Henrietta by M.C. Beaton

did really care for Sir Percival,” she said shyly. “I was merely dazzled by his worldly manner.”
    “Let us both forget the visit to Lady Haddington’s. Too many unpleasant things happened there.”
    But try as she would, Henrietta could not banish the memory of that awful face among the trees or Lord Reckford’s bewildering lack of embarrassment when he had shared her bed.
    The other members of the late house party were also chewing over their visit to Lady Haddington in their respective homes.
    Mr. Edmund Ralston and his mother were sitting in their elegant drawing room. Mrs. Ralston eyed her exquisite son with a shrewd, hard and calculating look which changed like quicksilver to one of pure maternal affection when her son looked across at her. Her body, which had appeared rigid and masculine a moment before, seemed to lose its muscles and bones and become soft and vulnerable.
    “You owe it to me, Edmund, you really do,” sniffed Mrs. Ralston. “Are you to be wed or no? Have you considered my delicate nerves—my sensibilities. To have to live with a madwoman?”
    The pale green eyes of her son opened wide in surprise. “But I
must
marry, Henrietta, mama. She has my money. And I want my
money.
”
    Mrs. Ralston shifted uncomfortably on her seat. Sometimes, she found herself wondering if her precious son were quite sane. At that moment, a stray beam of sunlight shone like a halo on Edmund’s golden curls as he still stared wide-eyed at his mother. The look of maternal love became genuine. Mrs. Ralston sighed. She could never resist her son’s wide-eyed appeal. “If you want her why, then you shall have her,” she promised; Edmund gave her a seraphic smile. Mama would see that everything was all right. She always had, from his first rocking horse to his membership of the exclusive White’s Club in St. James.
    Alice Belding’s admirers would have been hard put to recognize her. Her pretty face was contorted with fury, her hair was dishevelled and her voice was strident as she berated her mother. Few but her servants would have recognized the proud and domineering Lady Belding as she cringed like a schoolgirl before her irate daughter.
    “Can’t you do
anything
,” screamed Alice, pacing up and down the saloon of their town house. “Lord Reckford is going to marry that fat nobody from the vicarage unless you put a stop to it. I thought I had made myself plain. I want to be my Lady Reckford and if you do not do something about it quickly, I shall… I shall
kill
myself.”
    “My dear,” said her mother in a faltering voice. “My dear, dear child. You know I am only doing my best…”
    “Your best is not good enough, ma’am,” snapped her angry daughter, stopping her pacing and coming to a stop before her agitated parent. “You never do anything, you silly old frump. You—” Suddenly Alice’s stormy furious face changed in the twinkling of an eye and she sank to the floor beside her mother’s chair and twined her arms around the anxious woman’s waist. With a melting expression, she looked up at her mother. “Please, mama,” she said in a little-girl voice. “You must get Lord Reckford for me. You really must. Don’t let howwid Henrietta take him away from your Alice.”
    Lady Belding clasped her daughter tightly, her severe patrician features softened with love. “Leave everything to mama.” she said grimly. “I shall do everything in my power to put a curb on Henrietta Sandford’s ambitions.”
    Henry Sandford was tooling his curricle at a smart pace along the Nethercote Road. Beside him sat his curate, Mr. John Symes, who seemed more than ever cowed and subdued.
    “Well, have you nothing to say for yourself?” snapped Henry, finally becoming annoyed by his partner’s silence. “I declare I have worries enough about my sister’s state of mind without having you go into the sulks.” The curate raised a faint murmur of protest but was drowned out by his more voluble superior. “She