The Marquess and the Runaway Lady by Samantha Hastings EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Samantha Hastings
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Genre: Novel
- Price: Free
- File Size: 2 MB
- Published Date: 16 Feb. 2023
England, 1810
Louisa didn’t expect gifts on her twenty-first birthday. Her aunt and uncle
had never given her a present in the ten and a half years she had been their
ward. If she ever complained about her threadbare dresses, or the lack of fire
in her room, Aunt Rockingham would explain that it was all her fault.
Lady Louisa Bracken was the only child of the Fourth and deceased Earl of
Rockingham. His younger brother, Alfred, had become the Fifth Earl of
Rockingham and had brought with him his wife and four sons. She had been
left in their care, and her mother’s fortune, which Louisa was to inherit, had
been entrusted to three trustees. A yearly stipend was paid to her uncle for
Louisa’s upkeep.
Aunt Rockingham protested that this allowance barely kept her niece in
gloves, and would rage for days at a time at Louisa’s selfish father, who
hadn’t trusted his only brother to care for the financial interests of his niece.
Strangely enough, Aunt Rockingham herself dressed in the finest of silks and
muslins. And had a pair of gloves dyed to match every gown. She also never
missed a London season, claiming that she must be there for Uncle
Rockingham to take his seat in Parliament.
Every time Louisa begged to go her aunt claimed that there simply wasn’t
enough money for such an expensive endeavour.
Pulling on her stocking, Louisa felt her big toe go straight through. With a
humourless laugh, she thought that she had to be the poorest heiress in all of
England. She didn’t even have a maid to help her dress. And the maids had
finer clothing than she did. Louisa had never once seen a darn in a servant’s
stocking, or a tear in their clothing.
She took out the needle that she always kept stuck in the hem of her skirt
and deftly repaired the new hole in her stocking.
It was all going to change today. Louisa was finally one-and-twenty years
of age and she could now take possession of her fortune. Buttoning up her
gown, she determined she would no longer be under her aunt’s thumb. With
her inheritance she would go to London, be presented to the Queen—as her
mother had been—and find a suitable match of her own.
She wouldn’t even miss her home, Greystone Hall. She had loved it as a
child, but in the last few years it had begun to feel like a prison. Her aunt
would only let her attend church, never the local assemblies. Not that it
mattered… Louisa didn’t know how to dance. Her aunt had insisted that she
could not afford to employ a governess for Louisa, let alone a dancing
master. She’d dismissed Louisa’s former governess the day after her father’s
funeral.
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