Chapter 6
Six
“What are you reading, Mama?”
Arabella carried her embroidery basket into the morning room. Upon her return home yesterday evening, she had told Catherine it had been a delightful day with the Dalrymples, but she was really getting much too old for puppet shows. After all, she had already had a Season.
Catherine turned from where she sat at her escritoire. “I’m considering our invitations, darling.”
“Invitations to the country?” Arabella plopped down on the sofa and opened her basket.
Catherine smoothed her dress over her lap.
“Yes, it was lovely to go to Scotland in August, wasn’t it?
And I think we have been back in London rather too long.
There is a letter from your sister Harry this morning, quite short and smeared and difficult to read.
But she is very clear she is not inviting us to Sommerleigh since she is working on her proof of Fermat’s conjecture and has—” Catherine picked up Harry’s letter and read from it, “not the time nor the patience for visitors, even of the maternal and sororal variety, while the proof of the conjecture still eludes me. Mary, on the other hand, has urged us to come to Wales. But there are many other invitations to weigh. We have become popular.”
Catherine briefly wondered if they had received so many invitations this autumn because the difficult Harry need no longer be included in their party, but she pushed the thought away as disloyal.
She would a million times over prefer to have no invitations and Harry safe in London than the situation as it was now.
Arabella closed one eye, poked out her tongue, and threaded a piece of silk through a small needle. “I do wish we could go with the Dalrymples to Derbyshire. Lady Dalrymple mentioned it again yesterday.”
“I had hoped you would come with me to Sir Francis Ffoulkes’ house party next month instead.”
Arabella groaned and shook her own golden curls. “I think I would find that exceedingly dull, Mama. You should go to Ffoulkes Manor, and I should go to the Peak District with the Dalrymples.”
“You want to go to Derbyshire without me?” Catherine tried to keep her voice light and teasing.
Arabella put down her embroidery hoop, crossed to her mother, and leaned down to wrap her arms around her neck.
“What did you do when you were sixteen? I seem to remember you left home and everything you knew and traveled on your own to London to become an actress with just a few coins in your purse. I only want to go to the very respectable country estate of Lord and Lady Dalrymple, where I will be surrounded by five respectable young ladies whom I quite look on as my sisters. There will be governesses and chaperones aplenty and no end of supervision.”
Catherine laughed. “You’re telling me I would not be missed?”
“Of course, I would miss you, Mama. It’s just no good thinking we always enjoy the same things. You go to Kent and have a lovely time, and I will go to the Dalrymples’ and have a lovely time.”
Really, perhaps it was best Arabella not accompany her to Sir Francis’ house.
It would give Catherine a degree of freedom.
Not that she intended to do anything untoward with that freedom.
There was no temptation in that direction with Sir Francis—which was what made the idea of a future marriage to him so attractive, she reminded herself—but she might find it easier to make her final decision about marrying the baronet.
“Very well.”
Arabella giggled in triumph and kissed Catherine’s cheek and then spun away, clapping her hands.
Catherine picked up her quill and dipped it into the inkpot. “I shall write to both Lady Dalrymple and Sir Francis immediately.”
Arabella stopped spinning. “And I shall take my new tartan dresses to the Peaks. I must start packing immediately! ”