The Arrangement by Joan Wolf Page A

she replied petulantly.
    Lady Regina sighed. “Shall I call a footman to escort you to your room?”
    “That won’t be necessary,” I assured her.
    “Then I will send one of the maids to help you undress.”
    This service I declined as well. I had managed to get into my evening dress without help; I would get out of it the same way.
    The bedroom passageway was very cold, but a blast of warmth from the fireplace wafted out to greet me as I opened my bedroom door. The bedside and fireside oil lamps had been lit, and as I undressed in a leisurely fashion I compared the comfort of the room with the way I had to scramble out of my clothes and jump into bed at home in order to stay warm.
    I was just going to turn out the lamps and get into bed when there came a soft knock at the door and a maid entered.
    “I have a hot brick for your bed, ma’am,” she said.
    I watched as she folded down my bedclothes and slipped the hot brick down to the foot of the bed.
    “Thank you,” I said.
    She gave me a prim little smile and exited quietly.
    Now, normally when one gets into bed in the wintertime, the sheets at the bottom are like ice. This was not the case at Savile Castle, however. The hot brick radiated heat all through the bottom part of the bed and I wiggled my bare toes blissfully.
    I had to admit that even though I had felt like a beggar girl dining at the table of King Cophetua, I had enjoyed my dinner immensely. I had never seen such a lavish display of food.
    And that was only a family dinner! I thought. What must a formal party be like at Savile Castle?
    That was one thing I would never find out, I thought, wiggling my toes again comfortably. Both birth and economic situation firmly excluded me from the kind of society in which the Earl of Savile moved.
    It was not that my birth wasn’t perfectly respectable; it was. My father was a doctor in the city of York and my mother was the daughter of a clergyman. When my sister and I were children, my family had automatically been included in the “good society” of York and its environs. It had never occurred to either Deborah or me that we were not every bit as good as everyone else we knew.
    Then my parents went on a short trip to a seaside resort and were killed in a hotel fire. Deborah was eleven and I was eight. Our world had never been the same again.
    I wrapped my arms around my knees, stared into the glowing coals, and remembered how frightened the two of us had been as we rode the stagecoach from York to Hatfield on our way to live with Aunt Margaret, my father’s sister and our only surviving relative. We had sat in mute silence all the way, our hands clasped together, our eyes focused unseeingly out the window.
    We had never before met Aunt Margaret, and when we did, she was a definite shock. Older than my father by ten years, she had been a semi-recluse for years. The addition of two lively children to her home had probably been as difficult for her as adjusting to her had been for us.
    It was not that she did not care about us. When she remembered us, she cared very much. But for the part of the day that Aunt Margaret spent in her garden, Deborah and I did not exist for her. And Aunt Margaret spent virtually her entire day in her garden.
    The result of this situation was that Deborah and I had brought ourselves up. In childhood we had been allowed to roam freely about the countryside, but as we grew into young womanhood, this lack of adult restraint started to become scandalous. The rector’s wife, Mrs. Bridge, had spoken to Aunt Margaret about her duty to chaperon her nieces, but poor Aunt Margaret was utterly incapable of leaving Littleton Cottage. To give Mrs. Bridge her due, she tried to include us along with her own daughter in many of the activities organized by the local mamas in order to introduce young men and women to one another as prospective spouses.
    I was fifteen when I first met Tommy, who was home from Eton for the summer. I was fishing at the