Jane Feather by Engagement at Beaufort Hall Read Free Book Online Page B

mother this afternoon?”
    “Thank you, Miss Imogen. The surprise’ll buck ’er up no end—she’s been feelin’ a bit poorly in this cold weather. But Mr. Sharpton . . . ?” Daisy left the question hanging.
    “You may tell Mr. Sharpton that you have my permission to take a free afternoon and evening. If he has a problem, he may bring it to me,” Imogen told her.
    She hurried downstairs to the drawing room where Esther was just greeting their guests. The Collins ladies were prominent members of the county social circle and Imogen and Esther had grown up with the two sisters and viewed their mother in very much the same light as their own mother had viewed her.
    Lady Carstairs had considered Geneva Collins a boring but well-meaning neighbor, with a lamentable lack of education and spirit. But then Lady Carstairs, whenever she felt well enough, had always been at the front of the field during a hunt. She had also insisted on educating her daughters to a degree considered both unfashionable and deleterious to their prospects of marriage. She had had rather less interest in her son, and both Imogen and Esther had tried to make up to Duncan for the lack of maternal attention. Unfortunately, their father, Viscount Beaufort, had followed prevailing parental dictates and decided that his son and heir had no need of a surfeit of paternal attention. He had packed him off to Harrow at the age of seven and merely inquired generally from then on as to his progress and state of health.
    Outside the drawing room door Imogen paused to brace herself for the upcoming ordeal. Lady Collins was not spiteful, but Imogen found her sympathetic lamentations actually harder to bear than the straightforward malice of so many of their other female acquaintances.
    “Good afternoon, Lady Collins, Sarah . . . Emily.” She smiled and extended her hand in a warm greeting as she entered the room. “How good of you to make the journey on such a bitter day.”
    “Oh, the horses needed the exercise, my dear,” Lady Collins declared. “Lord Collins was only saying at breakfast how they’re eating their heads off in the stables in this weather. And a little fresh air is good for us all, isn’t it, girls?”
    “Yes, Mama,” they murmured dutifully, seating themselves side by side on a sofa. Emily glanced at Imogen and dropped an eyelid in a conspiratorial wink. Imogen grinned. She and Emily had been close friends for many years.
    “So what have you two been doing to occupy yourselves in this dreadful weather?” Lady Collins inquired, taking a glass of sherry from the tray the footman was presenting to her. “The girls and I have been desperate for some kind of entertainment since the New Year.” She sighed heavily, adding, “And just think how you could have been enjoying the Season in Stanhope Terrace . . . or, indeed, Imogen, in your own establishment.” She shook her head. “Such a shame.”
    “Scandal, of course, has its repercussions, ma’am?” Imogen said briskly. She was not prepared to encourage a renewed bout of sympathetic sighs.
    “Yes, indeed it does. I don’t know what your poor dear mother would have said. You must excuse an old friend, my dear, but in your mother’s absence—”
    “I am of course grateful for your advice, ma’am,” Imogen interrupted swiftly. “But I believe I know exactly how my mother would have responded, and she would have supported me to the hilt. It is a subject best left alone, Lady Collins, if you don’t mind.”
    Geneva drew herself up a little, her well-padded bosom riding the storm. “As you wish, Imogen. I was only offering my advice and support as a friend of your mother’s, and, I trust, as your friend too.”
    “Indeed, ma’am, I thank you for it.” Imogen offered a conciliatory smile, aware of Esther’s sudden tension. There was nothing to be gained by a falling-out with Lady Collins.
    “So, I heard the strangest tale, Imogen,” Lady Collins announced, as if coming