“What are you doing, Mama?”
Arabella walked into the morning room, carrying her embroidery basket. She had informed Catherine when she got home yesterday evening that she had had a delightful day with the Dalrymples, but she was really getting much too old for puppet shows. After all, she had made her debut last spring.
Catherine was at her desk. “I’m looking at our invitations, darling.”
“Invitations to the country?” Arabella plopped down on a sofa and opened the basket.
Catherine smoothed her dress in 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. She has not invited us to Sommerleigh as she is working on her mathematical proof of Fermat’s conjecture and has—” here 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 consider. We have become popular.”
Catherine wondered briefly if they had received so many invitations this year because the difficult and eccentric Harry must no longer be included in their family party. She pushed the thought away as disloyal. Because she would rather have had Harry safe under her supervision here in London, and have no invitations, 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 just 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. I think 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, stood behind her chair and leaning down, put 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 pocket, didn’t you? I just 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. There will be no end of supervision.”
Catherine laughed. “You’re telling me that I would not be missed?”
“Of course, I would miss you, Mama. It’s just that it’s no good thinking that 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.”
“Very well.” And really, perhaps it was best that Arabella not be with her at Sir Francis’ house. It would give her a degree of freedom. Not that she intended to do anything untoward. There was no temptation in that direction with Sir Francis—which was what made the idea of a future marriage to him attractive, she reminded herself—but Catherine might find it easier to make her final decision about marrying the baronet.
Arabella giggled and kissed Catherine’s cheek, then spun away, clapping her hands.
Catherine picked up her quill and dipped it in an inkpot. “I shall write to Lady Dalrymple and Sir Francis Ffoulkes immediately.”
Arabella stopped her spinning. “And I shall definitely be taking my new tartan dresses. I’ll start packing immediately. ”
