Fortune Favors the Wicked Read Online Free PDF

something from me,” Charlotte said. “My parents, I mean.” Not that she had much to give now. But for the past decade, the Reverend John Perry and Mrs. Perry had refused to accept so much as a coin from their daughter. Partly pride; partly duty; an even greater measure of shame.
    Which made Charlotte just another of the locusts swarming the Strawfield vicarage, taking much, giving nothing.
    For now. Not for long.
    Before she could ask another question, Barrett said, “If you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Perry, you oughtn’t to cut across the Selwyn lands. Lady Helena will get in a powerful rage if she catches you.”
    â€œDid you see me hiding, then? I thought I saw some of her groundskeepers.” A plausible excuse for cowering against the stone wall. “Silly of me. They were only a trio of reward seekers with digging tools.”
    â€œLady Helena won’t like that either,” commented Barrett.
    â€œAnd is her husband not in residence?” That would be Edward, who had married an earl’s daughter and filled his house with sons. Charlotte saw him too often in London; she disliked seeing him here, too.
    â€œNo, he’s visiting a friend. Some nobleman,” Barrett tossed off, as though dukes and barons and their like were all of equal unimportance.
    â€œVery good. That’s very good.” Handing the clothes-pegs back to Barrett, Charlotte continued around the vicarage to the battered front door. She knocked, waited, then turned the handle. There was never a servant at hand to answer the door. It would have been a family joke, had either of Charlotte’s parents been possessed of a sense of humor.
    Once inside the wood-paneled entryway that stretched into a narrow corridor, she called out. “Papa? It’s I, Charlotte.”
    The reply sounded from the small parlor to her left. “Of course it is. Only one person in the world calls me Papa since your sister’s passing, God rest her precious soul.”
    Always such a barrel of cheer, her father was.
    Charlotte peeped in to greet him. The front parlor was the finest room in the house, and she tried not to see it with London eyes that would pick out every smudge and faded spot on the flowered wall-papers. The hooked rugs Charlotte and her older sister Margaret had made as children. Her father, faded and thin as those worn carpets.
    The Reverend John Perry set aside his thick book and spectacles. “You must remember to keep silence in the corridor outside your mother’s study. She so dislikes having her translation interrupted.” Before she could reply, he clucked with dismay and unfolded his lean figure from his favorite chair. “You must change your clothing, child. Make yourself respectable! Lord Hugo’s friend is arriving today. Don’t you recall?”
    â€œYes, Papa. Of course I do.” She could not help but fix it in her mind, having been told seventy-five times since her own arrival two days before. Lord Hugo Starling, younger son of a duke, was the most fashionable acquaintance her father had ever made—if one excepted Edward and Lady Helena Selwyn and Charlotte herself, which her parents always did.
    One of England’s most respected young scholars, Lord Hugo had written to the Reverend John Perry after admiring one of Mrs. Perry’s classical translations. The resulting correspondence had ranged across many subjects; Charlotte had no idea of their scope. But when she had arrived at the vicarage, the reverend had informed her with no small pride that one of Lord Hugo’s friends had written a manuscript, and that the friend required a place to stay in Derbyshire. As he was constitutionally unsuited to public houses, he would stay with Lord Hugo’s trusted correspondents—nay, friends !
    He had waited for Charlotte to collapse with delight, but she had little interest in this matter. She didn’t plan to be in Derbyshire long enough to