Almost Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

was pruning, and, grinning broadly, informed her that she was going to make her debut in London in six months, Elizabeth had reacted with pleasure and no concern at all about encountering any difficulties.
    “It’s all arranged,” he’d told her excitedly. “Lady Jamison has agreed to sponsor you – out of fondness for our mother’s memory. The thing’s going to cost a bloody fortune, but it’ll be worth it.”
    Elizabeth had stared at him in surprise. “You’ve never mentioned the cost of anything before. We aren’t in any sort of financial difficulty, are we, Robert?”
    “Not anymore,” he’d lied. “We have a fortune right here, only I didn’t realize it.”
    “Where?” Elizabeth asked, completely baffled by everything she was hearing as well as by the uneasy feeling she had.
    Laughing, he tugged her over to the mirror, cupped her face in his hands, and made her look at herself.
    After casting him a puzzled glance she looked at her face in the mirror, then she laughed. “Why didn’t you just say I had a smudge?” she said, rubbing at the small streak on her cheek with her fingertips.
    “Elizabeth,” he chuckled, “is that all you see in that mirror – a smudge on your cheek?”
    “No, I see my face,” she answered.
    “How does it look to you?”
    “Like my face,” she replied in amused exasperation. “Elizabeth, that face of yours is our fortune now!” he cried. “I never thought of it until yesterday, when Bertie Krandell told me about the splendid offer his sister just got from Lord Cheverley.”
    Elizabeth was stupefied. “What are you talking about?”
    “I’m talking about your marriage,” he explained with his reckless grin. “You’re twice as beautiful as Bertie’s sister. With your face and Havenhurst as your dowry, you’ll be able to make a marriage that will make all England buzz. That marriage will bring you jewels and gowns and beautiful homes, and it will bring me connections that will be worth more than money. Besides,” he teased, “if I run short now and then, I know you’ll throw a few thousand pounds my way from your pin money.”
    “We are short of money, aren’t we?” Elizabeth persisted, too concerned about that to care about a London debut. Robert’s gaze dropped from hers, and with a weary sigh he gestured toward the sofa. “We’re in a bit of a fix,” be admitted when she sat down beside him. Elizabeth might have been barely seventeen, but she knew when he was gulling her, and her expression made it clear she suspected he was doing exactly that. “Actually,” he admitted reluctantly, “we’re in a bad fix. Very bad.”
    “How can that be?” she asked, and despite the fear beginning to quake through her, she managed to sound calm.
    Embarrassment tinted his handsome face with a ruddy hue. “For one thing. Father left behind a staggering amount of debts, some of them from gaming. I’ve accumulated more than a few debts of that sort of my own. I’ve been holding his creditors and mine off for the last several years as best I can, but they’re getting nasty now. And it’s not just that. Havenhurst costs a bloody ransom to run, Elizabeth. Its income doesn’t match its expenses by a long way, and it never has. The end result is that we’re mortgaged up to our ears, you and I both. We’re going to have to mortgage the contents of the house to payoff some of these debts or neither of us will be able to show a face in London, and that’s not the worst of it. Havenhurst is yours, not mine, but if you can’t make a good marriage, it’s going to end up on the auction block, and soon.”
    Her voice shook only slightly, but inwardly Elizabeth was a roiling mass of bewilderment and alarm. “You just said a London Season would cost a fortune, and we obviously don’t have it,” she pointed out practically.
    “The creditors will back away the minute they see you’re betrothed to a man of means and consequence, and I promise you we won’t have a