Emily and the Dark Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

which had lurked in Emily’s mind for some time. It was not so much that she feared she would lose her reputation by managing the estate so much as the fact that ordinary life was going to seem very dull.
    If the Reverend Hector Marshalswick lived up to everyone’s expectations and proposed marriage, she should surely accept. It was likely to be the only opportunity ever offered. Emily was a practical young woman; she had lived twenty-six years without any man conceiving a violent passion for her, so it was unlikely to happen now. Hector was only thirty, prosperous, well-enough looking, and had the highest moral standards. He would make an excellent husband.
    Emily sat with the hairbrush dangling from her hand, wondering why such a marriage seemed a dismal prospect.
    This was obviously the reason society forbade young women from taking on unusual roles. It left them unsuited for marriage. Well, until there was definite news of Marcus and he either returned or her father agreed to hire a manager, there could be no decision on a marriage.
    She began to apply the brush again with a distinct feeling of relief. The brush did little good to her hair, however. She would have to bathe and wash her hair. So would Mr. Piers Verderan, she thought with satisfaction. But that conjured up an alarmingly intimate picture of that tall gentleman in his bath. What on earth was the matter with her? The violet-scented powder must have gone to her brain.
    She hastily took up her record book and went down to her father’s room, only stopping along the way to order water heated for a bath.
    Sir Henry now lived on the ground floor in what had been the library. It still contained a wall of glass-doored bookshelves full of sermons and agricultural treatises, but now it also held Sir Henry’s bed and wardrobe and the daybed upon which he was sometimes persuaded to lie.
    He was not a noble invalid. He complained a great deal and refused to make any effort to resume a normal life. He claimed it hurt too much to sit in a wheeled bath chair, and for all Emily knew he was telling the truth.
    She was fond of her father and made great efforts to ease his situation, but from reality or contrariness, nothing she tried was admitted to help at all.
    When she came in he was lying propped up in his bed, staring out of the window. He was pale, but with a disturbing port-wine color in his nose and cheeks. His once solid, hearty bulk now seemed a soft mass around him. He was complaining peevishly at his long-suffering manservant, Oswald. As soon as Emily entered, he ordered the man out and bade his daughter pour him some brandy.
    Emily bit back her protest. It wasn’t good for him, but he was drinking more and more each day. She and Oswald had tried watering the spirit, but Sir Henry had noticed the adulteration immediately. Without voicing a protest, she gave him the glass and her record book, then leant forward to touch her lips to his cheek. He did not thank her for any of it.
    “What foolishness have you been up to now?” he growled as he opened the leather-bound book. “That it should come to this, having a chit out of the schoolroom do man’s work.”
    “I’m twenty-six years old, Father,” Emily said quietly.
    “Old maid,” he grumped and ran a finger down the page. “You paid too much for those heifers.”
    “The war is driving prices up, Father. We agreed we needed new stock. We got a good price for the pigs.”
    “So I should hope. Twenty pounds for five loads of hay!” he exclaimed. “What fool promised you that price?”
    “Harvey of The Swan. You know there’s a tremendous demand for stable goods during hunting, Father.”
    “Then you could doubtless have got more.”
    He continued his carping scrutiny of her records while Emily struggled to be charitable. It was terrible for him to be confined here and in pain. But would it make his pain worse if he were to give her a few words of praise for her labors? She was coming to dread the