Euphemia shook her head in disbelief. "Of all the muddle-headed widgeons! Matilda is years older than Courtenay, and he is accustomed to the most beautiful Paphians in London."

"Only eight years older," Jane protested. "What does that signify? Such scapegraces are the better for an older wife to keep them in order."

Sir Barnabas noted than even she hesitated to claim beauty for her leather-complexioned daughter.

Matilda had her own notions. "I'll be damned if I'll marry a Town Beau," she roared, in that voice so extraordinarily loud and deep for her meagre form. "Don't suppose the damned fellow's even capable of keeping his seat over a rasper."

"Mind your tongue," Euphemia reproved her. "Barnabas may be gone, but stable language still does not belong in decent company. Well, we need not consider marriage unless matters become desperate. Obviously it will be better to cut out Courtenay and Nerissa entirely. Let us plan our campaign."

Sir Barnabas frowned. He was pleased that they were all convinced that by thwarting Miles and Nerissa they'd ensure their own wealth. The dissolute pair would be caught the moment they strayed from the straight and narrow. On the other hand, they seemed to have forgotten the other stipulations of his Will.

Admittedly, making Miles give up gambling and Nerissa behave like a lady had been afterthoughts, though he had listed them first. His aim had not been solely to make their lives more difficult. In the unlikely event of their passing the third test, giving his fortune to a gamester and a vulgar upstart would be as bad as giving it to the parasites who had battened on him all these years.

But, of course, the two extra conditions simply made it all the more certain that Miles and Nerissa were going to fail.

When Snodgrass brought in fresh tea, coffee, and chocolate, Sir Barnabas slipped out of the room and repaired to the library. The door was closed.

As he contemplated irritably the prospect of squeezing through the keyhole, his two footmen arrived. Though they unknowingly opened the door for him, he was affronted by the trays of food they bore. Eating in his library! In his day, no one had ventured into the room unless summoned, let alone treated it as a dining parlour.

His temper was not improved when he heard Nerissa announce that she had no intention of misbehaving. Defying him again? Hah! He'd see about that.

In a burst of childish petulance, he jogged her elbow as she poured herself a cup of tea. It was his first attempt since his demise to affect anything in the physical world, and it took more effort than he had expected. Drained of energy, he slumped back onto the nearest vacant chair as hot tea sloshed into the saucer and splattered over the glossy, well-polished surface of his walnut library table.

That would teach him to act in a passion, he thought gloomily.

"I'm sorry," said Nerissa miserably, setting down the teapot with excessive care. Her elbow felt peculiar, sort of cold and tingly. She clasped it in her other hand.

"Not at all, not at all." Mr Harwood mopped up the splashes with a large pocket handkerchief. "The wood is so well waxed it won't show a thing, I assure you, my dear young lady."

"You are tired," Mr Courtenay observed as he emptied the saucer into the slop basin. "Here, I'll pour. Eat, and you'll soon feel better."

Their kindness was already making her feel better. A few mouthfuls of crisp bacon and buttered eggs restored her further, until she was even able to lend more than half an ear to Mr Harwood's continued explanations.

"You mean I may buy new clothes?" she exclaimed, thrilled. "And I shan't have to make them myself? Anything I want?"

"Within reason, Miss Wingate. I cannot give my approval to extravagant ballgowns, since you are unable to spend a night away from Addlescombe. But within reason."

"I may choose my own?" A sudden dismaying thought struck her. "Oh, but I don't really know what is proper for a lady to wear in the country."

"Perhaps your relatives will advise you," said the lawyer doubtfully. "Lady Philpott, or ... Well, not Miss Matilda, I suppose."

"I wouldn't trust any of them," declared Mr Courtenay. "They'd deliberately lead you astray to ruin your chances with the neighbouring gentry. I'll help you choose."

"But you are accustomed to consorting with actresses," Nerissa pointed out, grateful but skeptical. "I am already thoroughly familiar with their notions of appropriate dress."

