Chapter SevenNolita could only stare at the Marchioness who, wearing a negligée of patterned satin covered with lace and bows of velvet ribbon, looked as if she had just stepped out from a picture of Queen Elizabeth I.
Her mascaraed eyes seemed to take in every detail of the scene that was being enacted in the schoolroom and immediately Esmond Farquahar began to bluster.
“I came up to see if Bettine was all right – after her unpleasant adventure,” he stammered.
He was walking towards the Marchioness as he spoke, but she ignored him.
She looked at Nolita and there was no mistaking the anger in her face.
“I think, Miss Walford,” she said icily, “that someone should tell you how lamentably you have failed in your duty towards my grandchild. If you had been looking after her properly, you
