A Lady Compromised by Darcie Wilde EPUB & PDF – eBook Details
- Author: Darcie Wilde
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Series: None
- Price: Free
- File Size: 1 MB
The Parting of Friends
Or are you following the fashion and turning novelist?
Theodore Edward Hook, Sayings and Doings
“Are you certain you’re not nervous?” asked Alice Littlefield as Rosalind
entered the dim front parlor carrying the tea service. “Because if I was about
to be shut up for weeks on end with my former fiancé’s mother, I would be
dreadfully nervous.”
“I will be visiting a grand manor house on an estate of thousands of acres,”
Rosalind corrected Alice mildly as she set the silver tray down. The elegant
service dwarfed her small tea table. Very little of the Thorne family plate had
survived their abrupt shifts of fortune. Thanks to several domestic miracles,
however, the tea service remained intact.
“And it isn’t as if I’ll be just sitting
in the parlor. I will be helping get Louisa to the altar in as much style as the
local church can offer. It shall be a positive whirlwind of activity that’s
hardly going to leave me ‘shut up’ with anybody.” Rosalind paused.
“Besides, Lord Casselmaine cannot be called my former fiancé. We were
never formally engaged.”
“Formally, you weren’t, but practically you were. You cannot deny that.”
“I could, but would it get me anywhere?”
“Probably not.” Alice helped herself to a somewhat lopsided bread-andbutter sandwich.
Rosalind had fixed their tea herself. Her housekeeper, Mrs. Kendricks, was
fully occupied with the work of closing up their small London house for the
three weeks of Rosalind’s stay in the country. In this room, all but one of the
lamps had been emptied of oil and wicks, and all the most valuable movables
were already locked away in the back cupboard.
As soon as Alice left,
Rosalind would spend the remainder of the day with her correspondence. She
had to be sure all her accounts were as settled as they could be, and then
answer a last few notes from friends and acquaintances. There was the pair of
unusually important letters that she must forward to Mr. Sanderson Faulks.
These would need to be delivered by hand. Mr. Faulks was an old friend of
Rosalind’s, and her family’s, and he had recently begun holding some
particularly sensitive correspondence in a sort of trust for her.
“Then there’s the fact that your former fiancé is now a duke,” Alice went
on. “And is possibly planning on offering for you . . .”
“All right, Alice!” cried Rosalind. “Yes, I am nervous. Does that satisfy
you?”
Alice put down her cup. “No, I’m worried about you.”
Rosalind felt her brows arch. “Why should you be?”
Alice took her time in answering, which was surprising. Normally, Alice
Littlefield spoke and moved and thought with a speed that was difficult to
keep pace with. Rosalind, on the other hand, had always been far more
deliberate, with a habit of looking steadily at whoever was speaking that
some found disconcertingly direct.
The friends contrasted in their looks as much as in their temperaments.
Alice was petite and dark haired, with a warm complexion and lively brown
eyes. Rosalind Thorne, on the other hand, was tall and golden haired, with a
figure more suited to sweeping skirts and cinched bodices of the grand dames
of the previous era than the high-waisted Josephine gowns and pelisses that
were currently in fashion.
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