"My dear Miss Wingate, I don't spend all my time consorting with actresses. I not only consort with the Polite World in Town, I am not infrequently invited to house-parties, so I believe myself qualified to advise you."

"I beg your pardon, I didn't know. Pray don't be offended, sir. Will you really help me?"

"Of course. It will be my pleasure. We'll steal a march on those tabbies."

Sir Barnabas noted the effect on Miles of the dazzling smile Nerissa turned on him. Maybe his intervention wouldn't be needed after all, he decided smugly.

Chapter 5.

"Miss? Miss! You said to wake you at four." The soft, slow voice had vowels as broad as Yorkshire's yet quite different.

Nerissa drifted gently out of sleep. Who ... ?Where...? This wasn't her narrow bed in the tiny back chamber in York. She sat up, bewildered, and rubbed her eyes.

"I brung you tea, miss, and a good bit o' lardy-cake, still warm fro' the oven it is, seeing as you missed your luncheon."

"Thank you." She blinked at the chubby maid in her grey dress and white apron and cap. "You're Maud."

"That's right, miss. Mrs Hibbert said I'm to wait on you, long as I give satisfaction, miss." Maud gave her an anxious look as she set her tray on the bedside table and poured tea.

"Mrs...? Oh yes, the housekeeper. I'm at Addlescombe!" The morning's events flooded back into her mind.

"Please, miss." The maid's fingers twisted a corner of her apron. "If I does summat wrong, will you tell me how to do it right? I'd like fine to be your abigail."

"Heavens, Maud, I've never had an abigail in my life. I shan't know if you do something wrong. We shall just have to work it out together."

"Oh yes, miss!" said the girl with a joyful smile on her rosy face. "And I 'spect her ladyship's abigail'll tell me how to go on. I'll just unpack now, shall I miss?"

"But I left my box at the inn in Riddlebourne."

"Mr Harwood sent a groom for it, miss. 'Tis just outside the door."

She bustled around, opening curtains to admit a flood of pale gold afternoon sunshine, and fetching in Nerissa's battered box from the passage. Nerissa lounged luxuriously. As she sipped the tea and nibbled on the lardy-cake, a rich concoction studded with currants and glazed with sugar, she examined her chamber.

Some twelve feet square, the room was light and airy, with white walls and ceiling and two large sash windows on adjacent walls. The curtains were of pale green calico patterned with ox-eye daisies, matching the coverlet of the tester bed. Above the plain, white-painted wood mantelpiece hung a watercolour of a meadow where a rusty-red cow munched on still more daisies. Nerissa smiled at the contented beast.

Maud put away her few garments in the clothes press and set her brush and comb on the small dressing table. Polished wood gleamed in the slanting sunshine. Everything was simple but spotless, unpretentious but in excellent condition.

As Maud shook out and hung the last of her three dresses, Nerissa became aware of a low rumble of voices coming through the wall behind her bed. A clank and a swoosh followed.

"What on earth is that noise?"

"Mr Courtenay ordered a bath, miss."

"He has the next chamber?" she asked, suppressing an idiotic urge to turn and look at the wall. Naturally the presence of an unclad gentleman on the other side of it had nothing to do with the strange sensation in her middle. She put the twinge down to the excessively large slice of fresh-baked lardy-cake she had just consumed to the last crumb.

"Yes, miss. These two rooms on the side passage was the only chambers left in this wing," Maud informed her. "'Tother bedroom wing's all shut up, like, all under holland covers."

There was no sense in opening an entire wing just for Mr Courtenay, she had to agree. Besides, it was nothing to her if he had the next room, nor if he chose to take a bath. In fact, that sounded like an excellent notion, after three days on the road.

"I don't suppose I could have a bath, too, Maud?"

"O' course, miss. I'll go see to it this minute."

As she hurried out, the strains of "Cherry Ripe," slightly off key, echoed through the wall.

