Chapter 4: The Dowager Marchioness of Northwick

"Blanche, for the love of-" Kathleen Blackwood, the Lady of Northwick, cut her words short and set her knife and fork to the side of her plate with a clatter. With a vexed looked towards her youngest daughter, she continued with her biting reprimand, "I beg of you, use your cutlery the way they were intended and not as if they were gardening tools."

Blanche paused in her ferocious eating and glanced at her mother with wide, silvery eyes. "Begth pardoneth?"

"Your mouth," Kathleen said pointedly, "is not some cavernous hole, nor are your forks shovels with which to pile your food onto and hurl into your face! Goodness, consume your breakfast with the decorum of a gently bred lady."

Blanche rolled her eyes and swallowed the food that was in her mouth.

Noisily.

"It doesn't taste as good," she mumbled begrudgingly.

Nicola smothered a smile around a bite of scrambled eggs.

Jason set aside his paper and grinned at his mother. "I always thought you had found Blanche in the cave on the property, in the process of being raised by wolves," he said jauntily. "Do you maintain that this is merely a myth, still?"

Blanche threw a crust of toast at him. It missed and ricocheted off a nearby servant.

"Oh, damnations," Kathleen snapped. "Look at what you have done now. Blanche, rest assured you were not found in a cave. The wolves, however-"

"Ha!" Jason grinned at his glowering sister. "Told you."

Nicola giggled softly.

It earned her a pained look from her companion. "You're supposed to be on my side," Blanche accused churlishly. "It's bad enough that the both of them team up against me."

"It is not my fault you seem to eat like a wild bear," Nicola pointed out with a wide grin. Despite the irate glare her companion threw her, Nicola knew it to be the truth- for a remarkably tiny woman, Blanche could consume twice her own weight in food and not show an ounce of fat or pudgy flesh on her person. It was downright unfair, that.

"The problem," Blanche declared with an air of self-importance, straightening her shoulders and glaring down the length of her nose at all of them, "lies not with me, but with all of you. I at least enjoy and relish my food, not pick at it like hens scratching in the dirt for crumbs!"

During her tirade, a liveried footman came forward and delivered a sealed missive to Kathleen, which she opened and perused the contents silently.

"Oh dear God."

"Mama!" Blanche sighed petulantly. "I shan't eat ferociously in public, you know that."

"Not you, child." The colour had drained from Kathleen's face and the table grew deathly quiet. The motherly, sweet-tempered woman only adopted a demeanour of unsettled disquiet on two occasions. The first was when her beloved husband passed away due to a lung ailment and fever; the second...

Jason swore, the realisation striking him moments before it did Nicola.

"Language, Jason," Kathleen reprimanded half-heartedly. "But your reaction is quite understandable in this case."

"What?" Blanche asked around a mouthful of toast and strawberry jam. "What is it?"

Kathleen levelled one of her most serious gazes at Blanche. "Your grandmother has decided to call upon us this afternoon."

"Oh." Blanche swallowed- mostly food but at least a large quantity of trepidation followed that gulp. "Oh dear."

The Dowager Marchioness of Northwick was a force to be reckoned with and Nicola for one did not enjoy crossing paths with the harshly worded aged lady. She wore her nobility and rank about her like a steel , impenetrable cloak and should you be of a lower station than herself, she would undoubtedly make you well aware just how inferior you were. For Nicola, tea with the dowager was akin to torture for, unlike the rest of the Blackwood family, she was not titled and fair game to the old woman's venomous insults.

Kathleen fretted slightly with the lace of her bodice before she stood, her food unfinished on her plate. "There is much to be done," she said. "I suggest you ready yourselves for this afternoon and, for the love of God, please eat like a lady, Blanche."

***

The manor house became a hive of activity- footmen and maids darted here and there, frantically readying the house for the arrival of the dowager marchioness of Northwick. They, too, well aware of the lady's discontent and set about polishing the silver until it positively gleamed. The best china was procured and washed, and the cook set about preparing only the finest cuisine that would be served during the tea.

In all the hubbub, Nicola felt very uneasy. She dreaded meetings with the dowager, full aware that her person would be the target of many an insult. She briefly considering taking her leave and returning to London to stay with her father, but what could she explain to the Blackwoods that wouldn't sound short of cowardice? No, Nicola knew she had to stay, if not for anything else than to be a companion and supportive friend to Blanche, who was equally dismayed at the imminent arrival of her grandmother.

There were still a few hours till the expected arrival and, her emotions fraying and splintering, Nicola knew she had to write something- anything- but the furore in the house did not sit well with a promising scribe dying to lament their inner most thoughts onto a pristine and waiting piece of vellum. Decidedly, Nicola scooped together her supplies, including the little wooden jewellery box in which she kept her most secret confessions, and heading towards the entranceway of Northwick manor.

She spied Jason leaving the house and a niggling shard of curiosity lodged itself in her mind. The man, dressed finely in his scarlet velvet coat and doe-skin breeches, walked surely and confident towards an unknown destination, though Nicola had some clue about where he was going.

A striking image entered her mind then and made her blush, the mistake of a ten year old innocent and the stark beauty of a naked young man, surrounded by naught but the elements. Heat overwhelmed her and her feet slowed to a stop on the floor. She had never returned to the pool since that day. It had seemed too sacred, too illicit, to repeat the sin twice, and the sight of Jason clothed was enough to make her pine with longing; the sight of him naked again would be her ultimate undoing. Besides that, what sort of lady would she be if she actively sought to catch a glimpse of him in all his glory?

A shudder of raw, tingling pleasure rippled through her and she knew that very soon Jason Blackwood would be as naked as the day he was born, and she knew exactly where he would be as well.

Dare she?

Her fingers reached out and stroked the oak of the front door ponderously while she came to a decision, her heart and mind torn in two.

Oh, what had she to lose? The love of a man who would never return her sentiments? Pah. Feeling bold and energetic, her mind fixed, Nicola opened the door and stepped into the sunlight, fresh air caressing the skin of her face like a welcoming kiss.

Excitement overcame her and she followed after him, knowing well the way her feet were carrying her.