Amanda Scott Read Online Free PDF Page A

Gazette, the other a cover note explaining the first. Carefully imitating her father’s hand again, she wrote them both before joining her host and hostess for dinner. Afterward, leaving her host to enjoy his postprandial port in solitude, she retired with her hostess to the saloon again.
    Seating herself on a green brocade Kent chair, Sylvia smoothed the skirts of her somewhat outdated cream-colored evening gown and leaned toward her hostess, seated nearer the cheerful fire. “I believe I am ready to deal with Greyfalcon,” she confided.
    “Dear me, how on earth?” Lady Joan’s eyes were wide. “And so quickly, too.”
    “’Tis simple. I mean to tell him he gets no money unless he returns to Oxfordshire.”
    “But you said your papa has no intention of exerting his power,” Lady Joan pointed out.
    “What Papa intends and what Greyfalcon shall be made to think he intends are two separate matters,” Sylvia said loftily. “I mean him to think that Papa intends to place a notice in the Gazette, informing Greyfalcon’s creditors that his trustees will not be responsible for his debts and that his lordship will have no access to his inheritance until he achieves his thirtieth birthday.”
    Joan gasped. “Sylvie, you couldn’t do such a thing.”
    “Yes, of course I could. I did. One sees such notices often, you know, and I copied the wording from one that was in that copy of the Times we were looking at earlier. Such a ruse cannot fail to bring him to Oxfordshire, you know, and once he is actually there, surely he must see how greatly his presence is needed.”
    “Sylvie, he will be livid.”
    “No matter.” Her tone was airy now. “I shall deal with his temper when I must. His mother needs him, his estate needs him, and if no one else will make a push to make him see that, then I must. And you will help me.”
    “I?” Lady Joan showed no sign of enthusiasm.
    “Yes, you. You said you would not two hours ago in this very room, and surely you have not become such a staid creature as to miss such a lark as this one. Moreover, I shall not require anything more of you than your moral support—and one other small item.”
    “What item is that?” inquired Lady Joan warily.
    “Only a footman’s uniform, so that I might deliver my message to his lordship in person.”
    Lady Joan burst into laughter. “A mighty fine spectacle you’d make, my dear. Have you not looked at our footmen? There is not a single specimen under six feet tall. You are a full foot shorter than that.”
    Sylvia frowned. “I forgot. But we must come about, for I am determined to know his reaction, and I cannot trust such an order to one of your people even if I might trust any of them to describe Greyfalcon’s reaction accurately afterward.”
    Lady Joan opened her mouth to speak, then bit her lip and kept silent instead, but the movement caught Sylvia’s eye. “What is it? Come, Joan, you have thought of something.”
    “Only that I do have a page’s uniform that might well fit you, though the page himself is stouter of build then you are. But, Sylvie, you cannot do this. Harry would cut my heart out if I let you.”
    “Oh, pooh, Harry knows us both well enough to know where to lay blame if he should by some misfortunate chance discover this plot. He might scold you, but if you do not yet know how to bring that man around your thumb, Joan, then I never knew you at all.”
    Lady Joan looked self-conscious for a moment, then grinned. “All right, I daresay I can manage Harry. After all, there is no need for him to know anything at all about it, but I still think it would be better to send whatever message you mean to send to Greyfalcon by footman. Each one of them may be trusted not to read the contents of your message.”
    “Perhaps, but I do not mean to take that chance, for only think of the dust that would be raised if such rumors got around London. In truth, Joan,” she added when her friend continued to look mulish, “I