“Don’t call me Uncle! I am no blood relation to you. Victoria was only my stepsister-the result of my father’s deplorable second marriage-and Loring had no right to encumber me with the three of you in his will, particularly since he left me nothing to pay for your upkeep. But I am stuck with you, since no respectable gentleman will marry you now.”
His declaration had roused a burning anger in Arabella, along with a fierce desire to establish their independence from their step-uncle. But since they were virtually penniless, they had resolved to earn their own livings by putting their patrician upbringing and education to good use.
With the indispensable support of a wealthy patroness, along with the help of her sisters and two genteel friends, Arabella had started an academy to teach the unrefined daughters of rich merchants how to be proper ladies so they could compete in the glittering world of the ton.
Finally, after more than three years of hard work, the school had become a highly successful enterprise, allowing them complete financial independence. Then, dismayingly, their step-uncle died and they were saddled with a new guardian, who had immediately declared his intention of finding husbands for them.
It was frustrating in the extreme, not to mention worrisome. The new Lord Danvers possibly had the legal authority to compel them to stop teaching if he arbitrarily chose. And any husbands he found for them would almost certainly disapprove of their uncommon endeavors.
Moreover, Arabella cringed at the mere thought of subjecting herself to another courtship. She had absolutely no intention of leaving herself vulnerable to the heartache she’d endured four years ago.
Her sisters had entirely different ideas for their futures as well, which did not include surrendering their hard-won independence to unwanted husbands. Roslyn was determined to marry only for love, while Lily had sworn off matrimony and men entirely.
“Thank heavens for Winifred,” Arabella murmured sincerely.
Their patroness, Winifred, Lady Freemantle, had come from the working classes herself before marrying into the gentry. The middle-aged widow had been an unfailing source of support, not only for the academy but for the sisters’ personal lives, including offering her chaise and team for Arabella’s journey so she wouldn’t have to use her step-uncle’s dilapidated barouche.
It was early afternoon by the time the chaise reached the village of Chiswick. Like Richmond farther west, Chiswick had become a fashionable place of residence for the aristocracy during the past century because of the desirable proximity to London.
The carriage passed numerous riverside mansions and villas before turning into the graveled drive of Danvers Hall. The beautiful, stately manor of mellow red brick stood on the tree-lined banks of the River Thames. The setting was lush and green, but the overgrown lawns and landscape resembled more of a jungle. The interior appointments and furnishings of the house, too, were shabby and worn, while the artwork and silver had long ago been sold to pay estate bills.
All but a handful of servants had been let go as well. The remaining staff was led by a butler and housekeeper, an elderly couple who were devoted to the place after having lived there for more than thirty years. They had welcomed the Loring sisters warmly four years ago, even if their step-uncle had not.
When the coach came to a halt before the house, Arabella’s sisters came out to greet her.
Roslyn was tall and slender, with pale golden hair, sky blue eyes, and an exquisite beauty that gave her the delicacy of gilded crystal-a laughably false impression, since she was the most clever and studious of them all, as well as the most charming. Roslyn would have been far happier had she been born male, so she could have pursued a scientific career. Instead, her sharp intellect was wasted on teaching etiquette and deportment to raw schoolgirls.
Manners and deportment were certainly not Lily’s forte. The youngest Loring sister was a lively hoyden, far more at home coaching the academy’s pupils in sporting activities and physical skills such as riding and driving and archery. Curiously, Lily had a bold, vivid coloring. Her sparkling dark eyes and rich, dark chestnut tresses made her seem a changeling in her fair-haired family, while her passionate high spirits regularly led her into trouble.
Usually her eyes were warm and laughing, but now they only looked worried.
“Well, what did he say, Belle?” Lily asked as soon as Arabella stepped down, despite the fact that the coachman and groom could overhear their conversation.
“I will tell you when we have some privacy,” Arabella replied, even though she understood Lily’s impatience.
When her youngest sister wrinkled her nose in exasperation, Arabella met her middle sister’s smiling eyes.
“Y
ou must know,” Roslyn explained, “how difficult it has been, waiting for you all day, picturing your interview with Lord Danvers.”
“You never could have imagined what actually happened,” Arabella murmured inaudibly.
“You should have allowed us to come with you,” Lily said as they made their way up the steps and through the front door. “We could have supported you against the vexatious earl.”
“Perhaps I should have,” Arabella agreed with a rueful laugh, before surrendering her gloves and bonnet and pelisse to Simpkin, their venerable butler.
Her sisters managed to contain their impatience until they repaired to a small parlor at the rear of the first floor, the only room that had a fire burning in the grate to ward off the spring dampness, which continued their late step-uncle’s frugal ways.
“I am sorry to say that I failed miserably this morning,” Arabella confessed, not disclosing that she had tried to make her case at the point of a rapier. “I did not handle Lord Danvers at all well-but even so, he was entirely unreasonable.”
“He won’t withdraw his offer to provide us with dowries?” Roslyn asked in consternation.
Arabella gave a dark smile. “No. In fact, he boasted that we would soon have suitors swarming all over us.”
Roslyn pressed her lips together in ladylike annoyance, while Lily gritted her teeth. “So what shall we do to foil him?” she wanted to know.
The new earl’s plan to find them husbands had alarmed Lily most of all. Not only was she perfectly happy with the unusual freedom she enjoyed in her current life, she relished working at the academy. And now Lord Danvers was threatening to spoil it all by attempting to make them marry.