Desperate Proposals (THE SEDLEYS #4) by Antonia Falk EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Antonia Falk
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 5.9 MB
- Price: Free
Blackburn, Lancashire, June 1873
EVELYN CAST A SIDEWAYS glance at the young woman sobbing on the
train platform. She was a slip of a girl, her face slick with rivers of tears, her
tiny hands clutching pathetically at a soggy handkerchief that was no longer
of any use.
And the keening, goodness, the keening. Evelyn tried to maintain a
neutral expression. Mercifully, it soon began tapering off, drawing closer to
a natural conclusion of heaves and sniffles.
Looking away, Evelyn pretended to focus on the station’s giant clock,
though she wouldn’t have been interested in what it read even if she could
make out the position of the hands at this distance. She didn’t need to know,
for Wright had delivered her to the railway station, purchased her ticket,
thrust it into her hands, and told her to board the next arrival. Wright was
always such a hand at these things. Strange things like rail travel. Evelyn
couldn’t remember how they’d gotten on back before he was with them.
She’d only been to London once, as a girl, and it had been enough
excitement to last her until now, her thirty-first year. Wright had been so
worried upon their arrival at the station that he’d begged once more to
accompany her, or at least remain on the platform to see her situated on
board. But Evelyn had shooed him away. This was something she ought to
accomplish on her own, without her family’s butler as a chaperone.
A sharp, guttural wail cut through her thoughts, signifying a new spell of
sobbing.
Evelyn shook her head, tutting.
Even though she should sympathize with the girl, with her own spirits
having been rather low these six months past, she could not fathom what
misfortune might compel one to put on such a maudlin—and worse, public
—display. Why, when Wright had informed the family of her brother
Edmund’s passing last winter, she’d certainly felt wretched, but to lower
herself to sobbing? Actual sobbing? A Wolfenden would never.
When the poor soul honked again into her crumpled rag of a
handkerchief, Evelyn could bear it no longer, and went over to her.
“Please,” she said, extending her own crisply folded square of white linen
in the girl’s direction, all the while keeping her eyes toward the tracks
before them. “Do take mine. I think yours is rather done in.”
Evelyn felt the handkerchief yanked away. She kept her gaze politely
averted as the girl scrambled to compose herself amid a flurry of sniffs and
hiccups.
“Thank you,” came a sputtering voice, high and timid. “I don’t mean to
make such a fuss, and oh, I’m sure I look a fright!”
“Well, now,” Evelyn said, venturing a glance to gauge the girl’s recovery,
“you’ll be set to rights soon enough.”
The girl blinked, two final tears rolling down her cheeks as she stared at
Evelyn, wide-eyed as if waiting for her to say something more. The thought
of continuing the exchange held little appeal, to put it mildly, so Evelyn
looked away again, concerning herself with the very boring brick wall on
the other side of the tracks.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB