Including their uncle.
"What is he saying?" Louisa demanded.
Bea waved her off. "Shut up," she whispered. "I can't hear a thing with you yapping away."
"Then let me listen," she said. Dropping to the floor, Louisa also stuck her ear to the opening in the
glistening hardwood. "Sounds like a bunch of gibberish.""Shhh," Maggie hissed. "He's deciding whether or not we get to go."All three girls held their breath.When they heard their uncle's final verdict, they lifted their heads from the floor and stared at each other, eye to eye.
Bea uttered a salty phrase that only went that much further to confirm everything their uncle had just said.
Riley decided a serious attempt at teaching the girls was in order. If she was to get herself out of Mason's
control, she needed to see these girls take the Everton masquerade by storm-but she hadn't any idea
how to reach the trio of miscreants.She still thought she'd have better luck dressing up a bunch of badgers and passing them off as the lateEarl's daughters.
With Mason out for the afternoon, Riley girded herself for battle. But instead of the usual feisty and impertinent students she'd been expecting, the trio listened listlessly to her discussion on the use of a fan and how to make a stylish entrance.
Running out of ideas, she resorted to reading from the little book Aggie had slipped into her reticule
before she'd moved out of the theatre.
"A lady always appears in society," she read aloud, "with a modest demeanor and a calm, serene countenance, leaving all who bear witness to her aspect no doubt that she is a vessel of purity." Riley paused in her recitation and flipped over the book to see who had written this drivel.
A Graceful Distinction, the title proclaimed. By an unnamed "lady of grace and upstanding character."
"Bloody hell, what the devil does that mean?" Bea asked.
For once, Riley found the girl's bellicose outburst a welcome change from the unnerving quiet that had
ruled the afternoon.
"It means you might as well consign yourself to a long spinsterhood raising cats in some moldy cottage,
dear sister," Louisa purred from her seat in the corner. The little minx went back to paging through her fashion magazine.
"I know what it means," Maggie suggested.
Bea snorted, "As if."
"Yes, Maggie, what does it mean?" Riley urged the girl to answer, hopeful that this uncharacteristic
assistance was a sign that one of the sisters perhaps was even listening to her."It means Beatrice hasn't a chance of ever becoming Lady Delander." Maggie and Louisa both laughed.Beatrice, however, flew from her post by the window and lit into her sister like a sailor in a tavern brawl.Riley stared open-mouthed at this unbelievable display."You take that back, you clumsy little bi-" Bea swore, as she caught Maggie around the neck with her arm and pinned her to the floor.
"Lady Delander, Lady Delander," Maggie chanted unrepentantly, fighting back like a wildcat.
Closing her eyes, Riley counted to ten. Suddenly a life of putting on puppet shows at country fairs and
sheep sales for crowds of gaping yokels didn't look so bad after all.
"Do something," Riley ordered Louisa.
The girl set aside her magazine and sighed. Not bothering to rise from her chaise, Louisa spared a glance
at her sisters. "Bea, you'd better make sure there is room for two in that cottage of yours." When this didn't do anything but incite the fighting sisters further, Louisa shrugged.
Riley ground her teeth. Standing beside the girls, she stomped her foot. "Stop this," she told them.
"Immediately."
"Not until she takes it back," Bea shot back. She continued to shake and rattle her sister.
"You'd better listen to the next Lady Delander," Maggie taunted, elbowing Bea in the stomach.
Riley looked around the room and spotted the large vase of flowers Lord Delander had left for her the day before. Snatching it up, she upended it above Bea and Maggie, sending a shower of water and roses over the pair.
They fell apart, sputtering and cursing.Well, mostly Bea. "Why, you-"Riley held the vase at hand. "Don't tempt me, Lady Beatrice. I would be more than happy to dash this over your spoilt, impertinent head."
"You can't call her that," Maggie said, rising to her sister's defense. "How dare you! You aren't even alady."The ludicrous irony of Maggie's indignation left Riley speechless. Then all she could do was laugh. Laugh until she sat down to steady herself and wipe the tears from her eyes.
Even Louisa got up from her perch and joined her sisters to stare at their unwanted teacher. "I believeshe's gone mad."Finally Riley got to a point where she could speak again. "Mad? It's a wonder I haven't been carted away, after spending the last few afternoons with you three. Look at you!" She pointed at the large mirror over the fireplace which reflected most of the room. "Take a good look and tell me if you can see any ladies in there." She got up and stood behind them. "And don't count Cousin Felicity."
The girls glowered back at her.
"Exactly my point. How old are you, Bea? Twenty, I'd guess. And how old will the other girls be fortheir first Season?"Bea's jaw worked back and forth. "Sixteen," she finally mumbled."Yes, sixteen." Riley handed her and Maggie towels from the tea tray. "And how have you spent the past four years improving yourself so as to stand out amongst them? Very ineffectively, as evidenced by this
vulgar brawl. Personally, I doubt your skill in cursing and bear baiting will get you into Almack's.
