Elizabeth Kidd Read Online Free PDF Page A

anything to give even an innocent girl a fright.
    Elena started, recovered herself, and stammered, “I-I beg your pardon. I only—that is, I felt faint for a moment, but it has passed already. I did not mean to startle you.”
    Carey heard this and hastened to offer his support, making concerned noises until Elena whispered with unusual ferocity, “Please do stop, Carey! I am perfectly well. I do not wish to go home. Let us look at the pictures now and say no more about it!”
    Kedrington had fallen back to join his wife and whispered, as the young couple wandered off, “What can that have meant?”
    “I’m certain it was something about this drawing,” Antonia said, staring at the charcoal sketch. “But I see nothing unusual about it, do you?”
    Kedrington gave it a considered study. “It is neither unusually bad nor unusually good, although it succeeds in representing its subject with reasonable objectivity. As I recall, the figures depicted are not nearly so heroic as one might suppose from this illustration, but undue license cannot be said to have been taken.”
    “When you go on in that erudite fashion, I know your mind is working on some other problem—what is it?”
    “The same problem—Miss Melville’s odd reaction to seeing this perfectly ordinary picture. However, I fear the answer will be revealed only with time, if then, so I expect we had best put it out of our minds for now.”
    She gazed at him, frowning slightly, but he only kissed her cheek and said, “Shall we join the youngsters again?”
     

Chapter 3
     
    The morning following the Drummonds’ reception seemed designed to improve the already excellent reputation of English springs, and Lady Kedrington, glancing out of her window, smiled back at the sun as at a good omen.
    Antonia was not in general an early riser, having been, as she was the first to admit, corrupted by town ways. When she had lived in the country and run her brother’s estate for him during the years while he served with the army in the Peninsula, she had been perfectly content to be up with the chickens, but two seasons in London had been sufficient to reveal to her an unexpected inclination to lie abed until at least nine, or later after an evening social event.
    Thus it was unusual for her to be awake and prepared to venture into the world at ten o’clock, but she was dressed in an appropriately seasonal India muslin day dress and a villager hat with pink plumes which bounced jauntily when she moved. She had put her husband’s oddly inscrutable behavior at last night’s reception out of her mind even before they returned home, for her thoughts were already on how best to show Miss Melville that she would be welcomed wholeheartedly into the family.
    She had begun planning a busy social schedule to introduce Elena to the rest of their circle as well, until it occurred to her that the younger lady’s tastes might not run to the kind of merry, highly voluble dinners and card parties which Antonia favored. She therefore turned, as she often did when she found herself in a social quandary, to her husband’s aunts, and that morning found her on her way to consult them.
    Miss Julia Wilmot and Miss Hester Coverley resided together in a small house on Berkeley Square, the door to which was opened by their aged butler, who betrayed only by a slight slackening of the wrinkles around his rheumy eyes that he was pleased to see Lady Kedrington.
    “Good morning, Webster,” said her ladyship, breezing past him into the hall. “Are the ladies at home?”
    This was a rhetorical question, as Miss Wilmot never left her house other than on two journeys a year to and from her home in Berkshire. Miss Coverley never left it before noon, although after that hour, she might be found anywhere in the city, for her acquaintance was as widespread as it was varied. Nonetheless, visitors were received only on Sundays, with the exception of family members, who attendance was desired much more