Deception (Daughters of Mannerling 3) by M.C. Beaton Read Free Book Online

governess’s modish gown of lilac satin and lilac silk turban with a dyed ostrich feather curled round the edge. Lady Beverley did not like the idea of being outshone by a servant. She contented herself by saying she was sure dear Lady Evans must have made a mistake and would be shocked to see a mere governess arriving as a guest.
    When they alighted from the carriage, the girls stood for a moment looking up at the house. It was a large Elizabethan mansion with many mullioned windows. ‘Quite fine in its way,’ said Belinda, ‘but not a patch on Mannerling.’
    ‘No,’ agreed Miss Trumble, ‘I doubt if this pleasant mansion has the power to turn intelligent young ladies into silly misses!’
    ‘Remember your place, Miss Trumble,’ said Lady Beverley awfully. ‘You are not allowed to make sneering remarks about the great house that was once ours.’
    Miss Trumble ignored her and followed her charges into a vast gloomy entrance hall, smelling of woodsmoke and damp dog. They left their cloaks and wraps in a room off the hall and then were led through a chain of corridors to the ballroom, which was a modern extension added to the back of the old house. Miss Trumble hoped she had schooled her girls in etiquette as diligently as she had schooled them in learning. There were many offences against English manners which could be committed by the unwary foreigner or the green girl. The three greatest were these: never put your knife in your mouth instead of your fork; never take up sugar or asparagus with your fingers: and
never
spit anywhere in the room. An adventurer in London society actually went undetected and was able to pass himself off as a man of rank because of the single circumstance of picking up an olive with his fork rather than his fingers. Tremendous importance was attached to trivia.
    The ballroom was large and square, with a chalked floor and two fireplaces at either end. Branches of candles burnt on the walls and a great candelabrum blazed overhead. Despite the chill of the evening outside, the room was very warm indeed.
    Lord Burfield, looking across the room, was in no doubt that the Beverley sisters had arrived, even though he did not recognize Abigail at first glance. Their beauty outshone that of every other lady in the room. It was not so much their looks as a sort of radiance that surrounded them. He had thought Abigail a very pretty girl when he had met her outside Mannerling. Now, as he singled her out from the others, he thought her quite the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
    Prudence, too, had noticed the arrival of these charmers. ‘Find out who they are?’ she whispered to her mother.
    ‘I have just heard someone remark that they are the famous Beverley sisters.’
    ‘Famous for what?’
    ‘Beauty,’ said her mother tactlessly.
    Prudence’s eyes went to Lord Burfield’s handsome face. He, too, was watching the Beverley sisters, but the one which seemed to intrigue him most was the fair one with the rosebuds in her hair. Prudence became determined to find out as much as she could about these sisters. Know your enemy, she thought.
    Her hand was claimed for a dance by Lord Burfield. It was the quadrille. Prudence, like many young ladies, had been trained in the intricate steps of the quadrille by a dancing master, and although she performed them exactly, she was rather heavy on her feet and apt to come down from one of the leaps in the air with a thump. She had no opportunity to talk to Lord Burfield until they were promenading round the floor at the end of the dance. The promenade, where one strolled in a circle with one’s partner before the next dance, was a great opportunity for flirtation.
    ‘You are looking very fine tonight, Miss Makepeace,’ said Lord Burfield gallantly. Prudence was wearing white muslin with many frills and it was bound at the waist with a frilly edged sash. She had a tall head-dress of osprey feathers.
    ‘I am surprised you even noticed my appearance,