A Matter of Class Read Online Free PDF Page B

crooked.
    â€œSo, are you coming again, then?” he asked her.

    â€œI might,” she said as he bent and handed her her spencer. He kept hold of her bonnet until she was ready for it.
    â€œJust so that I know never to come here again,” he added.
    â€œSuit yourself,” she told him. But there was something like a smile in his eyes, and Annabelle laughed out loud.
    He laughed back at her.
    â€œWe could be friends,” she said.
    He pulled a face.
    â€œWe had better not let anyone know when we go to church,” he said.
    â€œI will not look at you at all,” she said, “because I am not allowed to. But when I do , I shall look like this .”
    And she borrowed one of her mother’s haughtiest expressions. Not that her mother used it often, but Annabelle had always admired it and practiced it frequently before the looking glass in the nursery.
    â€œAnd I shall look at you like this, ” Reggie said and let his half-closed eyes move slowly and insolently down her body from her head to her toes.
    They snorted and giggled together.
    â€œI have to go,” she said. “Nurse will be missing me.”

    And there was a stronger reason than Nurse. She had a hard time not dancing from one foot to the other. She was going to have to stop and squat among the trees as soon as she was out of his sight, even though it would be a dreadfully unladylike thing to do.
    â€œAm I keeping you?” he asked with cool indifference, raising his eyebrows.
    She went dashing off for home without retaliating. Reggie, Reggie, Reggie.
    The Mason boy.
    Her new friend.
    Who was all of eight years old and thought she had pluck .
    His eyes were brown, not black.

3
    â€œ Y ou will thank me for this one day, lad,” Reggie’s father said with hearty good humor as his carriage rocked to a halt outside Havercroft House on Berkeley Square at precisely one minute to two in the afternoon. “Sowing wild oats is one thing, and I paid well enough to educate you in such a way that you were almost bound to sow them just like any other young gentleman. But excessive extravagance is not the way to make or preserve a fortune. The best thing for that is a good and prudent woman, like your mother.”
    â€œAnd like Lady Annabelle Ashton?” Reggie raised his eyebrows.

    â€œOh, Bernie,” his mother said—yes, she was with them too for this historic first-ever visit through the front door of an earl’s residence. Reggie feared this was going to be an excruciatingly public offer of marriage. “Lady Annabelle has always been as pretty as any picture, and she and Reginald will make a handsome couple. But are you quite, quite sure about this? How do we know she is not pining for the young man who tried to elope with her? Though it does sound as if he is not worthy of her if he would abandon her without a fight. How do we know that she has any part of her heart left to give our Reginald?”
    â€œShe is a fortunate young lady,” Reggie’s father replied, still beaming with genial triumph, “that Reginald is willing to have her. He is good at heart, as we both know, though what has got into him lately, I do not know. It seems rather late in the day for wild oats. Never mind about love, though, Sadie. That will come in time. Not that either of them deserves it, mind you.”
    â€œ Willing may not be quite the right word, sir,” Reggie muttered just as the coachman opened the carriage door and set down the steps.

    â€œOh, I wish , Reginald,” his mother said, “you would not call your father sir , just like a gentleman with no warmth of family affection in his heart.”
    â€œI am sorry, Ma,” Reggie said, smiling apologetically at her. “I’ll call him Da as if I were still an infant, then, shall I?”
    â€œYou will always be my little boy,” she said sadly. “I shall weep if you ever start calling me ma’am .”
    Reggie