Fortune's Lady Read Online Free PDF

becomes you,” he told her, his tiny dark eyes gleaming with excitement.
    She murmured something appreciative, astonished by his tactlessness, then went back to staring with a kind of veiled chagrin at the man she was contemplating marrying. Mr. Frane’s chief, though not his sole, physical defect was that his swarthy, mole-flecked face was too small for the rest of him—which would not have been so daunting if only his body had been larger. He looked more like an ill-formed child than a man, although she knew him to be forty if he was a day. She was ready, even eager, to overlook this as well as his myriad other shortcomings if only he would show her some compensating fineness in his character—superior intelligence, a playful wit, spiritual depth. But up to now Mr. Frane had been content to keep his nobler qualities to himself.
    She offered him a chair but he declined, and she was too keyed up herself to sit down. She stood by the window, debating whether to ring and ask Clara for tea, or swallow her medicine now and let him have his say. She could see from his agitated manner that he wanted to tell her something, and she was dreadfully afraid she knew what it was.
    â€œI’ve brought you a gift,” he announced importantly, reaching into his inside coat pocket and removing a thin, tissue-wrapped object some four inches square.
    Instantly she guessed what it was. Years of finishing school training enabled her to smile courteously with her hand extended when it would have felt more natural, and infinitely more satisfying, to clutch at her hair and cry “Oh God !” “Why, it’s a playing card,” she declared after she’d unwrapped it. “My, isn’t it pretty?”
    He laughed indulgently. “Not just any playing card, my dear girl. It’s over a hundred years old. Flemish, you know. Notice the real gold leaf on the sides. And best of all”—he rubbed his hands together with suppressed glee—“the middle pip is asymmetrical!”
    Cassandra’s lips quivered, but she hummed politely. She was so very tired of Mr. Frane’s antique playing cards—a life-long hobby and, apart from herself, apparently his only interest. But his gift told her he meant business; although he’d shown her dozens of cards during their brief acquaintance, never until now had he favored her with one for her very own. What did he see in her? she wondered desperately. They hardly knew each other. She’d never encouraged him, had had to struggle to be civil to him. Perhaps if she knew what it was about her that drew him, she might like him better.
    â€œA rare card for a rare lady,” he was saying in his fatuous way, coming closer and taking her hand in both of his. It was a liberty she hadn’t allowed him before now, and his heightened color testified to his appreciation of it. They were much the same height, she noticed distractedly; for that matter they were much the same weight. It was shallow of her, she knew, but somehow she’d always thought her husband would be bigger than she was. She gazed back into his bright brown eyes, trying to imagine waking up beside him each morning, day after day, year after year, for the rest of her life. Her spirit cringed. How vain of her, how frivolous—and yet she couldn’t, really she just couldn’t—
    â€œMy dear,” he cried, holding tighter as she started to draw her hand away, “what a difficult time you’ve had! I thought of you all day yesterday. I felt such helplessness, such sympathy.”
    But not enough to attend my father’s funeral, she thought, and had to press her lips together to keep from saying it out loud.
    â€œBut for now, enough of sadness—you and I must speak of other things. I’m sorry to intrude on your grief in this way, but I assure you my purpose is to ease your mind, not burden it.”
    â€œYou’re very kind.” She tugged again