London, during 'the Season' Continued

Patiently, his sister explained, 'Those enticements are likely to induce a man to make me offers of a certain kind, but not an offer of marriage. And that is what we need if we are to receive both financial aid and respectability as a family. The kind of man we are hoping to find is looking for certain qualities in a wife: birth, fortune and beauty,' she said, ticking off each of the three requirements with her fingers.

Kit gave up on his tie – the Trone de Amor was beyond repair, and would have to await his valet's resourceful touch. However, Mr Ffouldes was pragmatic enough to know that the conversation with his sister was of even more moment than was badly creased linen, and returned his attention where it was most needed.

'All that you're lacking is the fortune,' he countered. 'And plenty of men have been willing to overlook that if the lady in question is enticing enough. There are precedents,' Kit insisted.

'Indeed there are,' Iphigenia agreed cheerfully. 'But the reason that these exceptions stand out from the rule is that men of Quality are seldom willing to overlook these niceties.' Her eyes twinkled – she knew that he was beginning to find his position untenable, and while the noble art of fencing was denied ladies, Iphigenia had a devotee's taste for verbal thrust and parry.

'What about the Gunning sisters?' Kit asked, somewhat sullenly. He was, indeed, a little concerned that Iphigenia's case was sound; and so he allowed the distraction of wondering whether he should ring the bell for Dawlish's assistance with his neck-cloth immediately – it put one out of countenance so to be aware that one looked a fright.

Airily waving a hand, Iphigenia blithely dismissed these famed ladies. 'Over a generation ago, and stood out in the popular memory because the circumstance of their marrying so well was so unusual. I ask you, dear heart – how many girls have come to town, hoping to use a pretty face to gain an impressive title, and have gone home again poorer for the experience?' She was struck by a thought: 'Or have not gone home at all,' she alluded, darkly.

'Yes, well. I still don't see why you couldn't make a go of the thing if you put your heart into it,' Kit insisted, petulantly, neatly avoiding all of the logic that his sister had presented. A man shouldn't have to ring for his valet – the fellow ought, somehow, to know when he's wanted. The best ones probably do just that – breeze in as needed without a fuss, restore a chap to his best, and breeze out again. Rotten Iphigenia – if there was more money to go around, it could be used to entice one of these prized servants away from the magnificent employer currently enjoying their services. It's a thing that a female simply could not adequately appreciate.

Blissfully unaware of her brother's resentful tone of thought, Iphigenia attempted to continue her argument with painstaking logic. 'We have already allowed that it is extremely rare for men of rank and fortune to marry only for a pretty face; so let us now move on to the next point. No one will marry me for my fortune because I don't have one.'

Kit shot an expression of distaste at Iphigenia. She smiled back.

'That leaves us our third eventuality,' she continued. 'In that case, it will be expected that my birth will atone for what I lack monetarily.' She waited, barely hiding her amusement, for a response from her brother.

He didn't see her point. 'I don't know how high your notions of good birth extend, Fij, but one of our grandfathers was an Earl. Surely that counts for something. After all, it could only get better if our mother were the daughter of a Duke, or the King.'

Iphigenia wrinkled her mouth ruefully. 'Not quite true. If we were the children of an Earl it could be better. And, of course, if any of our mother's illustrious relations were willing to claim acquaintance with us, it would also be better.' She moved aside the curtain to peer out at the street again, as she remarked a little peevishly, 'What use is an Earl in the family, if he is not willing to acknowledge one?' Iphigenia twitched the curtain back into place and fixed her candid eyes on her brother once again. 'And our father is a nobody,' she pointed out.

Kit bristled at this disloyalty. 'The Ffouldes are an extremely respectable family,' he argued.

Undeterred, Iphigenia replied, 'I shall allow the honour of the ancient name of Ffouldes to be above the common generality. Not a titled family, not a powerful family, but it is a respectable one.' She paused, considering, 'Or was one. Until our father drew it into disrepute. If his elopement with our mother, and the scandal attached to it had not drawn the Ffouldes' respectability into question, then the very public life of dissipation he has led since that time must have done so.'

Kit, sadly, had no reply to make, other than scuffing the edge of a Turkish rug with the toe of his boot.

'Like it or not, Kit: a child is tarred with its father's brush,' Iphigenia smiled grimly.

Kit frowned, and thrust his hands into his pockets once again, causing the tails of his dark coat to flap. 'You make it sound all very difficult!' he complained, petulantly, before glancing at his reflection in the mirror over the mantle, tugging at a fold of his cravat with one finger and frowning.

Torn between laughter and anger, Iphigenia exclaimed, 'It is very difficult! How on earth can I be expected to succeed at this madness?' Her dark eyes sparkled with emotion and a spot of colour tinged her cheeks becomingly.

Kit edged some stray cinders back into the hearth with his toe. 'It's going to get a lot more difficult soon when all the money runs out and we have nowhere to turn to,' he remarked candidly.

Iphigenia contented herself with replying, 'True.' She stared thoughtfully out of the window again, while Kit tried to poke his shirt points back to their former height.

Interrupting these mindless pursuits, Iphigenia soon leaped up from the window seat again, her skirts crushed in a frantic grasp to keep them from entangling her legs in her haste. Kit looked at her quickly for an explanation, and she replied with dire meaning, 'It's the mother!'

