Slightly Wicked by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh [Balogh, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780440333838
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2003-04-28T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV

Judith returned home in the last carriage with her grandmother, who had been slower than everyone else getting ready to leave and had twice asked Judith if she would be so good as to run back up to the room in which she had changed to make sure she had not forgotten anything. It was very late by the time they arrived at Harewood. All the guests had retired to their rooms for the night.

Aunt Effingham was waiting in the hall.

“Judith,” she said in awful tones, “you will assist Mother to her room and then attend me in the drawing room.”

“I am coming too, Louisa,” her mother said.

“Mother.” Lady Effingham bent a stern gaze on the old lady though she attempted to soften her tone. “It is late and you are tired. Judith will take you up and ring for Tillie if she is not already there waiting for you. She will help you undress and get into bed and will bring you a cup of tea and a draft to help you sleep.”

“I do not want my bed or a cup of tea,” her mother said firmly. “I will come to the drawing room. Judith, my love, may I trouble you for your arm again? I daresay I sat too long in the rose arbor this afternoon. The wind has made all my joints stiff.”

Judith had been expecting the scold that was obviously coming. She could hardly believe herself that she had had the temerity to act before an audience—Papa would surely have sentenced her to a full week in her room on bread and water if she had ever done such a thing at home. She had even taken her hair down. She had acted and she had reacted to the audience, which had given her its total, undivided attention even though she had not been consciously aware of it. She had been Lady Macbeth. The audience had liked her and applauded and praised her. What she had done could not have been so very wrong. Everyone else had entertained the company, not all of them with music. She was a lady. She had been as much a guest of Lady Beamish as anyone else.

Lady Beamish had called her hair glorious and beautiful. How else had she described it? Judith frowned in thought as she climbed the stairs slowly with her grandmother while Aunt Effingham came behind.

I would compare it to a gold-tinged, fiery sunset.

Lady Beamish, though she had perfect manners, was not given to frivolous, flattering compliments, Judith suspected. Was it possible, then, that her hair could be seen that way? A gold-tinged, fiery sunset . . .

“These earrings pinch me almost as badly as those others,” her grandmother said, pulling them off as they entered the drawing room. “Though I have been wearing them all evening, of course. Now where shall I put them so that they will not be lost?”

“Give them to me, Grandmama,” Judith said, taking them from her and putting them safely inside her reticule.

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