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the hood down and they were soon on their way through the familiar countryside of Leicestershire. This was rolling terrain, with hills and dales, some quite steep, good hunting-and-shooting country. Cattle and sheep grazed in the meadows and cut hay lay on the fields to dry. Field workers, who were turning the hay with rakes, looked up as they passed; some who recognised the carriage touched their caps or gave a little bob of a curtsy. The Countess graciously acknowledged this with a tiny inclination of her head.

      At the halfway point the carriage drew into the yard of a posting inn where Mr Downham, the Earl’s steward, had arranged for fresh horses to be brought to complete the journey. The ones that had met them at the station would be taken on to Luffenham the next morning after they had been rested. While the change was being made, the Countess and her daughter went inside the inn for refreshment. It was a time-honoured practice that was rapidly dying out as the new railways spread their tentacles across the countryside. But there was still no line near enough to Luffenham Hall to obviate the need for a change of horses.

      

      When they returned to their seats, the hood had been put up because they would not be home before late evening and by then it would be dusk and growing cooler.

      ‘Well, Lucy,’ the Countess said, when they were on their way once more, ‘nearly home.’

      ‘Yes, Mama.’ In one way Lucy was glad to be going home after two months in London as a débutante; she loved the countryside and countryside pursuits, especially riding her mare, Midge. On the other hand she would miss the excitement of the balls, soirées, picnics and other outings, which had filled her days and evenings while she had been in the capital, not to mention the young men who had danced attendance on her. It would have been flattering if she hadn’t known it was because she was the daughter of an earl and therefore a catch.

      ‘It is to be hoped you have benefited from your season,’ her mother went on. ‘Your father was of a mind that something might come of it.’

      ‘I know, Mama.’

      ‘You did like Mr Gorridge, didn’t you?’

      Mr Edward Gorridge was the son of Viscount Gorridge, a neighbour and old acquaintance of her father, although Lucy had never met the young man before being introduced to him in London. He had been away at school and then university and after that had been on the Grand Tour and their paths had never crossed.

      ‘Yes, Mama. But I am not at all sure that I should like to be married to him.’

      ‘Why ever not?’

      Lucy found it hard to explain. Edward Gorridge had been polite, fastidious in his dress and behaviour, but there was something about his pale eyes she found disturbing. ‘I don’t know, Mama. I think he is a cold fish.’

      ‘Fish! Lucy, how can you say so? I thought he was charming.’

      ‘Charming, yes—but was he sincere? And is charm a good basis for marriage?’

      ‘It is a start.’ Her mother had used every opportunity, every wile known to her, to throw her and Mr Gorridge together without breaching the bounds of propriety and Lucy had more than a suspicion that her parents had already decided he should be her husband. She did not know why they were in such a hurry to have her married—she had not yet reached her twenty-first birthday and, as far as she was concerned, there was plenty of time. She wanted to enjoy being a young lady a little longer, to find just the right man, and was convinced she would know him when she met him.

      ‘Why him, Mama? Why not one of the others?’

      ‘Did you find yourself attracted to one of the others? If so, you gave no indication of it. You said Mr Gorridge was a cold fish, but you did not appear to warm to anyone yourself.’

      ‘I found them all a little shallow.’

      ‘No doubt some of them were, but surely not all? I thought you would take to Mr Gorridge. He has a little more about him.’

      Lucy laughed. ‘More about him! You mean he’s heir to Viscount Gorridge and will come into Linwood Park one day.’

      ‘It is a consideration.’

      ‘For you and Papa perhaps, but not for me. I want to be in love with the man I marry.’

      ‘Love is not the only consideration, Lucy, nor yet the first. It grows as you learn to live together and accommodate each other. Papa has a great regard for me, you know he does, and I hold him in deep respect and affection, but that was not how it started.’

      ‘How did it start?’ Lucy would never have dared to ask such a question a few weeks before, but her mother seemed to be inviting it.

      ‘We met at a ball, during my come-out Season. My papa had looked over all the eligibles—that’s what we used to call them in those days—and decided your father was the best choice. He was already a Viscount, heir to the old Earl, whose country home was Luffenham Hall. The family, like my own, was a very old and respected one. I had nothing against the match and neither had he and we met frequently at balls and soirées and tea parties, and it was taken for granted he would propose….’

      ‘Which he did.’

      ‘Yes. Very properly, after our fathers had agreed a settlement.’

      ‘Were you never carried away by passion?’

      ‘I should think not! Ladies, Lucinda, do not speak of passion. I believe you have been reading too many novels, or perhaps Miss Bannister has been filling your head with nonsense. If that is the case, then we shall have to reconsider her position.’ Lilian Bannister was governess to the family; though Lucy no longer needed her, she was still employed looking after Rosemary and Esme and young Johnny until he was old enough for a tutor.

      ‘Oh, Mama, of course she has not. I’ll swear Banny doesn’t know the meaning of the word.’

      In spite of herself, the maid smiled. She was not supposed to hear the conversations of her betters, much less react to them, but she could not help it. A more stiffly correct figure than Miss Bannister would be hard to imagine, but as Bert, the footman she was secretly walking out with, was fond of saying, ‘Still waters run deep.’

      ‘Perhaps not, but I beg you not to let your papa hear you say such things. You must conduct yourself with decorum, or you will find Mr Gorridge looking elsewhere.’

      Lucy would not have minded if he did, but decided it would be unwise to say so. ‘Is he looking at me for a future wife?’ she asked innocently. ‘If he is, he gave no sign of it.’

      ‘Perhaps he was waiting for a little encouragement.’

      Lucy doubted it. They had been carefully chaperoned the whole time, but on one occasion, when she had been strolling in the garden to cool down after a particularly strenuous dance at one of the balls they had attended, he had come upon her and flirted outrageously, even taking her hand and bending to kiss her cheek. She was sure that given the encouragement her mother was talking about he would have behaved even more disgracefully. She was glad when other dancers came out to join them and he returned to being the polite, courteous man he had been hitherto. ‘I cannot dissemble, Mama, it is not in my nature. When I meet the man of my dreams, he will need no encouragement to know how I feel.’

      ‘Oh, I am losing all patience with you, child. When we go to Linwood Park next month, it is to be hoped you will have come to your senses and realised you cannot let such a chance slip through your fingers.’

      ‘I wonder if Mr Gorridge is being told the same thing,’ Lucy mused.

      ‘Very likely,’ her mother said.

      There didn’t seem to be any answer to that and Lucy sat back and mused on what her mother had said. She did not think she was truly ready to commit herself to marriage and she was afraid of making a terrible mistake. It was all very well to talk of the man of her dreams, but who was he? How was she ever going to meet him? And what about Mr Gorridge? Why could she not oblige her mama and take to him? Was she doing him an injustice calling him a cold fish? Perhaps, in

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