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sharply. “The proprieties must be observed, as you well know. We shall be neighbors, and we shall be courteous at all times. Is that clear?”
    “Yes, Mama.” But Clarissa’s eyes were mutinous, and her soft mouth hardened.
    “I don’t suppose he’ll be here much, anyway,” Emily said with practical reassurance. “He’s bound to be in London during the season … and I’m sure he’ll be at the hunting box and in Scotland a lot of the time. Lulworth’s too sleepy a place for an out-and-outer.”
    “Emily! Such vulgarity,” her mother protested, but she was laughing. “How do you know his lordship is an out-and-outer, as you so inelegantly put it?”
    “I don’t,” Emily said. “But I’ll lay odds he is.” Her lip curled. “Probably a dandy, like that awful cousin Cecil.”
    “All Gilbraiths are awful like cousin Cecil,” piped Rosie’s voice, and Elinor realized she hadn’t seen the child behind her sisters.
    “That will do … you’re setting Rosie a shocking example. Come here, child.”
    Rosie appeared from behind Emily’s skirts, and her mother scrutinized her appearance with a frown. “Your stockings are wrinkled, and you have jam on your smock. You really are too old to go around looking like a haystack. I don’t know what Mrs. Haversham will think.”
    Rosie rubbed at the sticky smudge, peering through her glasses, her lip caught between her teeth. “I wasn’t going to see Mrs. Haversham. Robbie promised to show me his pickled spider. He says it has ten legs, but I know it can’t. Spiders only have eight.”
    “You can’t go to the vicarage without greeting Mrs. Haversham,” Emily pointed out, bending to straighten the child’s stockings.
    “Is Theo going with you?” Elinor adjusted the sash at Rosie’s diminutive waist.
    “No, she’s riding the estate with Beaumont. They have to decide which fields to leave fallow for the autumn sowing.”
    “And do something about Squire Greenham,” Clarissa added.
    “Oh, yes, the Master’s been complaining again about the way we maintain our coverts,” Emily said. “He’s bellowing that the hunt will never be able to draw the coverts if we don’t maintain the rides properly. And the Belmont gamekeepers aren’t marking the fox earths either … and how can the huntsman stop the earths if he doesn’t know where they are?”
    “That is so cruel!” Rosie exclaimed, her cheeks pink, her eyes blazing behind her glasses. “It’s horrid of them to stop the earths so the foxes can’t get away when they’re chasing them. Theo said once when she was hunting, she saw a fox running all over the covert, trying every opening to its earth and they were all blocked … and then the hounds caught it and ripped it apart. It’s disgusting and it’s not fair!”
    Her voice quavered, and her mother and sisters knew a bout of noisy, heartfelt tears was imminent.
    “It’s not hunting season for another four months,” Clarissa said swiftly. “And I promise that you and I will go out at dead of night before the hunt and unstop all the earths.”
    Lord Stoneridge might have a word or two to say on that score, Elinor reflected, since it was now his land. However, there was no point upsetting Rosie further. She said mildly, “You will be sure to be here when Lord Stoneridge calls, won’t you?”
    Her elder daughters glanced at her, and she saw that the same thought had crossed their minds. But they merely nodded.
    “Of course, Mama. Come along, Rosie. We have to hurry, you’ll have to come as you are. Robbie and the pickled spider won’t notice, and I daresay Mrs. Haversham will turn a blind eye.” Emily took the child’s hand and hustled her out, Clarissa on their heels.
    Elinor passed a hand wearily over her eyes. The next few days were going to be a trial, but once they were settled in the dower house, surely they could maintain a civilized distance from the new earl. The social engagements offered in theneighborhood couldn’t possibly