Refining Felicity Read Online Free Page B

help in the bringing out of her daughter, Lady Felicity Vane.’
    ‘Huzza!’ cried Amy, kicking her big feet up into the air. ‘Why are you not overcome with delight, Effy?’
    ‘Because her ladyship summons us to Sussex, to Greenboys House.’
    ‘Then we must set out,’ cried Amy. ‘This very day!’
    ‘But it is in the
country
,’ wailed Effy.
    Effy hated the country with a passion. Streatham, with its promise of riches to come, had just been bearable. But Sussex was the
real
country, with trees and grass and birds and all those other weird things. The country to Effy meant social failure. Life was in London, London was the centre of the universe; the country was hell.
    ‘You will have to be brave,’ said Amy. ‘We are going to a stately home, not a shepherd’s hut. How much money should we demand? She will need to pay us something in advance. And think of the advantages! Lady Baronsheath will not be interviewing us
here
!’
    ‘I feel a spasm coming on,’ said Effy faintly. She gave a strangled noise and toppled out of her chair onto the floor.
    Amy got up and twitched the letter out of her sister’s hands, then sat down and began to read it carefully. Effy sat up, looking outraged.
    ‘How can you be so heartless, Amy?’
    ‘Umm,’ said Amy, still reading. Then she looked up. ‘You’d better go and change into something decent, Effy. No need to look like a tart.’
    ‘I do
not
look like a tart!’
    ‘Yes, you do. Your garters are made of pink wool, and the knitting in the right one is cobbled. And you haven’t any drawers on.’
    ‘The wearing of drawers is a masculine fashion.’
    ‘Not any more, it ain’t,’ said Amy. ‘Besides, you’ll freeze to death.’
    ‘Perhaps we should consult my dear Mr Haddon,’ ventured Effy.
    ‘
Our
dear Mr Haddon,’ said Amy furiously. ‘No time. Do stop maundering and mopping and mowing because you’re frightened a tree will up and rape you.’
    ‘Amy!’
    ‘Get along, do,’ said Amy, and marched off to book a post-chaise, determined to charge the countess for the cost of it should their services be refused.
    * * *
    Unaware that fate in the shape of the Tribble sisters was bearing down on her, Felicity rode out on a still November morning two weeks after the ball. It was unusually mild for the time of year. The air was full of the smell of wood-smoke and the winy tang of rotten leaves. She was alone. Her father had never insisted that a groom should accompany her, and although the earl had left, Felicity saw no reason to change the freedom of her ways. Her mother had been unusually quiet and abstracted and had not even chided her for her behaviour at the ball.
    But in the past few days, Felicity had begun to wonder what the future held for her. With her adored father gone, the desire to please him by drinking, roistering, shooting, and hunting had left her. She preferred to be alone. It had been raining for days and the ground was heavy and soggy. The trunks of the tall trees glittered with green mould, and only a few red and yellow leaves still clung to their branches.
    Her mare, Titbit, clopped along the country lanes, as content as her mistress to wander slowly and aimlessly. The trees which had arched overhead gave way to brown fields bordered by thorn hedges and then to open heathland.
    At the top of a rise was a man on a horse. Felicity recognized the Marquess of Ravenswood. He was dressed in a pink hunting coat, leather breeches, and boots with mahogany tops. He wore an old-fashioned three-cornered hat on his head.
    Felicity raised her riding crop in salute. He touched his hat, and then, spurring his horse, set off away from her as fast as he could.
    ‘Damn him,’ muttered Felicity. ‘If he prefers little sugarplums like Miss Betty Andrews, he is not the man for me.’ But a nasty little voice seemed to be trying to tell her that the taste of all gentlemen was for fluffy little blondes. At the ball, her cronies of the hunting field had treated