Gayle Buck Read Online Free PDF Page B

Caroline paused before she turned. Her eyes and her voice were extremely cold. “If you are implying that I have been setting my cap for Lord Trilby during his visits to the neighborhood, you are wide of the mark. His lordship and I have always enjoyed a neat, uncomplicated friendship. I am confident that we shall always do so.”
    Mrs. Burlington was delighted to have touched a nerve. “One may hope so, of course, for your sake. A lady needs gentlemanly companionship by inclination, and you have not precisely set yourself to capture the interest of any other eligible gentlemen.”
    “I have no great wish to excite anyone’s interest, Amaris. Along with my unnatural headstrong independence, you may add that additional oddity of character to your mullings about me,” Lady Caroline said. She reached for the brass doorknob and turned it.
    “My dear niece! Such fortitude, I do swear! No female actually wishes to find herself on the shelf, but here you are at four-and-twenty with nary a gentleman in sight,” Mrs. Burlington said.
    Over her slender shoulder, Lady Caroline gave her aunt a slow, cool smile. “My dear Amaris, I suspect it is better never to wed than to wed mistakenly, as your own example has so eloquently proved to me.” She exited the drawing room.
    Mrs. Burlington gasped. “How dare you! You insolent ...” Whatever else she might have said was lost as Lady Caroline pulled the door closed behind her in a decisive manner.
    Lady Caroline spent the remainder of the afternoon in the study, finishing up the most pressing business awaiting her attention on the desk. She had requested that a cold collation he brought to her in the study in lieu of dinner, as she was unwilling to stop what she was doing or to spend another unpleasant hour in her aunt’s company.
    Later, when the butler brought in the tray of watercress sandwiches, thinly sliced slivers of beef and ham, cheeses, fruit, wine, and so on, she put down her pen with a thankful sigh. “You come in good time, Simpson. My eyes are beginning to swim in my head.”
    “I do not doubt it, my lady. It is going on dusk and you have not called for candles,” the butler said in quiet reproof. He arranged the collation on an occasional table against the wainscoted wall.
    Lady Caroline looked about her in surprise. She had not realized it was so late, nor that the shadows had deepened in the room. “I shall need them, indeed, if I am not to go blind,” she said humorously.
    “I shall see to it at once, my lady. Will there be anything else?”
    “No, that will be all, thank you, Simpson.” Lady Caroline bent her head again to the figures on the page before her, her brows knitting again in concentration. She picked up the pen.
    The butler bowed and went away. Shortly thereafter a footman entered and lighted a long taper from the fire in the hearth. He lighted the several bunches of candles gracing the study before he, too, left on silent feet.
    Lady Caroline scarcely noticed; by that time she was properly engrossed in the tallying of the accounts.
    A half-hour later, Lady Caroline stretched her arms above her head with bone-popping satisfaction. The columns of figures had tallied at last and she could turn her attention to other things. Her eyes alighted on the letter lying on top of the stack of correspondence she had tossed onto the desk earlier. She picked it up, wanting to reread the missive that had so unexpectedly excited such vitriolic attention from her aunt that afternoon.
    As Lady Caroline read the letter again, a smile lighted her eyes. She sighed when she was done. “My aunt has the right of it in her own twisted fashion. I have indeed outworn my hopes. Dearest Miles. You have quite, quite spoiled me for any other gentleman,” she said softly. She sat very still for several moments, her eyes not seeing the collation that awaited her or, indeed, anything at all in the study.
    The families’ estates had been close enough that she had often met the