Delsie Read Online Free PDF Page A

straitened circumstances. As Grayshott’s wife you would live a life of ease, in a fine home that you could soon set to rights. You would be a respected member of society, with a carriage of your own, good company to visit, a completely different life from what you have now.”
    She brushed all this aside immediately and firmly. “The perquisites of the position are clear to me, clearer than they could possibly be to you who are not really aware of the alternative, but I do not wish to marry Mr. Grayshott. My present life is not that distasteful to me. If it were a job you were offering, your niece’s governess I had thought, then I would happily accept. I cannot enter into marriage with a man I actively dislike, do not respect at all. My past dealings with him were of a sort to make me very decided in this matter.”
    “The marriage would be only a formality, in his condition. The doctor feels he —”
    “Yes, we have been through that, but still, he might live for years, and I do not wish to marry him.”
    “We had planned to make a settlement on you.”
    Her back stiffened at this. “Thank you very much, milord, but I am not for sale,” she said, and arose from her seat to accompany Lord deVigne to the door. Perforce, he too arose and walked reluctantly behind her. It irked him to be the receiver of the last word instead of the giver. He was not accustomed to being balked, but in this affair he had not much hoped for success. He could have accepted failure if it had been more kindly worded, or more meekly.
    “If you change your mind...” he said at the doorway, but she immediately overrode this suggestion.
    “My decision is final,” she said, with a certain set to her square chin that informed him to retire, before further angering her.
    “Good day, ma’am. I am happy to have made your acquaintance,” he said, and bowed and left to enter his carriage and return home, while the teacher stood at the door, smiling ironically at all his entourage, the footmen hauled out on this foolish errand. She must think him a coxcomb of the first water.
    Delsie had been tired when he arrived, after her day; his short visit exhausted her utterly. She hardly had the strength to crawl home. If she had accepted, she supposed he would have offered to drive her. She climbed the stairs to Miss Frisk’s attic apartment and threw herself on the bed. This is a new twist, she thought, sending his relatives to propose for him. What next, a minister with a ring, a choir hired, and a white veil? She shook her head and smiled, but in annoyance at their presumption, to think they could buy a person.
    It was the first time she had spoken to Lord deVigne. He was not as she had expected. But, really, she had never satisfied him to look before. She made a habit of looking another way when he rode past, to show her disinterest. She found she had missed a good many interesting details.
    His hair, for instance; she had not noticed that it was worn brushed forward. The Brutus do, it was called. And the outfit—with a little gold watch fob shaped like a wishbone. Who would have thought deVigne was superstitious? His eyes, too, were darker than she had thought, almost navy blue. He had a commanding aspect which suggested to her he was not Grayshott’s tool in the affair. Had the idea possibly originated this time from the baron himself? Was he that aware, then, of her existence, as to have known it was herself Grayshott would accept as a wife in this peculiar circumstance?
    And he never so much as glanced at her, or pretended to know she was alive, when they met in the street. To think that she, Delsie Sommers, was a subject of conversation at the Hall! It amused her to think of it. She accepted, after half an hour’s musing, that there had been no trickery in it. DeVigne had come in good faith for the reason stated. It was plausible, if peculiar. And she had it in her power to thwart the wishes of Baron deVigne. She must be the only person in