Nerissa had heard the song often enough and knew perfectly well that the cherries referred to were not fruit but a woman's lips. The double entendre had never disturbed her before. If she now couldn't help wondering what it would be like to be kissed by Mr Courtenay, it was entirely Sir Barnabas's fault for putting such notions into her head.

Glancing once more around the room in search of distraction, she noticed for the first time a door in the wall behind her bed-a connecting door, to Mr Courtenay's chamber. Painted white, it was almost invisible.

She slipped out of bed, glad of the green and brown rag rug on the chilly floorboards, and made quite sure the bolts at top and bottom were firmly shot on her side.

Miles was dressing when he heard the unmistakable sounds of a bath being prepared next door. Miss Wingate was following his example. How fortunate that she was too tall and slender-and far too respectable-to attract him, otherwise he might have been tempted to weave a fantasy about those sounds.

His gaze wandered involuntarily to the connecting door. He tore it away sternly and concentrated on his neckcloth.

"Admirable, sir, if I may be so bold." The cadaverous face of his godfather's valet brightened until it was merely mournful, instead of lugubrious. "It must be confessed that the late Sir Barnabas took little interest in his attire and continued to wear the styles of the past century until the end. I anticipate with pleasure serving a gentleman conversant with the London fashions."

"I don't aspire to alamodality, Simpkins, merely to making a presentable figure in Society. I trust you're not expecting a dandy for a master."

"Oh no, sir," said Simpkins, shocked. "We already have one dandy in the house. False calves, sir," he whispered, "dyed hair, and no doubt you heard his Cumberland corset?"

"Ah, Simpkins, but Mr Aubrey was a beautiful young man. You and I cannot know what pressures are felt by an aging beauty." Miles ran a brush over his thick black hair and stood up to allow the valet to help him into his coat.

"Very true, sir, though I venture to say, sir, that you will never need false calves nor padded shoulders."

He bestowed twin pats of approval on Miles's robust shoulders. "We shall aim for a neat propriety of dress."

"The neatest and most proper Porchester can supply," Miles promised him, amused by the man's

assumption of their common goal.

He noticed that Simpkins did not blink at the mention of Porchester rather than London as the source of his clothes. No doubt the servants were acquainted with every detail of the Will by now. He wondered

how many would side with himself and Miss Wingate, how many with the family they knew. Sir Barnabas's Will had suggested that Mrs Chidwell, at least, was less than popular with his staff.

On the other hand, while servants resented the sort of Turkish treatment they received from Euphemia

Chidwell, equally they despised a weak master-or mistress. Miss Wingate, with no experience of ruling

a large household, had actually dreaded meeting the butler.

She also suffered the handicap of the shocking reputation given her by her grandfather. A young man might sow his wild oats and be looked upon with indulgence; a young woman received none of the same tolerance.

With a last glance at the mirror, Miles went down to the housekeeper's room.

When he visited Addlescombe as a child, Mrs Hibbert had been an unfailing source of barleysugar. A

brisk, imperturbable woman in her fifties, dressed in black as befit her station, she greeted him with delight.

"'Tis that good to see you again, Master Miles, or Mr Courtenay, I should say."

"Master Miles will do very well, if I may still call you Hibby."

"That you may, sir. Now sit you down and take a dish of tea for you missed drawing-room tea if I'm not

mistaken. Or will a glass of wine be more to your liking?"

"A glass of the home-brewed, if that's a jug of it I spy on your table."

"Nay, 'tis new cider."

"Excellent." He poured himself a glass of the crystal-clear, pale-gold liquid from the earthenware jug. "If

there's anything as good as Addlescombe ale, it's Addlescombe cider."

"Sir Barnabas had his standards, Master Miles, as well you know."

"None better," he said ruefully. "I'm astounded that he considered me fit to take over the estate."

"Fitter nor some. 'Tis a pity you've to share with another," said Mrs Hibbert with severe disapproval.

"Miss Wingate has more right to be here than I," Miles pointed out. "She's the old man's own

granddaughter."