A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau Read Online Free PDF Page A

But there was a confidence and a self-assurance about her that seemed excuse enough for the absence of escorts or companions. And she had a beauty and arrogance of bearing, coupled with an impeccable taste for design and elegance, that made one hesitate about describing her appearance as vulgar or even inappropriate to her age.
    She had few, if any, close friends. There was an air of aloofness, even of mystery, about her, even though she conversed quite freely about her travels and experiences. Everyone knew who she was—the daughter of a respectable but impoverished Scottish gentleman, the widow of Sir Christian Stapleton of Brookhurst. She was amiable, charming, sociable—and yet she gave the impressionthat there was a great deal more to be known about her than she had ever revealed.
    She was invited everywhere. Gentlemen found her fascinating despite the fact that she was long past her youth. Ladies were secretly envious of her, though her age protected her from their jealousy. Yet the feeling was—though no one could quite explain it—that she hovered dangerously close to the edge of respectability.
    She knew it. And cared not the snap of two fingers. She had decided long ago—six years ago, to be precise—that life was to be lived and enjoyed, and live it and enjoy it she would. She had earned her enjoyment. She had been snatched from the love of her life—or so she had thought with the foolish sensibilities to which very young people were so prone—at the age of nineteen in order to be forced into marriage with the wealthy, fifty-four-year-old Sir Christian Stapleton. She had lived through seven years of marriage to him with bright smiles and determined affection and feigned eagerness in the marriage bed. She had lived through—but she would not remember what else she had lived through during those years. She had punished herself after her husband’s death for her widowhood and her youth and her human frailties by retiring to a quiet life in Scotland, where she had seen her former love himself married with five children and an eagerness to begin an affair with her. Although she had longed to give in, she had resisted and had in general become a dull and abject creature, as if she believed that she deserved no better.
    She deserved better. She deserved to live. Everyone deserved to live. No one owed anyone else anything. She owed no one anything. And if she did, then she had more than paid with eleven years of her life—seven with Christian and four after his death.
    At the age of thirty—perhaps it was the nasty shock of that particular number—she had thrown off theshackles. And though she was always careful to cling to the semblance of respectability, she did not care that she hovered close to its edge. Indeed, she rather enjoyed the feeling of being almost, but not quite, notorious.
    H ELENA ARRIVED RATHER late at Lady Greenwald’s soirée, as was customary with her. She liked to arrive after everyone else so that she could look about her and choose the group to which she wished to attach herself. She hated to be caught among people who had no conversation beyond the weather and the state of their health. She liked to be with interesting people.
    She was acquainted with most of the people, she saw, standing in the doorway, looking about her. But then one usually was at
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events in London. And it was even more true of events outside of the Season. There were not a great many families in residence at this time of the year. Inevitably, all who were, were invited everywhere. Equally inevitably, all who were invited attended every function.
    The Marquess of Carew was there, she saw, in the midst of a group of his particular friends. She had met the marquess for the first time just the week before. She had not sought out the introduction since he was a very ordinary-looking man with a slightly crippled hand and foot and a smiling placidity of manner that usually denoted dullness. He had spoken to her about