The Man in the Green Coat by Carola Dunn Page B

very red face and bristling mustache.
    “Thank you, Roger,” said Lady Harrison with dignity. “Please fetch our parcels from the carriage. I shall deal with this person.”
    “I dunno, my lady. Looks nasty to me. Maybe I better stay.”
    “My brother and I will be here,” reassured Gabrielle. “But hurry!”
    Her ladyship sailed into the hallway, looking the very picture of outraged virtue.
    “ Qu’est-ce que c’est?” she demanded. “Gerard, what goes on here?”
    Gerard and the stout chandler both spoke at once, but the tradesman’s louder voice prevailed.
    “It’s me bill, my lady. Hain’t bin paid in ever so long and I’ll thank you to see to it, for I’ve babes to feed same as the next man.”
    “It must have been mislaid,” declared Lady Harrison. “It shall be paid promptly at the quarter, I promise you, my good man.”
    “Oh no, I hain’t budging till I got the blunt, and that’s the truth, my lady.”
    Gerard pulled a much diminished roll of notes from his pocket. "How much?” he asked briefly. He whistled when he heard the figure, and glanced at his hostess. Her plump cheeks trembling, my lady nodded. Gabrielle helped her into the drawing room as Gerard handed over the money.
    Lady Harrison sank onto a sofa and burst into tears. “I simply do not know where the money goes!” she moaned. “Sir Cosmo left me an excellent income as well as the use of the town house. But, every quarter, Oswald sends back half the bills unpaid and says I have overspent again. And I will not call him Sir Oswald, for he has always been most disagreeable to me and I am sure he does not deserve to have inherited poor Sir Cosmo’s title!”
    “Sir Oswald?” Gerard followed them into the room.
    “My stepson. He has a wart on his chin and his eyebrows meet in the middle, and try as I may, I cannot trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle.”
    “Sir Cosmo left your jointure in his charge?” asked Gabrielle.
    “Yes. Every quarter he sends me a certain amount for small expenditures, and I send him my bills, and he is supposed to pay them, but there is never enough money. It is all my fault because I cannot refuse shelter to my friends. But I shall pay you back, Gerard, I promise, on the first of July.”
    Gerard and Gabrielle exchanged glances. “Certainly not,” Gabrielle said gently. “If you offer us shelter, you must let us help with expenses, or we cannot accept your hospitality.”
    “But we cannot have burnt a hundredth of those candles since you arrived! And besides, you are practically family.”
    Gabrielle patted her hand. “Come, dry your tears, dear Madame Aurore. I have no head for figures, but Gerard has always kept the family accounts. He will go through your expenditures, if you should like it, and find out just why you are in such difficulties.”
    Gerard pulled a face but nodded.
    “I’m sure I never spend a penny on my dress, nor on furnishings,” wailed Lady Harrison, wiping her eyes, with disastrous effects on her rouge. “As you may very well see for yourselves, and it is excessively mortifying to appear so shabby when people call.”
    Gabrielle stood up. “Speaking of dress,” she said, “you promised to show me a picture of a ball dress that will suit me to perfection, so that Marie and I may start sewing.”
    “Yes, indeed! It is in the latest Ladies’ Magazine, in my dressing room. The apricot crêpe lisse will be perfect, with a white satin petticoat. Was it not fortunate that we found the matching slippers?” Prattling gaily of fashion and fabric, her ladyship forgot her sorrows as she led the way above stairs.
     

Chapter 6
     
    Lady Cecilia Everett’s drawing room was crowded with morning callers. Muslin-clad debutantes scarce out of the schoolroom chattered like a flock of sparrows, while matrons in silks and satins exchanged the latest on-dits in lower tones. Gentlemen leaned on the backs of sofas, joining in, or posed in solitary splendour, displaying either