at Milborne House, a familiar figure opened the door. Ellis the butler had grown older and more stooped in the four years since Papa’s death and her own incarceration at Aunt Patience’s house. He must be at least seventy by now, with hair like a fluffy dandelion clock and a face as lined and wrinkled as one of last year’s apples found lurking at the bottom of the barrel. But his face broke into the most satisfying smile of welcome.

“Miss Georgiana!”

Georgiana’s heart soared at the sight of so familiar and loved a person from her childhood. “Ellis, how good it is to see you’re still here.” The temptation arose to give him a big hug, so relieved was she to see him, but she resisted. She was a lady now, albeit one in a dreadful pickle, and it was not seemly to embrace a servant, however loved he might be.

Ellis, who looked as though he might have liked to hug her too, opened the door wider and stood back to allow her in. “Where else would I be, Miss Georgiana? Your father left me in charge here, and here I intend to stay until they carry me out in a pine box.”

She stepped inside out of the brisk March wind and inhaled the familiar and much missed smell of home. It warmed her to her core and pushed her present troubles aside for a short while. “I do hope that’s a long time in the future, Ellis, as I have need of you for some time as yet.”

The old butler, his faded blue eyes sparkling with what had to be tears of joy, took a deep breath, expanding his chest like a turkey cock. If he was as pleased to see her as she was to see him, then perhaps a hug might be permissible. However, four years under Aunt Patience’s iron fist prevented her from carrying out her wish. “Too much familiarity with the servants is a bad thing.” Her aunt’s voice echoed inside her head.

The door closed and she gazed around at the airy hallway, at the stairs rising to the first floor and the doors off to left and right into their main reception rooms. Everything looked exactly as she remembered it on the day dear Papa had left it on his last ever journey to Bunhill Fields Burial Ground to join her mother and grandfather.

Papa had purchased this house not upon his marriage but beforehand, when he’d made the decision, at approaching fifty, that it was high time he should wed and would need a suitable house for his as-yet unknown intended to run. Alas, his eventual bride, Miss Elizabeth Harrington, had lived to appreciate her splendid house for only three years, succumbing to her many ailments when her infant daughter had been less than a year old. Hence Georgiana had no memory of her mother other than from the portrait, by Sir William Beechey, that renowned painter of the royal family, that hung in the parlor. The only thing she knew about her mother was that she herself closely resembled her in being petite and a brunette.

Ellis held out his hands. “May I take your pelisse for you, Miss Georgiana?”

She was brought back to the present with a start. “Thank you, Ellis.”

Having divested herself also of her plain bonnet and gloves, she did a little experimental twirl on the spot out of pleasure for being home again, a maneuvre that brought a raising of the butler’s eyebrows. She desisted and bestowed a smile upon him. “You are not to know, unless of course you possess hitherto well-hidden psychic powers, but I have come home for good. I no longer reside with my aunt, and shall, instead, be taking up residence here. From today in fact.”

Ellis’s expression changed to one of approval if somewhat tempered by caution. “I am most delighted to hear that, Miss Georgiana. Is there anything I can do to be of assistance in your transference from Fitzroy Square to this house? Your home.” That last word rattled off his tongue with obvious pleasure.

Georgiana widened her smile. “Quite a lot, actually. I wish to open up the house and I imagine that after four years of no one living here we’re going to need a few more servants. Mr. Wilkes informed me that you only have a skeleton staff here. However, I’ll leave that to you and Mrs. Hicks to arrange as you know far more about it than I do. She is still here, I take it? Good. My maid, Havers, will be arriving with my trunks shortly. I left her in Fitzroy Square to attend to my packing with instructions to hire a carrier to bring everything here. And I am expecting a caller this afternoon, for tea. My old school friend, Lady Fanny Fitzwilliam. I sent her a missive telling her I would be here rather than at my aunt’s. She should be arriving shortly, so I would like tea served in the pink drawing room as soon as she arrives.”

