Candace Camp Read Online Free PDF Page A

family’s wealth would forever make her socially inferior to the elite who ruled London society. But she had a broad circle of friends and acquaintances that consisted of artists and their patrons, so she enjoyed a lively social scene frequented by people from all strata of society.
    Sir Edmund had performed one of his sonatas at the musicale, and Eleanor had been struck not only by his virtuosity on the piano but also by the beauty of the piece, which had brought her almost to tears. She had realized almost immediately that this pale, frail blond man was a musical genius.
    Over the course of the next few weeks, the two of them had become friends. Unlike most of the artists she knew, he was not in need of financial help. But as she had gotten to know him better, she had realized that he was nevertheless in great need. His health was obviously precarious, for he was wracked by fits of coughing that left him weak and suggested to Eleanor that he was likely consumptive. The damp climate of England could not be good for his health, she thought, but when she had suggested that he travel to sunnier climes, he had only smiled wistfully and told her that he could not.
    The reason he could not move, Eleanor soon learned, was his mother, a grasping, demanding, domineering woman who both leaned upon and dominated her only son. Whenever Sir Edmund left his home in the Kentish countryside to live on his own in London, he was soon bombarded with notes from his mother, all filled with problems that only he could solve or accounts of her loneliness without him. This servant or that was stealing from her; the estate manager would not give her enough money to run the house; his younger sister cried into her pillow at night, missing her dearest brother. The result was that Sir Edmund would go rushing home every week or two, abandoning the opera upon which he was working. Worse still, Lady Scarbrough would come to London to visit, and when she was there, she demanded that her son accompany her to balls and soirees, escort her to Almack’s and meet a number of marriageable women, all handpicked by Lady Scarbrough herself.
    Sir Edmund invariably did as his mother bid, again neglecting his music to perform a number of chores that could have been done by any ninny, in Eleanor’s opinion. To make up for the lost time, once she left he would then work late into the night on his music, free at last of his mother’s presence. As often as not he forgot to eat, which did little to improve his health.
    His servants were sloppy, his household poorly run, and he seemed to have only the vaguest idea about his income, whether from the estate that came with his title or from the money that had been left to him by his maternal grandfather. Such inattentiveness to the necessary details of his life did not surprise Eleanor; she was accustomed to artists and the way they often muddled through the practicalities of life.
    She wished that she could simply take charge of his life. It was difficult for her to stand aside and watch people’s lives run off course, and taking hold of a situation and making it work right was something she was extraordinarily good at. There were those, she knew, who termed her bossy and difficult. But she was also quite aware that the people who called her these things were never the ones whom she had stepped in to help, but rather those who were benefiting from the muddle.
    Eleanor had been certain that she could put Sir Edmund’s life in better order. The problem, of course, was that she had no right to do any such thing. Edmund was a grown man, not some poor orphan or servant at the mercy of others. She could advise him what to do, of course—and generally did, if the opportunity presented itself—but Sir Edmund’s abhorrence of any sort of conflict, along with his artist’s lack of concern over mundane matters, generally kept him going in his usual rut.
    Finally, one afternoon Edmund had come to her, looking drawn and gaunt,