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extra lessons should at least take place in pleasant surroundings, and what could be more pleasant than the summerhouse?
    She and Emma breakfasted alone in the schoolroom, as they always did because the new Lady Lawrence disapproved of children at the breakfast table – or at any other table, come to that. Afterward they dressed to go outside. Emma put on a neat white lawn dress with a wide blue sash, and frilly pantalettes that protruded beneath its dainty hem. She had red morocco shoes, and wore her brown hair in ringlets beneath a little straw bonnet tied on with blue ribbons. Louisa wore one of her three day dresses, the peach seersucker with small puffed sleeves and a very high waistline gathered in by a ribbon of matching silk. Her dark-red hair was worn up beneath a wide-brimmed gypsy hat, and there was a light white shawl resting over her arms. After they’d selected the various textbooks they’d need for the lessons, they proceeded down through the house to the entrance hall, with Louisa exhorting Emma to walk, not canter like a small pony on the stairs.
    Sir Ashley and Lady Lawrence were emerging from the breakfast room. He was a gray-haired, kindly faced gentleman, thin and frail-looking. He had on a long green paisley dressing gown, and there was a tasseled cap on his head. His hand rested fondly over his young wife’s as she walked at his side. He doted on her, and had yet to see her in her true colors.
    Anne, Lady Lawrence, had a doll-like face and raven hair, and her lips were sweetly shaped. She looked angelic in her fine pale-pink jaconet gown by Madame Coty, London’s foremost couturière, but there was a steely glint in her green eyes as she perceived Emma and the hated governess coming down toward the entrance hall. Her humor was already poor this morning, for she’d guessed why Geoffrey had left the reception at Devonshire House the night before, and over the breakfast table she’d been endeavoring, without success, to persuade Ashley that his brat of a daughter really would benefit from a sojourn at Miss Ryden’s School for the Daughters of Gentlefolk in Kensington.
    Emma was delighted to see her father, whom she adored, and she ran impulsively toward him. ‘Good morning, Papa,’ she cried, flinging her arms about him and hugging him in a most undisciplined way.
    He didn’t seem to mind, smiling and patting her head fondly. ‘Good morning, m’dear.’
    Emma then looked at her stepmother, and her face became a little surly, although she executed an accomplished enough curtsy. ‘Good morning, Stepmama.’
    Anne’s eyes flickered coldly and she gave a brief inclination of her head. ‘Good morning, Emma. Would it be too much to ask that you conduct yourself with a little decorum? This is a house, not a barnyard.’
    Emma’s lips were pressed together sulkily, and she said nothing.
    Anne’s glance moved on to Louisa. ‘Am I to understand from your clothes that you intend to go outside, Miss Cherington?’
    ‘Yes, Lady Lawrence.’
    ‘I understood that mornings were to be set aside solely for lessons. I also seem to remember ordering that she had to do extra lessons today.’
    ‘You did, my lady, and she will do them; it’s just that I thought it would be pleasant for her to do her work in the summerhouse on such a lovely morning.’
    ‘Lessons are for learning, Miss Cherington, not enjoyment.’
    Emma’s face fell and she looked imploringly at her father. ‘Oh, please let me go outside, Papa. I promise to learn everything. I’ll learn a whole poem and recite it for you afterward, and two new French verbs,’ she added.
    Sir Ashley patted his wife’s hand. ‘There, m’dear, is that not a valiant offer?’
    ‘No, sir, it is not,’ she replied icily. ‘Emma’s lessons must take place in the sober surroundings of the schoolroom if she’s to achieve the necessary standards. Her boisterous behavior this morning must surely have gone some way toward convincing you that what I’ve