Venetia by Georgette Heyer

Author:Georgette Heyer [Heyer, Georgette]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, none, historical, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9788510324335
Publisher: Windsor
Published: 1958-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Mrs. Scorrier pause. She countented herself with saying: “Well, we shall see,” but although the smile remained firmly pinned to her lips the glance she cast at Aubrey was by no means amiable. Venetia could only pray that she would not offer him any further provocation.

The prayer was not answered, and long before dinner came to an end it must have been apparent to anyone acquainted with Aubrey that he had decided to war. Upon entering the dining-room, and finding that she was expected to sit at the head of the table, Charlotte had hung back, stammering with instinctive good feeling: “Oh, pray—! That is where you are used to sit, Miss Lanyon, is it not? If you please, I would by far rather not take your place!”

“But I would far rather not take yours!” returned Venetia. “I wish, by the way, that you will call me Venetia!”

“Oh, yes! Thank you, I should be very happy! But pray won‟t you ”—

“My dear Charlotte, Miss Lanyon will think you are quite gooseish if you don‟t take care!” said Mrs. Scorrier. “She is very right, and you need have no scruples, I assure you.” She flashed a particularly wide smile at Venetia, and added: “It is the fate of sisters, is it not, to be obliged to take second place when their brothers marry?”

“Undoubtedly, ma‟am.”

“Doing it rather too brown, m‟dear!” said Aubrey, a glint in his eye. “You‟ll still be first in consequence at Undershaw if you eat your dinner in the kitchen, and well you know it!”

“What a devoted brother!” remarked Mrs. Scorrier, with a slight titter.

“What a nonsensical one!” retorted Venetia. “Do you like to sit near the fire, ma‟am, or will you—”

“Mrs. Scorrier ought to sit at the bottom of the table,” said Aubrey positively.

“You mean the foot of the table: opposite to the head, you understand,” said Mrs. Scorrier instructively.

“Yes, of course,” replied Aubrey, looking surprised. “Did I say bottom? I wonder what made me do that?”

Venetia asked Charlotte if she had enjoyed her visit to Paris. It was the first of the many hasty interventions she felt herself obliged to make during the course of what she afterwards bitterly described as a truly memorable dinner-party, for while Aubrey offered no unprovoked attacks he was swift to avenge any hint of aggression. Since he made it abundantly plain that he had constituted himself his sister‟s champion, and won every encounter with the foe, Venetia could only suppose that Mrs. Scorrier was either very stupid, or compelled by her evil genius to court discomfiture. She really seemed to be incapable of resisting the temptation to depress Venetia‟s imagined pretensions, so the dining-room rapidly became a battlefield on which (Venetia thought, with an irrepressible gleam of amusement) line inevitably demonstrated its superiority to column. Unable to counter Aubrey‟s elusive tactics, Mrs. Scorrier attempted to give him a heavy set-down. Bringing her determined smile to bear on him she told him that no one would ever take him and Conway for brothers, so unlike were they.

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