Page 25 of A Victim, A Viscount, And Miss Mifford
"Shall we be seated?" Ivo interrupted, as an aggrieved Miss Emily rubbed her shin.
"Good heavens, yes," Mr Mifford agreed, and Ivo waved a hand toward the table.
"I thought an informal setting better than a formal one, given that we are such a small number," Ivo explained, as the six of them took their places at one end of the lengthy dining table. Ivo sat at the head, with Mr Mifford to his left, and Mrs Mifford to his right. Miss Mifford sat beside her father, while her two younger sisters were placed beside their mother.
"I do prefer an informal setting," Mrs Mifford cooed in agreement, "So much more intimate. My Mary prefers the same, when she is dining at Northcott Hall—did I mention my eldest daughter is now a duchess, my lord?"
"I don't believe you did," Ivo replied innocently, his remark rewarded by a snort of laughter from Miss Mifford, who was forced to cover her face with her napkin to hide her mirth.
Throughout the several courses, the conversational offerings from Mrs Mifford remained much the same. With remarkable skill and determination, she somehow managed to shoe-horn in the fact that her eldest daughter was a duchess into every topic imaginable.
Pheasant for the main course? How remarkable, that's just what Mary, the duchess, would have chosen.
A leaking roof in the east wing? Mary, the duchess, had encountered a similar issue, just last month.
Seeking to take a case to the Court of Chancery? Why, Mary, the duchess, was well versed on the procedure.
The last one was something of an exaggeration, but it did seem to Ivo that Mrs Mifford was determined to link everything and anything back to her eldest daughter, that is until Ivo casually mentioned that he intended to spend the next season in town.
"In London town?" Mrs Mifford clarified, her eyes wide and nostrils flaring.
At his left side, Ivo heard Mr Mifford utter a pitiful "she's off" to himself, as his daughter squirmed in her seat beside him.
"As I intend to take up my seat in the House of Commons, it will have to be London," Ivo answered, his words causing great excitement in Mrs Mifford.
"Why," she declared, setting her—third, by Ivo's count—glass of wine down, "How lovely. Will you be searching for a wife?"
Mrs Mifford, Ivo realised, was not a woman who cared to use charm and subtly to breach enemy lines, preferring instead a direct arrow.
"I will be attending to my parliamentary duties," Ivo was tactful in the face of tactlessness.
Marriage was, of course, on his mind—especially after Mr Just's earlier warnings that he must soon beget himself an heir. Inwardly, though, he shuddered as he recalled the pitiful creatures he had met earlier this year. They had fawned over him when they thought him rich, who knew how they would act when they found him rich and a viscount? Not to mention that his mind was already occupied with thoughts of a far superior lady, who sat only two seats away. A lady whose eyes were trained steadfastly on the table and had given no hint whatsoever that she returned the affection he felt toward her.
"Jane is to have a season, next spring," Mrs Mifford said, as though Ivo had not spoken, "Her sister, the duchess, will sponsor her. I expect she will have great success in town; she is most accomplished. Perhaps not at the pianoforte, nor watercolours, or needlepoint for that matter, but she sings like a lark and has excellent posture."
"She also stands at five and a half hands and had an excellent showing at her last race at Cocklebarrow," Mr Mifford muttered dryly, more to himself than to Ivo, but he heard him nonetheless.
Miss Mifford—or Jane, as Ivo liked to call her in his head—had frozen in her seat, no doubt mortified by her mother's rather blatant attempt at marrying her off.
In order to assuage her worry, Ivo lifted his wine glass, and raised it in a toast.
"Your beauty and grace will steal the eye of every London gentleman, Miss Mifford," Ivo offered, causing Miss Mifford to flush prettily and her mother to knock over her wine glass.
Two footmen rushed to clean the mess, removing along with it the empty dinner plates. Dessert was then swiftly served—a variety of biscuits and macaroons for dipping in sweet wine—and conversation returned to the more mundane.
"While it is usually custom for us men-folk to retreat to the library for a cheroot and brandy, I am loath to leave you ladies alone when I have no hostess to care for you," Ivo said, as the servants discreetly took away the empty plates and glasses.
"A man without a wife is a pitiful thing, indeed," Mrs Mifford offered, with a long sigh, "In the absence of tea and conversation, perhaps his lordship would like to take us on a tour of the house?"
Mrs Mifford, Ivo knew, was longing to snoop. Fortunately for Mrs Mifford, Ivo could see that one of the benefits of a tour of the house would be the opportunity to walk alongside Miss Mifford for a while.
"I shall have Allen lead the tour," Ivo said humbly, "He is far more versed in the house's history than I, and less likely to get us lost along the maze of corridors."
And so, Allen was summoned to lead Ivo and the Miffords on a tour of Plumpton Hall. He began in the entrance hall, where—for fifteen full minutes—he gave a thorough account of the estate's history—stretching right back to the thirteenth century, when it had begun life as a Bishop's Palace.
"During the Protestant Reformation, the lands were seized from the church by King Edward the Sixth and when he granted the first Viscount Plumpton his title, he also gifted him these lands," Allen droned, as Ivo's guests—sleepy from food and wine—listened with glazed eyes.
"The original building was torn down in 1629," Allen continued, "And the third viscount then built a large manor house in the Jacobean style. The fourth viscount extended this in the latter half of that century, adding a porch and a second floor, but the house has remained untouched since."