"What are you going to do when your uncle gets married?" she asked them, realizing she finally had their attention. "Even now he is looking for a bride. How happy do you think the new mistress of this house is going to be at having you three underfoot, caterwauling and bickering all the time?"
"But this is our home," Maggie protested."It won't be for long," Riley told her."She's right," Cousin Felicity said, rising from her chair and coming to their side. "Gracious sakes, there's no guarantee the next Lady Ashlin will be as generous." The lady pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. "If it hadn't been for your grandmother taking me in, I don't know where I would have gone."
"But Uncle would never-" Louisa started to say."You don't know that," Cousin Felicity told her. "It may not be his decision. When a man marries, the house becomes his wife's domain. And consider this: your uncle will not be making the love match yourparents shared. He must wed for money, and that could bring any kind of lady into our midst."Maggie gulped. "Oh, my. Dahlia and her mother."Bea flopped down on the sofa. "We're in for it.""Not necessarily," Riley told them. "While your uncle is out hunting for a bride, you can find husbands.
You aren't trapped in this house. Only if you let yourselves be."
Louisa shook her head. "There isn't a chance of that happening. Not now, what with Uncle refusing theDuke's invitation.""Louisa!" Bea said."You know about the masquerade?" Riley asked, circling the trio.Maggie shuffled her feet. "We might have heard something of it in passing."Bea punched her tattletale sister in the arm.Riley sighed, but decided not to pursue the subject of eavesdropping until another time."Madame is right," Louisa said. "Look at us. We haven't anything but our mourning that fits-and black is hardly a good color on any of us."
Nodding in agreement, Bea added, "A Season is expensive. That's why we never got ours in the first
place." Her sisters turned and looked at her. She shrugged. "I heard Mother and Father discussing it.
They had to choose between their pursuits and bringing us out. So they kept us out at Sanborn Abbey."
Riley glanced over at Cousin Felicity, who nodded silently at this comment.
"So I suppose it is useless even to bother," Maggie said, the bitterness in her young voice piercing Riley's
heart.
"I hardly think so," Riley told them. "Look at me. I've been proposed to hundreds of times, by many
eligible and likely young men. I'm hardly the perfect prospect for a bride, so there is hope for anyone if I can interest a man."
"Yes, that is all well and good, but we can hardly go out in these," Bea said, holding out her waterlogged
skirt. The hemline rose above her ankles and it appeared to have been mended-and badly, at that-several times. "This was my best dress. Without clothes, I haven't a chance of catching Del's-" Bea'smouth snapped shut for a moment. "Anyone's attention," she finished hastily.
Riley smiled and took her by the hand. Really, when she wasn't swearing and cursing, Beatrice had a
nice voice, as well as a pretty smile. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.
Bea let out a long sigh. "Oh, go ahead. You can laugh at me, just like Louisa and Maggie. I suppose I deserve it. Cousin Felicity always says we will reap what we sow. Well, you can say I'm harvesting a bumper crop." She turned her back to Riley.
"Bea, I have no plans of laughing at you." And while the chances of Beatrice, with her outrageous
manners and her rather colorful choice of language, catching the Viscount's eye might be slim, maybe thegirl still had a chance.Bea swung around and demanded, "Why didn't you accept his offer to go for a ride in the park?"
"Because I didn't want to go," Riley told her.Bea's eyes narrowed. "Why not? You like him, don't you? Is that it-you're playing hard to get like youwere telling us yesterday? Being unattainable and distant, so he tries harder to win your affections?"
Riley didn't know what stunned her more, Bea's vehemence, or the fact that obviously through all hersullen faces and bored airs, she'd actually been listening to Riley's lessons. "As unlikely as you may findit, Lord Delander won't marry me, as I have no intention of accepting his proposal."
At this, Bea cocked her head. "You don't?""No," Riley said. "I don't love him."The girl appeared to be considering the idea, though her expression still said she couldn't fathom the idea of anyone not being in love with the Viscount. Slowly she asked, "If you don't love him, do you think he
could love someone else?"Riley smiled, trying to sound as if she believed her words. "Yes, I think Lord Delander's heart could beswayed in the right direction-with a little work."
With a lot of work and a miracle, she thought.
Beatrice obviously had come to the same conclusion. "You can say that because you're an actress. Youcan be anyone you want to be, play any role. I'm just me and I'll never be anyone else."You can be anyone you want to be, play any role... Riley sat back in her seat, Bea's words echoing through her thoughts. She knew she was gaping at the girl and looked probably as foolish as she felt.
Play any role...
She'd been trying to teach the girls to be something she knew nothing about, when in actuality she should