He shook his head. ‘Not at all.’ He glanced up to see the housekeeper watching him from the landing window then and told her, ‘I’d best get on, miss.’

‘Yes, of course. Goodbye for now, Arthur, and thank you.’ At least she could enjoy the rest of the day knowing that Maggie was being taken care of. But she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what it was that had made her friend run away from home. It must have been something very bad indeed, she decided.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Once again that afternoon, Kitty found herself being dragged from one large emporium to another in search of a suitable gown for her next performance. Ruby was just declaring that it might be best to use the services of a dressmaker who was used to designing for the stage, when they found it. The dress was a beautiful sea-green shot silk, which clung to show off her slender figure, but again, it was very simple. Kitty fell in love with it on sight and when she tried it on, it fitted as if it had been made for her.

‘Perfect!’ Ruby declared. ‘And the gloves and the satin slippers you already have will complement it.’ Turning to the assistant who was hovering nearby she told her imperiously, ‘We’ll take it. See that it’s wrapped for us, please.’

The girl was only too delighted to do as requested. The gown was very expensive and the shop-floor manager would be pleased with the sale. Ruby then treated herself to a gown in a striking royal blue, but this one had so many frills and flounces on it that Kitty barely knew what to look at first when Ruby tried it on. But then as she was discovering, Ruby was very flamboyant and loved to stand out.

By then Kitty was impatient to get home. She wanted to get ready for her evening out with Richard to ensure that she looked her best, and she could hardly wait to see him. Just the thought of his handsome face was enough to make her heart flutter. Luckily, Max had an appointment with a client, and he drove them home soon afterwards. Ruby looked none too pleased at having the trip curtailed. Kitty was sure she would have shopped all day every day if she could.

The moment they arrived back at Brunswick Villa, Kitty shot off to her room. Mabel ran a bath for her and after slipping into the sweet-scented water Kitty scrubbed herself from head to toe and washed her hair. When she was done, she went to sit by the open window to let her hair dry in the breeze as she looked out across the streets of Chelsea. She still missed the wide-open spaces that surrounded Treetops. There was nothing to be heard there but the sounds of birds and the wind in the trees, whereas here there was a constant hurly-burly. But even so she was beginning to enjoy her new life and felt more than a tiny bit peeved that none of her former family had taken the trouble to write to her. Perhaps it’s a case of out of sight out of mind, she mused and tossed her head defiantly. She certainly didn’t intend to write to them again until they wrote back to her.