THE VICOMTE’S MASQUERADE (GEORGIANS IN PARIS) BY SOFI LAPORTE – eBook Details Online
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- Authors: Sofi Laporte
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Romance
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- Size: 3.7 MB
- Price: Free
Calais, Late October 1774
“Faith, ‘twill not do at all. If we don’t manage to find proper
conveyance to Paris immediately, you’ll miss your very own
wedding, child!” Mrs Wilhelmina MacKay wrung her hands as she paced in
front of a squalid harbour inn, the name Le Cochon D’Or fading in cracked
red paint on a squeaking sign swinging over the entryway.
“But, Aunt Wilma, I want to miss my very own wedding!” Miss
Melinda Finlay did not even bother to pretend to be the least bit perturbed
by the dismal prospect of missing her own nuptials. Her lively dark eyes
sparkled, and a tangle of unpowdered dark brown curls framed her face, on
top of which sat a little rakish hat. Her oval face lit up with a gleeful grin.
“In fact, I couldn’t imagine anything more delightful.”
With a groan, Aunt Wilma dropped onto the rickety wooden bench at
the auberge’s entrance, causing it to wobble dangerously. The view from
there offered a fabulous vista of the harbour and the sea, yet Aunt Wilma,
preoccupied with worrisome things, could not appreciate it. “You’ve been
harping on about this ever since we set forth from Scotland. May I remind
you that you gave your explicit verbal and written consent to this marriage
arrangement, and you promised your father to go through with this
wedding. It’s beyond my comprehension why you are so fickle now.
Though I dare say it is entirely normal for a bride to be apprehensive and
anxious on the eve of her nuptials.” She patted Melinda’s hands in a
motherly fashion.
Could Aunt Wilma be right in that she was merely suffering from a case
of the bridal nerves? For she’d like nothing more than to run all the way
back to her home in Northern Scotland and crawl into her favourite hideout
by Loch Eriboll. Since that was not feasible, she decided that any means of
delaying the inevitable was good enough.
“Not that I blame you for feeling anxious. This voyage has been nothing
but a series of disasters,” Aunt Wilma continued. “First, we were delayed in
Dover for over a week due to the inclement weather, then when we could
finally continue the passage across the channel, both of us fell violently
seasick. Then, lo and behold, we were told that the packet could not enter
the harbour due to the low tide, and we were ordered to climb into tiny
rowing boats from whence some watermen carried us ashore. The
humiliation!” Aunt Wilma shuddered at the memory of being grabbed by a
pair of rough seamen’s hands, and without ceremony, carried ashore like a
sack of turnips.
“Then poor Betty slipped and fell in such an unlucky
manner that she hit her head on a rock, rendering her senseless for an entire
day. The girl will have to stay behind now, for we can’t possibly wait for
her to recover. How on earth are we to cope without our abigail?
“To add insult to injury, it turns out all our luggage has gone missing.
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