She paused for breath and for Ellis to catch up. “I think that is all. No, wait. I shall be occupying my mother’s old rooms, I think, as I am the lady of the house. Please see to it that Havers and my trunks are sent up there.” She would have scratched her head as she tried to think of anything she’d forgotten, only now she was a lady and no longer a schoolgirl, she’d best not do things like that. “I think that’s everything. Oh no, and I would like dinner in the dining room at six this evening, please.” She might as well begin as she intended to go on, even if it did mean eating alone in that huge dining room. But, as she’d already decided, she was a lady now and should comport herself as one. In most things. “Thank you, Ellis. And now, to the pink drawing room. I imagine it’s covered in dust sheets. You and I will soon remedy that.”

Chapter Two

Georgiana was ensconced on a chaise longue in the now perfectly respectable and dust sheet free pink drawing room, a cosy fire blazing in the hearth, when her expected visitor arrived. Lady Fanny Fitzwilliam, the oldest surviving child of the new Duke of Denby, swept into the room like an embryonic whirlwind, leaving poor Ellis trailing in her wake.

“Georgie, my darling, what on earth are you doing here in this big empty house?” She bent and bestowed resounding kisses on each of Georgiana’s cheeks and settled, like an exotic bird of paradise, on the chaise longue beside her. “Your message was so enigmatic, I just had to come and find out what was going on. Do tell. I have to know why you’re no longer residing with your sainted aunt.”

Georgiana waited until Ellis had retreated and closed the drawing room door behind himself, acutely aware that he would be back shortly with the tea she’d requested. Perhaps she should have asked for it to be delivered half an hour after Fanny’s arrival to give them time to talk uninterrupted. That might have been better.

She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t go on staying under my aunt’s roof a moment longer.”

Fanny seized her hands in her own. “Good heavens! I thought it must be something like that. Why ever not? Although, of course, she is a terrible termagant and you’re probably far better off away from her. Free to do as you wish with no one to prevent you. Free,” and here she waved an elegant hand at Georgiana’s dull gown, “to wear what you like from now on. Just as you used to when your dear papa was alive.” She paused for breath, leaning towards her friend conspiratorially. “Tell me everything. Did you argue? Did you finally tell her what you think of her? I want all the gory details. Leave nothing out or I shall be vexed.”

Now that her friend and closest confidante was in front of her and so keen to hear what she had to say, Georgiana was seized by extreme hesitation. How could she explain her situation to her friend, dear as she was, without shocking her to the core? She licked lips that had gone dry with nerves. Supposing Fanny reacted in the way Aunt Patience had? Suppose she never wanted to be friends with her again? Then she truly would be alone in the world. Money could never replace true friendship.

Fanny squeezed her hands, gazing at her out of her wide brown eyes. Kind eyes. Honest eyes. Sincere eyes. But nevertheless, eyes eager for scandal. “You know you can tell me anything.”

For a moment, Georgiana was back in school again with Fanny, making an apple pie bed for one of their mistresses and giggling together. She didn’t want to lose her best friend. Her only true friend.

“I suppose,” she began, determined to get it over with as quickly as she could, “that I had better take the bull by the horns and just come out with it.” She took a deep breath. “Aunt Patience has thrown me out. Washed her hands of me. Told me never to darken her door again and that I was no longer to consider myself a niece of hers.”

“Good heavens,” Fanny exclaimed, eyes widening. “That sounds a little extreme to me, although you could consider it an advantage as you so dislike her. Whatever did you do to provoke such an outburst? Although, I will freely admit that Miss Patience Frampton is quite the most demanding and stern guardian anyone could possibly have had. Quite the puritan. I’ve always wondered how you put up with her after your papa so thoughtlessly died and left you in her care. I know I could never have tolerated being treated as a child for so long.” She chuckled. “Thank goodness my stepmama is so easy going and my papa has never shown any interest in his many daughters.” She paused. “Nor, it seems, in his son, now he has one. However, I digress. Go on.”