Tarnished Amongst the Ton

He bowed as his mother continued, ‘And this is my daughter, Sara, and my husband.’

‘Lady Sara, Lord Eldonstone.’ She attempted another curtsy and this time it was the marquess who took her hand and guided her to a chair.

Ashe’s sister sank down on to the footstool beside the chair, as exquisite as a piece of amber with her blond hair, golden skin and creamy yellow gown. ‘Sara, please. We are going to be sis… Friends, are we not?’

‘I hope so. I am Phyllida.’

‘Ashe has told us all about you.’ She seemed not to notice Phyllida’s blush. ‘And he says you worked so hard making a nice room for me at Eldonstone. But he is being very stuffy about showing me what is in the boxes that have been sent down. Are they very naughty?’ she asked, low-voiced, as her parents were distracted by the arrival of the tea tray.

‘Distasteful, is how I would describe them,’ Phyllida said.

‘Then Ashe should just have had a bonfire and not made you look at them!’

‘Unfortunately some of them are valuable and there were all sorts of things mixed up together, so I had to sort them out. This is a lovely room, Lady Eldonstone. The silks are exquisite.’

‘Thank you. I seem to spend all my time throwing things away but gradually a rather fine house is emerging. The silks are one of the things I managed to pack and bring with us in quantity. Which reminds me, Nicholas, we have been invited to a fancy-dress ball the day after tomorrow. We must all go in Indian dress. I am sure we can find something that will suit Miss Hurst.’

‘But I have no invitation—it is Lady Auderley’s masquerade ball, I assume?’

‘And you are not invited? I shall tell her we have a house guest and that you will accompany us.’

‘But she… Lady Auderley is one of the hostesses who has never received me,’ Phyllida said, wishing the exquisite silk carpet would envelop her.

‘Because of your birth,’ Lady Eldonstone stated bluntly. ‘Well, if she does not receive you, she must have the same objection to me. When I consider some of the rakes and loose screws I have been introduced to in the noblest of houses here, that is completely hypocritical.’ Her chin was up, her eyes were sparking like flint struck against iron and she looked ready to pick up a rapier and run Lady Auderley through on the spot.

‘I really do not wish to cause you any embarrassment—’

‘I will not have anyone in this family—’ the marquess cleared his throat and his wife changed tack neatly ‘—or who is a guest of the family treated like that.’

‘You outrank her, Mata,’ Sara said with a giggle. ‘And she is in love with Papa, so you could arrive on an elephant, let alone with a charming guest such as Phyllida, and she will not object.’ She turned to Phyllida, who was torn between the desire to sink gently into oblivion and fascination with the marchioness. ‘All the ladies are in love with Papa,’ Sara explained.

‘Not with Lord Clere?’ Phyllida ventured.

‘Papa is safely married. They can flutter their eyelashes all they like, whereas with Ashe their husbands would become agitated and lock them up.’

‘I do not think you have quite grasped how things work in English marriages,’ Ashe drawled. ‘The wives do as they like and the men have duels about it afterwards. Is that not so, Miss Hurst?’

‘As an unmarried lady I could not possibly comment,’ she said demurely.

‘Of course. You will have been living a life of blameless, chaperoned respectability,’ he murmured as he passed her a plate of biscuits.

‘Naturally, Lord Clere.’

‘We must see what we can do about that,’ he replied, making her choke on a biscuit crumb. ‘We are decided, then?’ he said to the family. ‘Miss Hurst will join us at the masquerade to give us a tally of three Indian beauties.’

‘Shall we find clothes for Phyllida now, Mata?’ Sara said. ‘She would look lovely in jade green.’

‘I think I should start to prepare those items for the sale room,’ Phyllida interjected. ‘The specialist sale I told you about, Lord Clere, is in two weeks’ time and, if we delay much longer, we will miss the catalogue.’

‘Very true. If you have finished your tea, I will come and assist you, Miss Hurst.’

She could hardly protest that the last thing she wanted was to be in one room alone with Ashe Herriard and a quantity of erotic art, not in front of his mother and sister. ‘Thank you,’ she said politely and smiled despite the urge to wipe the satisfied expression from his face.

He showed her into an empty room at the back of the house where the crates had been stacked on arrival from Eldonstone. ‘The ones of, shall we say, esoteric content are in the boxes marked with an X, according to Perrott, who added a note to say that he did not know what we were paying you, but that it was not enough.’

‘When one does this sort of thing for a living one cannot afford to be too nice about it,’ Phyllida said prosaically. ‘We must list each item and it had better be in my hand as the auctioneer is expecting them to come from Madame Deaucourt and he knows my writing.’

‘I will unpack them, call out a description and you can list it.’ Ashe set paper and ink in front of her at a desk and went to the first crate. ‘Small bronze of a group of satyrs, signed Hilaire.’