Carola Dunn Read Online Free PDF

thus more often you would soon lose that emaciated look. Though of course a lady must always be seen to eat like a bird.” She delved into the mountain of food on her own plate and carefully raised a forkful of buttered eggs past a vast expanse of plump bosom to her mouth.
    Muriel exchanged a smile with Rebecca. “Mama and I have to pay some duty calls on my neighbours this morning,” she said. “Do you care to go too?”
    “There is not the least need for Rebecca to come with us.” Cousin Adelaide’s tone was firm. She enjoyed being introduced as the mother of the future duchess and saw no need to dilute the glory of the occasion with the presence of an indigent relative.
    “You will not mind being alone?” Muriel asked Rebecca. “Tom has gone out with his bailiff and John rode up to Grantham to set Mr. Bevan on his way.”
    “Not at all. I shall go up and see the children, and then hide away in the library with a book.”
    The day nursery was a large, light room at the top of the house. The carpet was worn to a faded shadow of its blue-and-rose pattern, the furniture was somewhat battered, but bright chintz curtains hung at the sunny windows and Nurse was a large, motherly woman with a comfortable lap.
    The children were eating their nuncheon when Rebecca arrived. Mary, a dark imp just over a year old, banged a welcome with her spoon, spattering something white and sticky across the table. Ned, with his mother’s golden curls and something of his father’s staidness, climbed down from his chair and bowed solemnly before running to catch Rebecca’s hand.
    “You want some bread-and-milk, Aunt Beckie?” he asked. “It’s good. You can have some of mine.”
    She bent down and hugged him. “No, thank you, pet, I have just had my breakfast. Come and sit down and eat yours up, or Nurse will be cross.”
    “Did you have a egg for breakfas’? I did.” He let her lift him into his chair and his next words were muffled by a spoonful of food. “Unc’ John brung me a new book.”
    “Don’t speak with your mouth full, Master Ned,” said Nurse automatically.
    “He brung me a drum too, but Papa said only play it outdoors.”
    Rebecca stayed long enough to read aloud the tale of Tom Thumb from the new book, and admire the rag doll Uncle John had presented to Mary. She was surprised and impressed that a Buck of the Ton should have remembered his little niece and nephew, let alone chosen such appropriate gifts. What was more, he seemed to have spent some time in the nursery. Ned chattered about Uncle John saying this and that, and having promised to take him up on his horse. Lord Danville was doubtless right to call his brother a scapegrace, but at least he was a kind scapegrace.
    Some time later Rebecca made her way to the library. Tom’s taste ran mostly to treatises on politics and agriculture, but he had gathered a collection of books on China since his cousin Teresa had gone there. Rebecca curled up in a chair by the fire with a new translation of the Travels of Marco Polo. She was half a world away in spirit when the butler came into the room.
    “There’s a Mr. Exbridge to see you, miss. Will you receive him?”
    She had no time to deny herself before a short, sturdy man, beginning to run fat, pushed past the butler.
    “Uncle!”
    “Well, miss, what have you to say for yourself? A fine dance you’ve led me!”
    Seeing that the visitor was a relative, the butler withdrew. He did not, however, shut the door completely behind him, and he was hovering anxiously outside it when John, returning from Grantham, strolled into the hail and spotted him.
    “What the devil are you...” John stopped at the sound of a raised voice—an angry male voice—in the library.
    It was followed by a cry of pain. Once more the butler was brushed aside as John strode past him, slamming the door open. He paused on the threshold, his gaze drawn at once to the couple by the fireplace.
    A man was standing over Miss Nuthall,