He stared. ‘Frances, please have a care. What you say cannot reasonably be the case. My girls, regrettably, yes, I can imagine it. But the servants?’
Maria and Susannah stared at me as if butter wouldn’t melt. Oh, I could have risen to my feet and . . . But somehow I restrained myself.
‘Call them,’ I said desperately. ‘Question them. They cannot lie outright to you, their master.’
He rang the bell and asked that all the servants of the house be brought to the drawing room. Maria and Susannah stepped daintily aside as they trooped in and ranged themselves in a deferential row before us.
‘I have heard some most disquieting news,’ opened David. ‘Miss Manning tells me that, for the duration of my stay in London, she has been locked inside her bedchamber without sustenance. Can this possibly be true? Whitear?’
Whitear, the butler, stepped forward.
‘I am not aware of such a situation, my Lord,’ he said. ‘But I seldom have dealings with Miss Manning. Perhaps Eliza is the best person to ask?’
He turned to the parlour maid, who has been openly scornful of me from the day of my arrival.
‘Of course this is not true,’ she said, and I gasped.
‘How can you speak such monstrous falsehood?’
David looked gravely at all of us, his gaze resting finally on me. I looked in his eyes for some proof of his belief in me, but I could not find what I sought.
‘My love, I think I will send Josh for the doctor. You do seem extremely overwrought. Perhaps it is the excitement of the wedding?’
The smirks on the Misses’ faces were almost enough to drive me to violence.
‘But they are lying,’ I cried, rising to my feet. ‘Eliza, can you look me in the eye and repeat what you have said? Can your conscience allow it? I do not know what those girls have done to buy your loyalty to their evil tricks, but think of how you will be served in the hereafter if you persist in this wickedness?’
‘That’s quite enough, Frances,’ said David, quite sharply. ‘Staff, you are dismissed. Girls, you may go to your room. Josh, do not leave straight away – go and call on Dr Middleton and explain that he is needed urgently.’
Left alone with David, I could barely breathe, let alone speak, such was my outrage.
‘I tell you, they locked me in,’ I insisted.
‘Are you sure the door handle was not merely stiff?’
‘I was shut in for two days, and not a soul came to my aid. I ate nothing, nor did I drink.’
‘My dear, you strike me as feverish. Dr Middleton will soon see to this.’
‘But David . . .’
‘Enough! I will not hear another word of this. Must I listen to my own children maligned in my own house? No. Take some brandy, Frances, and do try to calm yourself. Your demeanour is most unbecoming of a future Lady Harville.’
I could stand no more of this and I resorted once more to tears – but this time of anger and frustration rather than the aftermath of my ordeal.
David left the room, muttering, and did not return until the bell rang, signalling the doctor’s arrival.
The doctor declared that I had a mild fever and should rest.
‘In your experience,’ David said, ‘does fever bring on delirium?’
‘It can do, but the lady’s fever is mild.’
‘Perhaps it is on the wane,’ suggested David.
‘Perhaps. But, if so, I wonder that I was not called before?’
‘Forgive me, doctor. I was out of town and did not know of the young lady’s indisposition.’