"Boxing Day!" She was dismayed but he had her interest.

"I know that's impossible. Hibby and Cook would collapse in spasms if we suggested such a thing. But why not Twelfth Night? Could you organize it by then?"

"Twelfth Night? I shall have to consult Cook and Mrs Hibbert but I don't see why not. Oh Miles, that does sound like fun."

The sparkle had returned to her beautiful eyes and he was satisfied.

"Parties for peasants!" snorted Euphemia Chidwell. At last recovered from the indisposition which had kept her abed for a fortnight, she lolled on the sofa in the morning room, stouter than ever. "Pearls before swine! And talking of pearls, I can scarcely credit the unmitigated impudence of that man Harwood spending our-well, Neville's-money on pearls for that Paphian. Why, my own are not half so fine!"

Sir Barnabas grinned. If Harwood was so brazen as to disregard the intent, if not the letter, of the Will, at least the fellow had the sense to let Nerissa's pearls outshine Effie's.

"Dear Nerissa looked quite charming," sighed Sophie, guiltily retrieving a hairpin from her lap and shoving it at random into her hair.

"The hussy has thoroughly gulled you, as well as Harwood. You appear to regard her as a daughter!"

Sophie pinkened. "Oh no, not a daughter, Effie. I am much too old. More as a granddaughter, perhaps."

Something caught in Sir Barnabas's throat and he had to clear it in a way that would have emerged as a loud "Harrummph!" had it been at all audible.

"Pah! You always were a sentimental nodcock, Sophie. If we don't make shift to send your ' granddaughter' packing, and Miles with her, we shall find ourselves struggling for existence in a tumbledown shack."

"Tumbledown shack?" Sophie faltered.

"Tumbledown shack," said Effie firmly.

Sir Barnabas wished he could reassure Sophie. Vague as ever, she had no idea that the four hundred a year he had left the sisters, together with Effie's two from her husband, would allow them a comfortable if not luxurious life.

Effie continued. "We must act. Merely watching and hoping will get us nowhere. Barnabas was a looby to suppose the two of them are not clever enough to outwit his paltry rules."

Looby, indeed! Who was the only one to make any positive effort to encourage Miles and Nerissa to succumb to their lecherous propensities? His momentary lapse into sentiment banished, the late baronet snarled with frustrated fury. Whatever he did, Effie would never know.

"I cannot imagine why I did not think of it before," Effie was saying. "Just because Miles and Nerissa have not indulged their base passions where we could observe them, there is no reason why we should not report to Harwood that we caught them misbehaving."

"Oh, Effie, no! Bearing false witness ... I am sure dear Raymond would not approve."

"Drat Raymond! Between his piety and Jane's fear of social ostracism, we shall never oust the usurpers. We shall not tell them. Lawyer Harwood will scarcely have the impertinence to doubt my word."

Will he not? thought Sir Barnabas gleefully. Much she knew of the little man's stubborn wilfulness. It wouldn't work, and who'd be the looby then?

"Don't sit gaping at me, Sophie. Ring the bell. And pass me those comfits. I must keep up my strength."

Unhappily Sophie obeyed.

Effie managed to crunch up a dozen sugared almonds before a footman appeared. "James," she directed him, "find Mr Harwood and tell him I wish to speak to him at once."

As the door closed behind him, Sophie raised her voice in timid protest. "That was Ben, Effie, not James."

"Fiddlesticks. All footmen are called James."

"Only recollect, Nerissa told you most particularly that the servants are to be called by their proper names in her house."

"Nerissa is not here," said Effie, displaying with a savage crunch her opinion of Nerissa's reproof. "And Addlescombe Manor will not be her house much longer!"

The dish of comfits was empty by the time Mr Harwood came in. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, ladies," he said genially. "I was in the middle of an important letter when your message reached me. Now, what can I do for you?"

Effie's scowl showed what she thought of the lawyer's letter being more important than her business, Sir Barnabas thought, amused. However, rather than taking Harwood's words as a warning, she smoothed the ill-temper from her face and replaced it with what he guessed to be an attempt at disillusioned sorrow.

"Effie, pray don't," Sophie pleaded.

As usual her sister ignored her. "Mr Harwood, I deeply regret being the bearer of sad tidings. Your trust in Miss Wingate and Mr Courtenay has been shockingly abused. With my own eyes,"-she produced a shudder that made her look like a singularly unappetizing purple blancmange-"I saw them together,"- here her voice lowered dramatically-"in bed! In the very act!"

"Indeed." Harwood's voice was a very patterncard of scepticism. "When did this distressing incident occur?"

Effie obviously had not prepared her story. "Oh, last night," she said with a dismissive wave of her pudgy

white hand. "I would have told you earlier but Sophie begged me to keep it secret. Naturally, I know my duty to the truth and to Sir Barnabas's Will."

"Naturally. Might I enquire where you saw the ... hm ... aforementioned spectacle?"

