Page 43 of A Sense of Fate
‘Of course she is. She adores children and Alice will calm her.’
‘Well, just so long as you don’t mind.’
‘Why ever should I?’
‘Are you going out today, miss?’
‘No, I’d best not. I had intended to call on some of my ladies, but I can’t leave Melanie alone. My father will likely descend upon us today and I need to be ready for him.’
Polly bit her lip. ‘I hate to see you inconvenienced. I wish there was something I could do to help.’
‘You give exemplary service and do more than enough already, Polly.’
Melanie rejoined them. ‘She’s exhausted and has fallen asleep,’ she told Polly as she resumed her seat across from Flora. ‘She’s adorable.’
‘Thank you, miss. I think so too, but then I would, wouldn’t I?’
Trouble’s on its way.
Melanie jerked upright. ‘Is Papa here?’
Flora smiled, glad that Melanie had heard Remus and taken the communication in her stride. ‘I suspect Papa is about to honour us with a visit,’ she said.
Polly looked confused, as well she might. As yet, there had been no sound of a carriage arriving, but it came just after Flora spoke.
A knock, loud and insistent, sounded at the door.
Flora sighed as she straightened her shoulders. ‘You had best let him in, Polly.’
Flora sent an anxious-seeming Melanie a reassuring look seconds before the door burst open and their father strode through it, his expression like granite.
‘There you are, you ungrateful little brat.’ He fixed an accusatory glower on Melanie. ‘Get your things. We are leaving immediately.’
‘Polly, take Melanie upstairs please,’ Flora said calmly.
‘She is going nowhere, other than back to Salisbury with me.’
‘Father, we can either discuss the matter in a rational manner in private, or you can shout at me and let my servants hear every word. The choice is yours.’
Elroy Conrad left Felsham Hall in a towering rage. He had driven a miserable excuse for a horse in a hired carriage since the distance was too far to cover on foot and the conditions were too cold to ride. That had been his first mistake. He had seen the way Felsham’s groom had turned his nose up at his mode of transport, setting him at an immediate disadvantage, even though Felsham hadn’t witnessed his arrival.
He should not have gone to Felsham’s palatial home, which served as a stark reminder of his own failed ambitions. It had been a grave miscalculation, and it had left him disadvantaged. Latimer hadn’t asked him to confront the damned arrogant bastard, and he wouldn’t be best pleased if he heard that Elroy had taken matters into his own hands. He hadn’t been thinking with his own interests at the forefront of his mind, and he blamed Flora for that situation. How dare the little tramp reject his generous offer of friendship! She should be falling over herself in gratitude for being noticed by him. He still smarted every time he thought of the high-handed way in which she had looked down at him, as though shewas his better.
Felsham had contemplated him in a similar fashion during their college days, making it apparent in lots of small ways that he wasn’t considered an equal and that his affairs were beneath Felsham’s notice. Elroy desperately wanted to be accepted into the elite set, but he tried too hard; he could quite see that now. Only certain attitudes passed muster. Elroy was treated as an irritating irrelevance by the self-entitled, who took Oxford by storm and left their social inferiors to pick up the crumbs.
Be that as it may, no one would ever convince Elroy that Felsham hadn’t been the one to accuse him of cheating, even though he had casually denied it when confronted, offering his word as a gentleman as his only proof. He’d offhandedly given that assurance in front of his aristocratic friends, and Elroy knew that men of his ilk did not expect to have their word doubted. Nor did they enjoy being forced to actually give their word. In their set, assurances were accepted at face value and Elroy had subsequently been described in his own hearing as being without class.
Felsham had compounded his felony by beating him to the spoils on every occasion when a pretty new face appeared in Oxford making her desire for amusement apparent. Elroy wondered after the event if Felsham had actually felt threatened by him, accounting for the need to accuse him of cheating. The fact that he hadpaid for a little help with his course work hardly constituted cheating.
One indisputable fact that afforded Elroy some solace was that the ladies liked him as much as they did Felsham. He only won the day because he was a marquess’s heir and possessed an air of self-entitlement; an aloof yet compelling charm that the ladies found enticing. Magda Simpson had been more than satisfied with Elroy’s attentions until Felsham took her from him. Ha! Felsham had more than enough reason to regret such impulsiveness now.
Elroy had survived all the disappointments and unfulfilled expectations life had thrown at him since leaving Oxford, feeling vindicated because his nemesis was dead. He had turned the air blue and remained drunk for a week when he heard of Felsham’s miraculous resurrection.
Only Felsham could survive such a bone-crushing fall. And he knew just how bone-crushing it must have been, having checked the distance for himself just before Simpson received an anonymous tip-off about his wife’s activities.
Far from being free of Felsham, he now had the temerity to dally with the female whom Elroy had decided to cultivate, albeit at her father’s behest. He had assumed the task would be an easy one, never doubting that his charm would win over the mousy creature. Latimer was a little too enthusiastic about using the stick, quite literally. His methods had their place, but Elroy achieved better results by dangling the proverbial carrot. He had planned to extract Flora from Lyneham, send her home where she could cause no further mischief and forget all about her. It would be useful to have Latimer in his debt for a change.
His decision had changed when he reached Lyneham, whiled away half an hour in the local taproom and picked up snippets of gossip concerning Felsham, who walked on water as far as the locals were concerned. Elroy had curled his upper lip in disdain, taking pleasure from the fact that Felsham could barely walk at all nowadays. The man who had strode around Oxford like a demigod, who rode the most spirited of horses and took whatever he fancied without a thought for the feelings of others was now a cripple. Next to his remaining dead, that was the most satisfactory of outcomes from Elroy’s perspective.
