For All Eternity Read Online Free PDF

would be quite dashing with that waistcoat.”
    Nicholas paused in his task to consider. “I do believe you’re right,” he countered with a nod.
    “And your new hat, my lord, the one with the curled brim. You should wear it. It’s exceedingly nobby, you know.”
    “By all means, I must be nobby,” Nicholas agreed, hiding his smile at his valet’s modish vocabulary.
    “Oh. And yellow gloves, my lord.”
    “Yellow gloves it is.”
    When Nicholas was at last dressed and had been pronounced, “Complete to a shade,” by George, he summoned a footman and commanded, “Please have Mrs. Herbert meet me in the foyer with that basket of strawberries I had sent down from Hawksbury. And have Wykes bring around the carriage.”
    It was time to claim his bride.
    “Lord Lyndhurst has arrived,” Heloise announced, bustling into Sophie’s dressing room. “And just look what he brought you.” She presented a beribboned basket. “Strawberries! He had them sent all the way from his estate, Hensbury, just — ” She broke off abruptly, a frown knitting her brow. “Or did he say Birdbury?” She considered for a moment, then made a dismissive hand motion. “Oh, well. It matters naught. What is of importance is that he had this lovely fruit sent down because he knows of your fondness for it. Such a kind, considerate man! He shall no doubt be the most doting of husbands.”
    Until he finds out about our deception, Sophie ached to counter. But of course she couldn’t, not in the presence of her lady’s maid. As anyone with a single grain of sense knew, servants gossiped, and one must always guard their tongue against speaking of private or ruinous matters in their presence. One must also take pains to foster the illusion of well-being, even if one’s world was crumbling around them.
    Miserably forcing herself to adhere to that last rule, she glanced from the berries to the mirror before her, smiling as her gaze met the reflected one of the servant arranging her hair.
    Because of the taboo against her expressing her true feelings for Lyndhurst, her maid, Mademoiselle De Laclos, had automatically assumed her to be thrilled by the prospect of his proposal. Thus, the woman had spent the entire morning rambling on about his lordship’s sterling qualities. Indeed, so passionate was her admiration of him, that Sophie wondered if she didn’t perhaps harbor tender feelings for him herself.
    Bridling her urge to sniff at that thought, she returned her gaze to the basket, trying to look suitably pleased by the gift. If only mademoiselle would hurry up and finish her hair. Between the woman’s incessant chatter and having her scalp jabbed with hairpins, she had the beginnings of a headache … a headache that threatened to blossom into a full-blown megrim at her aunt’s vocal raptures over his lordship’s gift.
    “Oh! Such lovely, darling berries,” Heloise enthused. “Just look at how perfect they are … so plump and luscious. I’ll wager that there is nothing like them to be found in all of London.” Grinning as if it were she, instead of her niece, who had received the gift, she held a berry temptingly to Sophie’s lips.
    Sophie recoiled back, shaking her head. Had they been from anyone else, she’d have taken it without hesitation and would no doubt have devoured the entire basket of fruit before tea. Seeing as they were from Lyndhurst …
    Lyndhurst or prison.
    The looming threat of King’s Bench prison was enough to make her feign a smile and say, “Thank you, Auntie. But I’m not very hungry right now. I shall enjoy the berries later when I have more of an appetite.”
    Mademoiselle made a soft clucking noise behind her teeth. “But of course zhee young miss has no hunger. She has zhee nerves, no?” she said, apparently mistaking Sophie’s lack of appetite for maidenly anxiety. “And no wonder. Eet isn’t every day zhat a girl receives a proposal from a magnifique man like Lord Lyndhurst? N’est-ce