Masked Ball at Broxley Manor

since birth. We’d been raised with stories about ancestors like Robert Bruce Rannoch, who had kept fighting when his arm was hacked off in battle, merely changing his sword from his right hand to his left. I don’t think my sense of duty was that strong, but it was definitely there.
    You see, that summer, in London, my sister-in-law Fig had given birth to a second little Rannoch. Although she looked as if she had the constitution of a cart horse, she had been rather ill. She had gone home to Scotland to recuperate and had actually begged me to come to keep her company (which shows how jolly sick she was!). I, being a kindhearted soul, had agreed.
    Summer had turned to autumn and there were the royal relatives at Balmoral to visit, house parties, grouse shoots—all of which we hoped might bring Fig out of her blue funk. But she had remained languid and depressed, hardly showing any interest in little Adelaide—yes, that was what they named the poor child. Adelaide Gertrude Hermione Maude. Can you imagine saddling any poor baby with such monstrosities? They hadn’t even come up with a good pet name yet. One could hardly call her Addy or Laidy, could one? Then she’d be Lady Addy or Lady Laidy and that wouldn’t do. To date she was addressed as “baby,” or occasionally “diddums.”
    And so I had stayed on. Nanny coped admirably with little Adelaide, Fig lolled about, getting more and more petty and bad tempered, and Binky wandered the grounds looking worried. I was starting to wonder how long I could endure this, when things were decided for me. Fig’s mother, Lady Wormwood, arrived to take charge. It only took an instant to see where Fig’s pettiness and bossy nature came from. If Fig was a trial, Lady Wormwood was utterly bloody. (Yes, I know a lady is not supposed to use words like “bloody,” but in describing Lady Wormwood the adjective is actually rather mild. Alas, my education was sadly lacking. If I knew stronger words, I’d have used them.)
    She had been in the house for about a week when I came back from a walk to hear her strident voice saying, “It’s not healthy, Hilda.” (She was the only person who called Fig Hilda, being responsible for the ghastly name.) “It’s not natural for a young girl to shut herself away like this, doing nothing all day. Does she not think at all about her future?”
    I froze in the entrance hall, shielded by a suit of armor. I expected Fig to leap to my defense and tell her mother that I was only shutting myself away at Castle Rannoch because she had begged me to stay with her. Instead I heard her saying, “I really don’t know what she thinks, Mummy.”
    “She can’t possibly expect that you’ll go on supporting her. You’ve done your duty and more. The girl has had her season, hasn’t she?” (People like Lady Wormwood pronounced the word “gell”). “Why isn’t she married? She’s not bad looking. She has royal connections. You’d have thought someone would have taken her off your hands by now.”
    “She’s already turned down Prince Siegfried of Romania,” Fig said. “I don’t think she has any idea about duty. The queen was really angling for that match. They are Hollenzollern-Sigmaringens, you know. Related to the queen’s family. And Siegfried was a charming young man, too. But she turned him down.”
    “What on earth is she waiting for—a king?” Lady Wormwood asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s not as if she’s next in line to the throne, is it?”
    This was true. I had been thirty-fourth until Adelaide was born. Now I had been relegated to thirty-fifth.
    Fig lowered her voice. “Between ourselves, she’s mooning after some disreputable chap called Darcy O’Mara. Absolutely rotten sort.”
    “O’Mara? Son of Lord Kilhenny?”
    “That’s the one. Their family is in a worse state than ours. One gathers his father has had to sell off the family seat and the racing stables to cover his debts. So there are no prospects in that quarter. This O’Mara chap has no fortune and no career. He’ll never be able to support a wife.”
    “Well, she wouldn’t be allowed to marry him anyway, would she?” Lady Wormwood’s voice echoed around the great hall. “They are a Catholic family. As a member of the line of succession she’d be barred from marrying a Catholic.”
    I took an involuntary step back, knocking into the suit of armor and just managing to grab the mace before it clattered to the floor. I knew that