And Only to Deceive Read Online Free PDF Page B

need a considerable amount of assistance in arranging the details and promptly wrote a note to the only man I knew who had suggested to me that he was adept at making travel arrangements. After putting it in the hands of one of my footmen,I found a copy of Baedeker’s guide to Paris and retired with it to the window seat in the library, quite pleased with myself. Glancing up from the book, I looked outside. Directly across from the window, staring at the façade of my house from a bench in Berkeley Square, sat the man who had watched me in the British Museum.
     
    “I BELIEVE THAT TAKES care of everything. I’ve given you your tickets, and your suite at the Hôtel Meurice will be ready when you arrive in Paris. It is not so large an establishment as the Continental, but I think you will find it much more elegant. Monsieur Beaulieu, the manager, will meet you at the station himself.” Four days had passed, and I found myself once again in the library with Colin Hargreaves, who had responded immediately to my plea for help.
    “I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Hargreaves,” I said, smiling at him.
    “I confess your note surprised me. I didn’t think you would want to leave London so soon.” He had a way of maintaining eye contact during conversation that was almost unnerving.
    “Neither did I.” I watched him brush his hand through his tousled hair. “To be quite honest, I decided to go purely out of desire to avoid social obligations.” He laughed. “Please don’t misunderstand,” I continued. “There are many excellent diversions to be found in society, but at the moment I find myself unequal to—I’m not ready to—” I stammered on in this incoherent manner for several moments, until his laughter became too loud to ignore.
    “Do I amuse you, Mr. Hargreaves?” I asked severely.
    “Yes, you do, Lady Ashton. You are trying too hard to be polite. Why would you want to spend the rest of the year attending the somber, boring dinners and teas acceptable for a widow newly out of deep mourning? I believe I share your view of society.”
    “Of course one couldn’t do without it,” I said.
    “No, I suppose not. It does provide us with a set of arcane rules of behavior and, as Trollope so aptly called it, a marriage market. And Iwill admit to finding great pleasure in a ball, so I imagine we shouldn’t abolish the entire system.”
    “Quite right. What would you men do if there were no ladies to watch riding on Rotten Row in the morning?”
    “I am certain it could lead to nothing good,” he replied, leaning toward me conspiratorially. I offered him a drink, which he accepted gratefully, crossing the room to pour it himself rather than making me get up from my comfortable seat.
    “I think that I shall have to give you an open invitation to drink my whiskey whenever you are here; I’ve no idea what I shall do with it otherwise.”
    “You could drink it yourself.”
    “An excellent suggestion certain to terrorize my mother,” I said enthusiastically. “Ladies should drink only sherry, you know, and I’ve always detested it.” He smiled and handed me a glass. I took one sip and cringed. “Foul stuff.”
    He laughed. “I think you shall have to rely on other methods of tormenting her.”
    “Perhaps I shall try port next. Davis tells me there are cases and cases of it in the cellar.” I twirled the undrinkable golden liquid in my glass, and we sat quietly for a moment. “I imagine you and Philip spent many pleasant evenings in this room.”
    “We did, Lady Ashton.” He looked at me rather pointedly. “It was in this room after a ball at Lady Elliott’s that he first told me he had fallen in love with you. He watched you avoid the attentions of a baron, two viscounts, and an extremely elderly duke.”
    “Philip wanted to succeed where other viscounts had failed.”
    “Hardly. He told me he had seen a lady spurn several very eligible men and that this clearly indicated she wanted something more