Accidentally in Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

the name that suits you best,” she snapped.
    “What are you so angry about?”
    “The fact that you don’t know is . . .” she stepped away from him to stare out the front window onto the street.
    She was too angry at him, the stampede surrounding her drowned every soft noise that whispered she be mild and sweet and docile. Stampedes trounced docility. He was so attuned to his mother and not at all to her. Hadn’t it always been so? Had she expected being in London would change any of that?
    “Don’t you like being in Town for the Season?” he asked, his breath just reaching her hair.
    She resisted the pull to lean back against him. If they were at home, she might have. Being in London had changed things between them, but not in the way she wanted.
    “Of course I like it,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I like it?”
    “I didn’t say you shouldn’t like it,” he said.
    “Don’t you like it?” she countered. “So many lovely young women to peruse. I don’t know how you find the time to stand about in millinery shops.”
    “I was pulled into a millinery shop,” he said, his lips compressing in annoyance. She knew all of Kit’s expressions. She was intimidated by none of them. Entranced, yes. Overawed, no.
    “You were summoned by your mother. What else could you do but obey?”
    “Over the years, I have always been under the impression that you liked my mother.”
    “Of course I like your mother!” she said, twitching in annoyance.
    The milliner’s assistant looked over at them. That was nothing.
    Mama looked over at them, which was another thing entirely.
    “Mr. Culley, your dear mother cannot possibly decide if she can carry the elegance of ostrich feathers without your trusted judgement guiding her. Do come and tell us what you think.”
    “Of course she can’t and of course you must,” Emeline breathed.
    Kit ignored her and walked across the shop to his mother.
    It was a metaphor of their entire relationship and it produced the most profound feeling of hopelessness within her. She had to do something, anything, or nothing would change between them. Kit would bow to his mother’s wishes and marry someone his mother deemed worthy of him. Without the hope of Kit, she would marry someone her mother found acceptable and that would be that.
    Something must be done.
    If only she knew what.
    Kit was already at his mother’s side, mouthing assurances that she could, indeed, and should, most certainly, attempt the ostrich feathers for the musicale at Lady Jordan’s that evening when Lady Eleanor Kirkland entered the shop with Miss Elaine Montford in tow. In tow, most certainly. Eleanor Kirkland pulled all along in her wake, Miss Montford most specifically.
    They were all, the three of them, Out this Season, the difference being that Lady Eleanor was the younger daughter of the Marquis of Melverley, a man of a most unsavory reputation, though, as he was a marquis, his reputation did him no harm whatsoever. Even Mama had nothing ill to say about the Marquis of Melverley, and Mama could think of ill things to say about nearly everybody.
    How Emeline and Elaine had become caught up in Lady Eleanor’s grasp Emeline had not been able to puzzle out; she supposed that she should be thankful enough that Eleanor bothered with her at all, which was very nearly a direct quote from Mama, but she did wonder at it. Eleanor Kirkland was fast , a condition which almost certainly was a direct result of being her father’s daughter. Lady Eleanor was not ruined, not actually and not even circumstantially, which is why Mama encouraged the connection, but she did travel in fast circles and knew the most sophisticated people in the highest reaches of the ton , another reason why Mama strongly encouraged the connection. Mama was no one’s fool, as Papa liked to say.
    “Emeline! I did not imagine we’d find you here,” Lady Eleanor said, her eyes sparkling.
    Eleanor Kirkland’s eyes were a very dark blue and they were