“It is the first time I have met her face to face, yes,” Amy responded, and Matilda could see from the tightness in her jaw that she was clenching her teeth hard. “Though I know her kind well enough.”
Matilda was curious about the girl’s response, wondering how she could possibly know the likes of Lady Florentia when she was merely ten years old and had not yet come out in society. She cannot have met a great many ladies other than those her father invited to the house or perhaps even at some family gatherings.
“What do you know about her?”
“I know that she is trying to hook her claws into my papa,” Lady Amy practically growled and the way she stared out at the pond as if she wanted to hurt the very water itself made Matilda realise that there was more to the girl’s problems than she had first been led to believe.
“What makes you say that?”
“Papa does not think I know it, but I am well aware he has been courting her for these past few months without telling me,” Lady Amy explained, and Matilda watched her pick up a stone and throw it strongly at the pond once more. It hit with a great splash and Matilda felt a couple of droplets soak through the ankles of her stockings. “Papa never keeps anything from me, but he kept this from me and it is all her fault.”
“I am sure that if it were so serious, your father would tell you,” Matilda insisted, and she knew in that moment that she could not sit by as she had been. Pushing herself to her feet, she wandered closer to Lady Amy and sat close to her, not quite touching her but close enough for the girl to feel the comfort of her presence. “Would it be such a bad thing if your father were courting?”
Lady Amy’s entire body seemed to deflate then, and she sighed out a deep breath as if she were quite frustrated and unable to figure out how to release the tension.
“I would not be mad if my father was courting,” the girl responded with a shake of her head. She plucked at several blades of grass on the ground between the two of them and looked at them in her hand. “I do wish for my papa to be happy, but I cannot think of anyone more dreadful than her.”
Matilda could not help but feel a clenching in her heart for the poor girl. She could only imagine what it must be like for a girl whose entire life had been centered around her and her father for so long, only to find that another was trying to break her way in, at least that was how it must seem to one so young as her.
“What could possibly be so bad about her?” Matilda asked, watching the young girl carefully in the hopes that she would not miss anything.
“She is pompous and self-opinionated and sometimes even cruel,” Amy told her, and Matilda grew more and more certain that these were not merely the opinions of a ten-year-old girl.
“Who has told you these things?” Matilda asked, feeling quite disheartened for the girl that someone would put such thoughts into her head. Amy shook her head and scowled.
“Nobody told me,” she replied and crossed her arms over her chest. “The servants do not know it but sometimes I spy on them. I hear what they say about all sorts of things, and they all agree that Lady Florentia is a terrible person.”
Matilda could believe it of several of the servants to speak of the woman in such a way. For example, the maids who had not been very welcoming to her and looked down their noses at her, simply because they believed she received better treatment for far less work.
But she could not believe it of the butler, nor the steward, nor Miss Stuart. Yet Matilda was also well aware that these were the three servants Lady Amy would find easiest to spy on due to their close work with the family and they were also the ones most likely to come into contact with Lady Florentia.
If what she says is true then perhaps Lady Florentia is quite the terrible person, after all,Matilda thought. Yet she quickly pushed it away when she also began to think of the handsome duke who was currently entertaining the woman.It is none of my business.
“I am sure she cannot be nearly so bad,” Matilda responded, trying to sound calm and reassuring, “Besides, you really ought not to listen to servants gossiping. They very rarely get to see the full extent of the story and can often give misinformation.”
Lady Amy looked at Matilda then with a deep scowl and a stern shake of her head. “I have found, Miss Percival, that servants are rarely wrong about anything.”
The maturity in the young girl’s voice made Matilda’s heart both swell and ache. She opened her mouth to speak but was unsure of what to say that might be able to help the situation.
“I swear, Miss Percival if my papa is to marry that woman, I shall run away!” Lady Amy vowed then and the surety in her voice and her expression made Matilda feel sick.
“Oh, Lady Amy, please do not say such things!” Matilda exclaimed, reaching out instinctively to pull the girl into her arms. It was not until she had done so, and it was too late that she wondered if she had done the wrong thing. After all, Lady Amy was only just beginning to open up to her. She did not want to go and push her backwards again. Yet she was relieved when the girl rested into her and quickly added, “You cannot leave me here alone with them both! How would I ever cope?”
It was in that moment that Matilda felt as though the final walls were beginning to crumble between them, especially when both she and Amy began to laugh with amusement even while something horrendous clawed at Matilda’s stomach.
She would not allow herself to think of it nor what might happen if the Duke truly did marry Lady Florentia. Though it would not be the first time she had worked for a couple rather than a single parent, it would most definitely be the first time she’d had to work through a parent’s remarriage with their child and with one already so troubled at Lady Amy, she was not entirely sure that anything she did would be successful.
***
Sitting in the drawing room the next morning, while watching Lady Amy go about her music lesson on the pianoforte, Matilda was relieved to see that all the tension of the day before had left the girl. In fact, she seemed quite content to merely let her fingers glide over the ivory keys, lost in the music that she was making.
“That was very good, Lady Amy,” Matilda said, clapping when the girl had finished her song and leaned back on the stool in order to take a quick break.
“Do you think so?” Lady Amy responded, turning a brilliant smiling face up to Matilda as if she were hopeful for more praise.
“It most certainly was,” came the response from the doorway, not from Matilda but from the lips of a man. The voice was most unfamiliar to Matilda’s ears, and she turned quickly, feeling her heart racing at the thought that some stranger had somehow managed to get into the manor unnoticed.
She whipped around, preparing to call for Mr Burns or Mr Mulgrave, but Lady Amy had turned also and the moment that she saw the dark blonde gentleman standing in the doorway with a pile of books in his hands, she exclaimed, “Uncle Heath!”