Summer's End by Amy Myers Read Free Book Online

of you to return it.’ Caroline took the book, congratulating herself that for once she was giving the right answer. She laid it on the desk without glancing at it, though she was longingto see which of the thousands of tomes here had been so fortunate as to attract Lady Hunney’s attention.
    Lady Hunney did not leave, once this vital mission had been accomplished. ‘Mr and Mrs Swinford-Browne have kindly invited us to dear Isabel’s engagement ball. I do hope the arrangements progress well?’
    â€˜Thank you, yes.’ Caroline proceeded to answer her question, still puzzled as to why Lady Hunney should have bothered to seek her out. ‘Mrs Swinford-Browne wished to hire the Pump Room, but it was decided the inconvenience of travel would be a disadvantage.’ She was beginning to sound like Lady Hunney herself, Caroline thought crossly. As soon as she saw Lady Hunney’s smile, she knew she had somehow played into her hands – as usual.
    â€˜Travel,’ Lady Hunney murmured. ‘Such a problem for you.’
    Caroline was nonplussed. The Towers was little more than half a mile from the Rectory, and even in the dark this did not seem a matter of pressing concern.
    â€˜How fortunate your aunt is staying with you. She has a motor-car, has she not?’ Lady Hunney continued.
    â€˜Yes, but –’
    â€˜Normally Reggie would have been only too delighted to have driven you himself.’ There was deep regret in her voice. ‘However, he will be escorting his friend Miss Banning, and his new motor vehicle, as you know, ridiculously allows only one passenger.’ Caroline was more taken aback at Lady Hunney’s desire to impart this information than at its content. ‘A delightful person. The daughter of the Viscount Banning, of course.’
    Let there be light, and light there was. The Viscount Banning had unexpectedly become heir to a dukedom, so no wonder his daughter had won such high approval from her ladyship. Caroline felt tempted to advise Lady Hunney that any assistance she could render her son in ridding Penelope of her chaperone might reap greater long-term rewards for her than continually expending effort in trying to nobble a non-runner in the Matrimonial Stakes for Reginald Hunney. And non-runner Caroline most certainly was. She elected to refrain from pointing this out in case such levity won her a permanent ban from Ashden Manor, and, fully satisfied with Caroline’s silence, her ladyship departed. Not until her task was finished for the day did Caroline pick up the book that had so engrossed her ladyship.
    It was Bicycling Tours in France.
    In high good humour again at the thought of a tightly laced, serge-bloomered Lady Hunney pedalling to Paris, Caroline blithely sailed out by the front entrance, ignoring the disapproval of Parker, the butler, who always managed to imply she was a complete stranger to him. Perhaps like dogs, butlers grew to look like their mistresses?
    Late that afternoon, Caroline decided to visit Nanny Oates. Nanny had cared for both Father and Aunt Tilly at Buckford House. She had come to Sussex when Elizabeth was expecting Isabel, and had simply stayed on to wait for the next. After the tragedy of Millicent’s death, there was no question of her leaving. Now she had retired to a cottage whose rent was paid by the Rector. She was eighty-three now and, as she put it, not going in for no pancake races no more. Even the chickens she kept behind the cottage were under threat. ‘You’ll be for the pot, the lot of you, afore long,’ she’d heard Nanny threaten them on her last visit, ‘especially you, Miss Caroline of Brunswick.’ They were all invariably named after the Queens of England – except for Victoria, whom she deemed it disrespectful to consign to a pot, or to claim eggs from. So when Nanny reached Queen Adelaide she started again at Boadicea.
    She knocked at the door of the cottage, at the