How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

must say. For an adulteress, I expected something quite different. But I can report that she wears an excess of rouge.” Pausing, Sarah glanced sideways at Lucy Bridges, who was halfway through a jam tart and had bulging cheeks that were suspiciously robin’s breast in hue. “But apart from that, I saw nothing extraordinary about her. She looked like any other woman of middle age, just slightly sillier.”
    “Middle age?”
    “About thirty,” Sarah replied. “Although all the powder and rouge might make her look that old.”
    Diana bit her lip and stirred her tea violently.
    “I do wish I could have gone to the dance and seen the adulteress,” exclaimed Lucy, scowling fiercely at the crumbs left on her plate. “It is most unfair that I cannot go anywhere more interesting than these book society meetings for another fortnight at least. Papa has forbidden me to leave the village or attend any functions in mixed company.”
    “You are in mourning for your grandmother,” Diana reminded her.
    “Yes, and thanks to her, I have missed the last assembly dance of the season.”
    Rebecca gave a scornful snort. “How inconvenient for you that your poor grandmother chose this month to shuffle off her mortal coil.”
    “Well, she didn’t even like me and made no bones about it, so why should I feel sorry?” Lucy glanced over at Diana. “Oh, and by the by, before I forget, Mama asked me to thank you for the scones you brought over. Although they were not very well risen and rather hard, she said since you have naught else to do, perhaps you might make us some more. Little Timothy devoured four and he’s such a troublesome eater usually.”
    Before Diana could explain that they were not scones but Welsh cakes, Lucy turned back to the others and snapped, “Grandmama said I was a terrible, flighty girl and that I should be shut away in an attic with nothing but bread and milk until I was beyond my most trying age .”
    Rebecca laughed, and Justina, seated beside her on the sofa, said, “I fear that would have been a long wait.”
    Lucy stuck out her small chin. “Oh, you are all so clever and smug now. But I remember, Jussy, when you were always in trouble, and it was not so long ago when you were getting me into it too! Before Mr. Wainwright came here and married you.”
    “You make it sound as if he tamed me.”
    “Everybody says he did.”
    “I can assure you he did not!” Justina straightened her shoulders in protest. “I tamed him , if you must know.”
    Rebecca intervened with her shilling’s worth. “But Luke says you’ve made his brother much naughtier than he used to be.”
    “I made him smile more. Is that a crime?”
    “It depends, dear Jussy, upon the methods you employed to achieve that smile.” At that they both chuckled until Lucy dropped her cup into her saucer with a clatter.
    “Oh, don’t start cooing again about your dratted husbands,” she cried. “I am rendered nauseous by hearing about them and their latest gallant deeds every time we come to this stuffy parlor. We’re supposed to be discussing the book.”
    Lucy was usually the last person present to show any interest in the book they read, but little pleased her these days. She had been foundering in a permanently sour mood ever since her mother birthed yet another baby boy that winter, giving Lucy the pleasure of six younger brothers. This was bad enough, but when her curmudgeonly grandmother’s demise severely curtailed what remained of her social life, that was the last straw.
    Diana looked on as her friends bickered. It seemed as if there was too often tension in their book society meetings, and they no longer had sweet, even-tempered Catherine Penny to bring peace in her gentle manner. Since she had moved away from the village to become Mrs. Forester, the loss of her steadying influence was greatly felt. Diana might have taken over the role of adjudicator, being the eldest remaining in their group, but as an unmarried lady past