Courting Constance (Fountain of Love) Read Online Free PDF Page A

smiled.  “It seems to have worked out for him.  She certainly acted like a lady today.”
    “That’s because you didn’t check to see if she had shoes on under her dress.  Anytime she entertains, she’s careful to wear a full skirt so no one can see that she’s barefoot.”  Charles shook his head.  “Father was mortified.”
    She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled.  “She sounds perfectly dreadful and wonderful all at the same time.”
    Charles smiled, his mouth quirking up slightly on one side.  “Yes, she was dreadful to anyone who tried to turn her into a lady, but she was also a wonderful girl.  She’s become a wonderful woman.  She teaches all the orphans to read and write all the while making them all feel important.  She’s going to be a wonderful mother.”
    Constance nodded.  “She is.  I’ve never met anyone quite like her.”
    He caught her hand, keeping her from finishing writing up the order she was filling out for him.  “I’ve never met anyone like you, either.”  His eyes pled with hers.  “Please let me take you to lunch today.  I want to get to know you better.”
    She stared down at the counter separating them, wishing he would stop asking her to do things she desperately wanted to do but knew she shouldn’t.  “I just can’t.  I’m sorry, my lord.”
    He sighed, and left a short time later after paying for all the dresses he’d purchased. 
     
    *****
     
    The gifts began arriving a few hours later.  The single red rose was first, and she brought it to her nose and sniffed it, running it to the back and putting it on the single dresser in the small room she shared with Alice.  Alice waited at the front while she did, claiming she needed to go to the necessary.  She didn’t want to get into trouble, but she also didn’t want her employer to see the rose.
    Next was a pair of white elbow length gloves, the kind a lady would wear for a ball.  She took them out of the long white box they were inside and smiled.  She would never have occasion to wear something like that, but she treasured them just the same. 
    By the end of the day, the counter was covered with many small gifts.  A blue ribbon, a book of poems with a page marked in it that she told herself she’d read later, a bouquet of daisies, and lastly, a pretty white shawl.  She did her best to hide everything off to one side, but she knew her employer was watching her. 
    “Do you have an admirer, Constance?” Mrs. Jackson asked in her carefully practiced voice.  She’d told Constance that her accent had once been perfectly dreadful, but she’d worked very hard to make it sound like she was from a higher class than she was.  Her voice still didn’t have the perfectly modulated tones of the upper class, but she preferred not to work in front of the store anyway.
    Constance blushed.  “I don’t know what I have.”
    Mrs. Jackson looked over the gifts that had been pushed aside.  “I need you to ask him to stop sending you gifts here.  You may receive them in your room, but not during business hours.  It was too distracting.”
    Constance nodded, her head down.  She didn’t want to get in trouble when she’d just begun her job.  “I’ll try.”
    “What do you mean you’ll try?”
    Constance sighed.  “I don’t know how to get a message to him.”
    Mrs. Jackson shook her head.  “ The gifts must stop.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” 
    Once she was in her room, Constance looked at Alice.  “How am I going to stop him?  He’s an earl !” 
    Alice shrugged.  “I guess we need to walk over there and tell him he’s endangering your job.” 
    “I don’t even know how to get to his home!”  Constance felt the panic welling up inside her.  She really didn’t want to have to tell Charles that his gifts were unacceptable.  She couldn’t lose her job over it, though.  It wasn’t like the man would marry her to take her away from her life of drudgery. 
    “I do.  I had