The Adventuress: HFTS5 by Marion Chesney, M.C. Beaton

to cut a dash and yet be as thrifty as possible. So she had stayed, but had tried to convey her displeasure to the servants by being as chilly and aloof as possible.
    “Yes, Rainbird?” she demanded.
    “Where is Mr. Goodenough?” asked Rainbird.
    “He is resting in his room. Do you wish to speak to him?”
    “No, ma’am, I wish to speak to you in private. I apologised to you for my previous insolence, but Alice has only just told me that she had explained the reason for my insolence. I am here to apologise again.”
    “I shall consider your apology,” said Emily loftily. “Whether I accept it or not will depend on your future behaviour.”
    “But we have no time to
wait
for my future behaviour to prove my good intentions,” said Rainbird. “Miss Goodenough, you are desperately in need of our help
now.”
    “Why, pray?”
    “Because no one is going to come to this rout this evening,” said Rainbird. “They don’t know who you are and they consider it impertinent of you to have even invited them.”
    “No one is coming?” whispered Emily, turning white. “No one?”
    Rainbird shook his head.
    “Then there is nothing to be done,” said Emily, trying not to cry.
    “But there is,” said Rainbird eagerly. “First, you must leave it to us to make you fashionable. Secondly, you must have a female companion. No young lady launches
herself
on a Season.”
    Emily was too upset and bewildered to keep up her haughty front. “But I don’t know any gentlewomen!” she wailed.
    Rainbird thought quickly and then his face cleared. “Mrs. Middleton!” he cried. “The housekeeper. She is of genteel family and knows how to go on.
She
will serve for this evening as chaperone.”
    “But what is the point of her serving as anything,” said Emily dismally, “if no one is going to come?”
    “They will! They will!” said Rainbid.
    “But how? I know … you are going to spread gossip about me to excite their curiosity. What gossip? I must know, Rainbird.”
    “We are going to say you are a foreign princess who has kept herself alone for fear of being beset by adventurers and mushrooms.”
    “No one will believe such a thing!”
    “They will,” said Rainbird. “Oh yes, they will.”
    “But won’t they want to know which country I am princess of?”
    “No one will dare offend you by asking. Should anyone do so, you laugh and say you are nobody but plain Miss Goodenough. They won’t believe you.”
    Colour slowly came back to Emily’s cheeks. “If you think such a lie would work,” she said cautiously. “Only my uncle must not know of it. He is not strong.”
    “No, miss.”
    “So, my wise butler, have you any suggestions as to how I should behave to give credence to this lie?”
    Rainbird looked at the small stately figure, at the beautiful face and luxuriant hair. “I would say simply behave like yourself, Miss Emily. You look like a princess.”
    Emily began to laugh and she was still laughing when Rainbird bowed and left the room.
    A princess? Why not? Emily wiped her streaming eyes. If she was going to be an imposter, she might as well do things in style!
    “Are you sure you are determined not to go to Miss Goodenough’s rout?” asked Eitz later that day. “I have not been invited, so I need you to take me.”
    “I am going to the opera instead,” said the earl. He swung about. “Giles,” he said to his butler. “Stop shuffling around in that furtive manner and pour Mr. Fitzgerald a drink, and then you may leave.”
    “Yes, my lord,” said Giles. He was bursting with all the gossip he had just heard at The Running Footman about Miss Emily Goodenough. He knew his master would not listen to any servants’ gossip and furthermore would be annoyed to learn his butler had passed most of the day in a public house instead of visiting the wine merchants where he was supposed to have been.
    That butler, Rainbird, had been extremely kind to Giles. Quite like an old friend the way he had confided