LADY ANN'S FOLLY: Chapter Five - Part Four

At last, the correct version of this chapter... Sorry for posting the wrong one before. I don't know where my head's been at lately!

Hattie caught Mavis and Richard as they approached the stairs. 

"Er... Ann. Can I have a word? " 

They stopped and looked back at her as she came to a stop. There was something playful in Mavis's expression that looked incongruous on Ann's face. Mavis didn't like it at all, especially considering what the girl had said over breakfast. Lord Hurley wore his usual scowl of superior disinterest. He was attractive enough and certainly rich, but Hattie didn't really see why her sister would want to make a life with him. 

"What is it?" asked Mavis. She made no move to break away, instead hooking her hand through the hoop of Richard's arm. 

Hattie fumed. "I'm sorry Richard, but you don't mind if I have a private word with my sister do you?" 

"I have no secrets from my fience Hattie," said Mavis, smirking. "You can speak as free as ye like." 

Richard raised his eyebrows in mild curiosity at the attempted secrecy. He wouldn't have cared at all if there hadn't been a hint of it. 

"I wouldn't want to keep you from your packing dear," said Hattie, touching his arm, and when she saw he still showed no signs of going she lent in closer and whispered, "and it concerns subjects gentlemen might do better to avoid... if you catch my meaning." 

Richard's face went from pale to apple red in less time than it took Hattie to stand back straight and he spluttered, pulling immediately free from his apparent fiencee. "Er, right. Good. Well, I'll leave you two ladies to your discussion then. Er, right. Yes." He made an attempt to catch hold of his dignity; failed; tried again and this time succeeded. He gave a curt little nod, his tight-lipped smile and then withdrew. 

Hattie glared at Mavis. Mavis looked brazenly back at her and gave a whisper of a shrug as if to say, Well, what the hell? It was worth a try. 

"What on Earth do you think you're doing?" demanded Hattie. 

"Playing the part. What does it look like?" replied Mavis. "I'm Lady Ann." 

"No you ruddy well aren't," snapped Hattie, grabbing her arm and pulling her into the drawing room doorway with a watchful glance to see if they could be overheard. "You're nothing but a common girl playing dress-up. I'll thank you to remember who is in charge here." 

"I ain't forgotten. I'm just enjoying myself while I've got the chance." 

"What do you think you're doing, encouraging Lord Hurley to take you away from here? I didn't say you could do that, did I?" 

Mavis opened  her hands in a wide shrug. "Where's the 'arm?" 

"What?" 

"Well think on it. You wanted to teach your sister a lesson, right? Right now she's perfectly safe stuck in my body but I can tell you that she ain't been living my life. She'll've been up rogering Burt all night if I'm not wrong, which it ain't." 

"How could you possibly know that?" 

Mavis smirked. "You got eyes on ye. You ain't dim. You have seen Burt and you're a woman. Don't tell me you haven't imagined being with 'im yerself." 

Hattie blushed and cleared her throat, thinking back to the night on Griply Mount when Burt had propositioned her and how close she'd come to letting him have his wicked way with her. "I don't know what you mean." 

Mavis gave a ragged chuckle. "Of course you do. But what I'm saying is that you wanted to teach er a lesson and so far all she's ad is the best bits. Think about it." Mavis stepped closer. "If I stayed this way for a while longer; say a week in that town Nockton, while she's stuck ere, she'll have to just go on and live my life. One week - that's all it would be - and in that time she'd learn a lesson she'd never forget." 

Hattie stared at her flashing eyes, her grinning mouth, and she allowed herself the pleasure of measuring that out in her mind; playing the scenario through: her sister stuck in the life of a peasant barmaid; forced to tend bar and possibly even service the men of the village. 

How delightful would that be in its terrible beauty? 

"It would be perfectly safe," said Mavis. "She lives my life here while I go to Nockton with Lord Hurley. In a week's time I return and we swap back. And it would be nice for me; I won't deny that. It would be... a holiday." 

Hattie stepped back and regarded Mavis thoughtfully. It was remarkable how like the real Ann she was already in her poise and manner. She would be able to pull off the charade perfectly well, Hattie was sure of it. And the real Ann, if that even was the original Ann... What of her? She would certainly get her just desserts. 

Mavis smirked, seeing the mental cogs turning. "What do you think then?" she asked. "Do you want to really teach her a lesson? Or would you prefer to let her have every advantage?" 

Hattie came to a decision. "Alright then. Yes. I agree. One week and no more." She raised her finger. "No more, do you understand?" 

"Of course," replied Macis. "I'll have had more than enough fun from it by then. And don't worry." She smiled sweetly. "You can trust me." 

They shook hands and with another little smirk, Mavis started up the stairs, leaving Hattie to her thoughts. 

The strumpet was right. It was more than a shame to cut Ann's penance short just as it was starting. Where was the fun in that. 

And it got her to thinking about the other ideas she had started to formulate. Her initial ideas had been quite transitory and brief, but perhaps she should give some thought to raising the stakes there too. She was tired of being a second class citizen in her own family. It was long last time she taught all of them a lesson that they would never... ever... forget.