"In Nerissa's chamber. Sophie and I went to look at the gown Nerissa intends to wear for the tenants'

party and..."

"Oh no!"

"Be quiet, Sophie."

"So this event occurred during the hours when the household was up and about?"

"Yes. Well, er..."

"I never saw anything!" Sophie burst out.

The lawyer nodded to her kindly and turned his stern, contemptuous regard on Effie. "Mrs Chidwell, I

should be remiss in my duty to the late Sir Barnabas's wishes were I to accept the unsupported word of one who hopes to gain from the disgrace of his putative heirs. I must advise you not to repeat this improbable tale to anyone else. Should you do so, I shall advise Miss Wingate and Mr Courtenay to enter a suit for slander. Good day to you, ma'am."

He stalked out, every dignified inch of his short, round figure aquiver with righteous indignation.

"I have never been so insulted in my life!" Effie gasped. "Sophie, my smelling salts!"

"You do not possess any," her sister said reproachfully. "I could fetch Jane's, but you have always

decried the use of a vinaigrette as a milksop's remedy and you made me throw mine away."

Sir Barnabas nearly laughed his immaterial head off. Who was the looby now? A proper cake she had made of herself, and in the process she had once more proved him right, as always.

In time, he'd be proved right about Miles and Nerissa, too, but time was rapidly passing. Three months

gone already. Once the six months he had specified were up, the pair could thumb their noses at him and

fornicate to their hearts' content.

He dared neither rest on his laurels nor leave it to Euphemia to contrive a better plan. He would proceed with one more haunting of the bedroom passage before resorting to sterner measures.

Chapter 16.

Nerissa's giggle turned into a hiccup.

"Too much cider," said Miles severely, hunting on the doorstep for the key he had just dropped. "Hush,we don't want to wake anyone.""They must be sound asleep by now. How feather-hic-brained of them all to leave early! It was a wonderful party, was it not? Quite as much fun as the Por-hic-chester assembly. I'm not bosky, it's the bubbles."

"Here it is." As he turned the key in the lock, Sir Barnabas hastily removed his ear from the keyhole.

"Come on, quietly now."

Entering the hall, Nerissa tossed back her hood and untied the ribbon of her cloak. "Hic.""Take a deep breath and hold it as long as you can." Miles tore his gaze from her expanding chest with a visible effort, Sir Barnabas noted. "I must say, Old Amos's one-legged hornpipe was worth a fortune to behold," he said in a carefully casual tone, lighting their waiting night-candles at the lamp on the hall table.

"Your demonstration of the waltz with Mrs Bragg was worth seeing, too. I do think you might have let

me dance it as no gentry were there to disapprove.""Word gets about. If you have finished hiccing, let's go up.""Oh yes, I cannot wait to get into bed." She clung to his arm as they ascended the stairs.An invisible gleam in his invisible eye, Sir Barnabas slid up the banisters. This was the night. All he had to do was make them feel safe from the spy in the alcove-that ninny Jane tonight, reluctantly, on Effie's

insistence-in case they guessed they were still watched.

They reached the junction of the passages. In a single swirl of frigid breath, Sir Barnabas blew out the night-lamp and both their candles.

"What a draught!" Nerissa exclaimed. "Did you close the front door?"

"I did, and locked and bolted it. Shall I find a tinder-box, or can you manage without a light?"

"I can manage. Since I told Maud I should not need her, I put on a gown that is easy to take off."

"Good." There was a laugh in Miles's voice.

Footsteps. A door clicked shut.

At last Sir Barnabas's ghostly night vision adjusted to the sudden darkness. He saw the alcove curtains

stir. Jane emerged and fumbled and stumbled her way along the passage. Aha, so the implication of the extinguished lights was so obvious even she was able to draw the correct inference! He followed her to her own chamber.

"Neville, wake up! They blew out their candles."

"Huh?" Neville emerged from the blankets, his striped nightcap askew.

"They blew out their candles. Miles and Nerissa. And the lamp on the table."

"Huh?"

"Oh do wake up. They did not want me to see that they both went into the same bedchamber!"

Neville was suddenly very much awake. "Quick, go and rouse the others. We'll want as many witnesses as possible. But quietly, mind. We don't want to warn 'em." He jumped out of bed and felt around for his dressing-gown.

"I have no light!"

"Wake Aubrey first."

Sir Barnabas remembered his nephew kept a candle lit at his bedside, who could guess whether for fear of the dark or for admiring himself in his hand-glass if he woke in the night.

In no time the hall was filled with dressing-gown-clad people, Aubrey's scarlet brocade standing out against the practical blue and brown woollens of the others. Each held a candle lighted at Aubrey's. In a body they moved towards the side-passage, only Sophie trailing unwillingly in the rear.

Floor-boards creaked under the mass of slippered feet. Perhaps that was what alerted their prey, or perhaps Euphemia's commanding and far from hushed "Hush!" was to blame. In all events, as they turned the corner, Miles stepped out of his chamber.

The war-party shuffled to a halt.