Ivory and Steel Read Online Free PDF Page B

stopped before her, thin hands clenched together, narrow mouth working in indignation. Phyllida set the cup on its saucer with care and waited.
    “It’s her ladyship, Miss Dearne. She wishes me to cancel all the meals the young mistress ordered for the rest of the week, and me with three pheasants and as nice a leg of spring lamb as you’re like to see in the kitchens. Lobsters, she wants, and a turtle for soup.”
    Phyllida closed her eyes. “You mustn’t let the pheasants go to waste. Tell her Cook wasn’t able to obtain any lobsters and just prepare the pheasants differently. Is there an old recipe, perhaps?”
    Mrs. Battersea’s eyes gleamed. “That there is, miss, and thank you kindly for reminding me of it. One her ladyship enjoyed very much, as I recall. It weren’t to the young mistress’s liking though.”
    “Have it prepared the old way then.”
    The woman actually smiled, thanked her again and hurried from the room. Relieved, Phyllida turned back to her breakfast.
    She poured another cup of tea, only to be interrupted by the footman bearing a note on a silver tray. The first of the condolences. Her stomach clenched and the hand she held out for the missive was not entirely steady.
    She broke it open and scanned the inscribed card. Word, it seemed, had gotten around already. That meant she’d have to start answering the notes. It was just as well, she supposed. That should leave her no time to indulge in grief, and by the time she acknowledged her sister’s death so many times perhaps she would accept it.
    Carrying her cup and saucer with her, Phyllida made her way to the Ladies’ Sitting Room where ample notepaper and cards were to be found in the writing desk. Somewhere, she knew, there would be black-edged ones. There. She stared at the Allbury crest, embossed in gold, and felt oddly detached from it all.
    The butler entered, bearing a salver on which three more cards rested. With a shaky sigh she settled at the desk and drew out a freshly sharpened quill.
    Barely a quarter-hour later the marquis wandered into the room with an expression on his thin, angular face so reminiscent of a lost puppy that it tore at her heart. He stopped before her and anguish stared out from his drawn hazel eyes.
    “You look so much like her,” he said at last. “I never realized it before. You—” He broke off.
    “I’m a shadow of her, I know.” She laid aside her pen. “How are you, Allbury?”
    He looked away, shaking his head. “She’s gone, Phyllida. It doesn’t seem possible. Now Mamma will have the running of the household again.”
    Phyllida blinked. Almost, that thought seemed to distress him more than the violent death of his wife. Fingers of ice stabbed through her and in her mind’s eye she again saw the irritation with Louisa that last night had flashed in his eyes.
    The next moment she banished the budding suspicion as nonsense, unworthy of her. And of Allbury.
    “Have you thought to go to the Castle?” she asked abruptly. “To get out of London for a while?”
    He stared at his hands. “I’ll have to, of course. She’ll be buried there, you know.”
    “No, I-I never thought about it. Of course she will.”
    His lips twitched into a mirthless smile. “You may go with me, if you choose. I don’t really recommend it though. It won’t be pleasant.”
    Phyllida thought of the huge stone castle with its drafty halls, the endless cold and the darkness of the musty crypt. She shivered. No, it would not be pleasant.
    The marquis paced to the unlit hearth then to the window where he stood staring out over the Square. “Here come more cards,” he said. “I’ll leave you to them.” He crossed to the desk, just touched her shoulder in a gesture of shared commiseration and left the room.
    Phyllida returned her attention to the note she wrote. She had barely finished it when the butler entered, bringing several more.
    Soon thereafter that stately individual disturbed her yet again, but not, as