Page 9 of A Baron's Disguised Lady
He did not respond in kind, and Lavinia feared she had already succeeded in making a bad first impression.
“You do, Lavinia,” her mother said, and Horatia smiled.
“Well, why don’t you both come in? You must be tired after your journey. You can settle into your rooms and then join us for tea in the drawing room. We’ve got such a lot to catch up on. It’s been… an age, hasn’t it?” she said, leading them inside.
Lavinia looked around her with interest. The main door led into a large hallway, where a hanging staircase led up to a landing above. The walls were lined with pictures, and her shoes clattered on the marble floor, where black-and-white tiles made a pattern on which stood an enormous table, covered with dozens of books, stacked in piles.
“Oh, do you like to read?” she asked, turning to the baron, who nodded.
“These are books waiting to be shelved in the library—a history of our family in twelve volumes,” he said, pointing to a set of newly bound books with leather spines.
Lavinia was impressed, and she laughed calling out to her mother across the hallway.
“Did you hear that, mother? Twelve volumes of family history. Ours is just an elopement and birth, just in time,” she said.
The baron grimaced, and again, Lavinia wondered if she had said something wrong.
“Yes, well, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do,” the baron said, and Lavinia nodded.
“Yes, Your Grace, My Lord… Archibald… forgive me,” she said, having quite forgotten how to address him.
He looked at her with a sympathetic expression, before nodding and turning to cross the hallway to a large door on the other side, flanked by two wooden lions carved in rosewood. The door closed behind him, and Lavinia was left alone in the hallway, looking around her, and wondering as to the impression she had made.
“May I see to it you’re shown to your bedroom, Miss Stuart,” a voice behind her said, and Lavinia turned to find a stiff looking man, whom she assumed to be the butler, standing at the bottom of the stairs.
She smiled at him and nodded.
“You can just direct me, if you like. I’ll find my own way. Perhaps someone could help me with my bags. But I can always make two trips,” Lavinia replied.
The butler looked at her in surprise.
“Two trips?” he asked, and Lavinia nodded.
“Yes. I can’t manage to take all my bags at once, but if you tell me where to go, I can go up and down twice,” she said.
The butler nodded.
“I think we can do better than that,” he said, and he picked up a small bell from a nearby table and rang it.
A maid appeared a moment later, curtsying to Lavinia, before turning to the butler to receive her instructions.
“Daisy, take Miss Stuart to the Lombard Room and see to it she gets settled in,” he said, and the maid nodded.
“This way, Miss Stuart,” she said, leading the way up the stairs.
Lavinia did not know what all the fuss was about. She was perfectly capable of finding her own way upstairs, but she reminded herself of what her grandfather would say, and not wishing to deprive the maid of her function, she followed her upstairs.
***
As Daisy led Lavinia upstairs, Archie closed the door of his study, shaking his head in astonishment. He stood listening behind it, having only closed it partially, watching Lavinia’s exchange with Hargreaves. She was an extraordinary creature, quite different from any other young woman he had ever encountered—except perhaps the servants themselves.
He had not been offended at her failure to address him properly, nor at the comments she had passed on the volumes of history concerning the family recently completed by the Royal Heraldic Society. There had been something… innocent, if amusing, about her behavior, as though she belonged below stairs, rather than above.
“Quite astonishing,”Archie said to himself, turning to his desk, where a pile of correspondence awaited him.
As he sat down, he could hear his mother’s laughter from the drawing room, the two women talking animatedly about all the things they had missed in ten years absence from one another’scompany. Once again, Archie was reminded of how his mother was moving on, and he was stuck in the depths of misery.
He glanced up at the mantelpiece, above which hung a portrait of Gwendolene painted shortly after her debut. She had been so happy at her coming out, and it had been Archie who had presented her. For a few moments, he gazed at his sister’s face, a moment frozen in time. She looked so happy there—a happiness so cruelly snatched away.
