Clarissa and the Poor Relations Read Online Free PDF

wealthy and fashionable. His face was not handsome, but dark and saturnine, giving him a dangerous look that both thrilled and terrified many ladies of his acquaintance.
    ‘Grandiston. Did you see who that was? Miss Petersham. I thought her brother had said she was abroad with some relatives after the scandal when she cried off from old Charteris’
    ‘No doubt he did. If her brother is not given to dissembling we must assume that she has but lately returned. But I fear for his immortal soul.’ he said smoothly, returning Mr Booth’s hat to him. His tone was light and honeyed, but always there was a hint of menace in his tone when he spoke like this.
    ‘Why do you say so?’ said Booth, and turned to re-enter the taproom.
    ‘In a moment, my boy, in a moment.’ he strode off abruptly and had a brief conversation with a post-boy in the yard. Booth saw coin change hands as the Earl of Grandiston returned with a satisfied smile on his face. ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘look what chance flings my way.’ He put her arms on the young man’s shoulder and drew him into the taproom. ‘But you wished to know why I doubt her brother-- merely knowledge of his character. It may have been true but it may not. As a young cub he was wont to say whatever would best serve him. Most unlike his father or sister whose bluntness, as I have cause to know, was not always in accordance with modern manners…’ Grandiston paused and smiled as though at some wicked reminiscence, ‘…but refreshing all the same.’
    ‘You were a friend of Petersham’s, were you not, before you went off to the Peninsular?’
    ‘I was, my young sot, but have another drink and strive not to start another conversation about my military career - you know I find it a dead bore.’
    As his young friend did as he bade him, Grandiston lounged on the wooden settle of the taproom playing negligently with his quizzing-glass looking very much the sporting gentleman.
    He was aware that his one-time intended bride was preparing to retire in the bedroom above him but he doubted that she knew of her father’s plans.  When his dearest friend, Sir Ralph Petersham had confided his desire to betroth his daughter to him, he had looked at the sixteen-year-old beauty with astonishment.
    As he observed her progress in the next two years as she tumbled off of her high spirited hunters, her imperious manner to all who would thwart her will, her gentle manner to her servants or social inferiors and her love of the estate and all its tenants, he felt that she was just the wife that he had always dreamed of.
    They had fought and laughed together as they rode the farmlands together but only once had anything more than a sisterly feeling shown in her. It was when the rumour reached her, from a friend who had had her come-out in London the season before Oriana’s, of his flirtation, and supposed intentions towards a certain Miss Hazlehurst.
    Oriana had tried to draw him out on the matter and when he had chosen to quiz her for her interest, she had flown at him angrily, saying she could not imagine any lady willing to marry a man as ugly as the devil himself. With others, Miss Petersham was the ice queen, but with him a raging virago.
    Her jealousy had raised his passions -- but the war intervened. He could not look at events in Europe and do nothing. He could not speak to Miss Petersham while his future was uncertain. He accepted a commission and had spent the past two years in the mud of Portugal with the valiant forces of Wellington. Unfortunately, he found himself so frequently digging balls out of his body that Wellington himself sent him home. ‘For God’s sake man, a man’s system can only take so much. You’ve done your bit for war. I only wish I had.’
    Oriana had never known his intentions but when he heard of her father’s death and her engagement to Charteris he felt that she had somehow betrayed him and herself by taking a rich husband. He was in England again before