Uttering an oath that Iphigenia pretended not to hear or understand, Kit dashed, coat tails flying like ribbons behind him, for a seat furthest from the fire. Iphigenia picked up the volume of verse from where she had abandoned it – Lord Byron's newest literary effort, and something that all the town was agog to discuss – and began leafing through the pages with more rapidity than care. Her brother grabbed up a neatly folded newspaper from an occasional table and opened it, flopping onto the arm chair in the far corner of the room.

The door opened, and with great dignity, as was her custom, Lady Adeline Ffouldes swept into the room. She spared neither of her offspring more than a cursory glance, as the processed over to the winged armchair recently vacated by her youngest son, and sat carefully upon it, as though it was a throne. The lady was dressed as a dowager might, despite the most recent information from her husband in India suggesting that he was very much alive and well – the black crape skirts with many layers of ruffling, and her matron's cap trimmed with so much lace, combined to give the impression of a large bird of prey, on edge, and with feathers ruffled, dangerously on the verge of pouncing. She had a harsh, angular face that many years of bitterness and rancor had done little to soften.

She fixed her daughter wit a stern eye, to the relief of her son, and announced in ringing and depressing tones, 'You are most fortunate, Iphigenia.'

Feeling quite the opposite, and closing her book again, her daughter replied, 'Indeed?'

Lady Adeline pursed her lips, and continued with withering chill, 'Indeed. I have made a most valuable acquaintance today.' Seeing that she had the attention of both her offspring with these words, Kit folding down the top half of his newspaper so that he could pay attention, Lady Adeline continued, 'Quite by accident …'

At this Iphigenia and Kit exchanged meaningful glances. Accustomed, as they were, to their mother's language codes and conventions they both knew her to mean instead deliberately and on purpose.

'… I happened to be spending a pleasant hour or so taking the air and strolling the streets in the vicinity of Hookham's library this morning. After some time, I was entirely astonished and chagrined to indulge in a moment of clumsiness just as my sister-in-law, Lady Wynleigh – whom I have never before met in my life – was emerging from the premises.'

Her two children once again exchanged glances, as Lady Adeline paused in her tale to make one foot comfortable upon a nearby foot-stool.

'Perceiving me all embarrassment and apology, I was obliged to explain myself by alluding to our familial connection,' Lady Adeline remarked, casually finding her tambour frame from within the hidden depths of the chair.

Iphigenia and Kit had great difficulty in imagining their mother in a state even approximating the one she described.

'Lady Wynleigh was most obliging, and she acknowledged the connection between us, a circumstance for which I expressed suitable gratitude, and penitence for the estrangement that has had to exist between myself and my blood relations during the last twenty-five years.

'Furthermore,' Lady Adeline looked up at her audience with a keen eye glinting, 'she was gracious enough to express her willingness to welcome me to Wynleigh Park itself.' She smiled a skeletal grin of achievement at this piece of manipulation.

Iphigenia and Kit mentally inserted, she said whatever pleasantry she thought would rid her of you the fastest, and – not for the first time in their lives – were awed at both their formidable parent's audacity and resourcefulness.

'So you see,' concluded Lady Adeline, with satisfaction, 'your great good fortune, Iphigenia.'

Blankly, her daughter admitted, 'I am afraid that I do not, ma'am.'

Fixing her daughter with a baleful stare, Lady Adeline rejoined, 'I dare say you do not, at that. Judging by the extraordinarily small amount of progress you have made in your task, despite the length of time we have been in town, and the opportunities presented to you, it seems that I am the only person willing to exert themselves to some purpose!'

Iphigenia blushed, and looked at her hands folded in her lap.

Her mother continued, slightly less ferociously, 'Since you have done nothing to the purpose here in London, other than make yourself odious to any man presented to you, we shall remove to Wynleigh.'

Lady Adeline allowed sufficient pause for Kit and Iphigenia to recover from their astonishment at this announcement, before continuing, 'We shall see what your uncle's notice can do for you. Gaining the recognition of your Augden relations will doubtless do a great deal to improve your chances.'

Iphigenia was not filled with the joy that should have accompanied being the recipient of such good news. She ran her fingers around the edge of Lord Byron's poems, and remained silent.

Lady Adeline's sharp eye took note of this strange omission in her daughter's countenance. 'Allow me to add that had we not been so fortunate as to have found a way in to Wynleigh, I should have had no recourse other than to have become exceedingly displeased with you, Iphigenia.'

The young lady knew that this threat was much worse than it sounded … and Lady Adeline had imbued the statement with such venom anyway that it had sounded sufficiently dire.

Sourly, her mother untangled her embroidery threads. Looking at her task and not at her children, she said, 'Pack your things. Both of you. We shall see what Wynleigh might do for us all.' Kit and Iphigenia began to set aside their reading materials, as Lady Adeline concluded, 'I shall very much enjoy going home.' Her tone belied the sentiment, and she pierced the fabric in its round frame savagely with her needle and thread.

There was no argument that could prevail against Lady Adeline's determination. And, if she were honest, Iphigenia had not much enjoyed her stay in London anyway. She rose, wordlessly, and went to summon her maid to assist her in packing, and Mr Ffouldes roused himself, after all, to ring for Dawlish to attend him.