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

seen the truth in her words, and realized the futility of pursuing her further.
    Her mother—always right about so many things—had pointed out that Nathaniel was neither reliable nor sensible. He relished a deliberate ignorance when it came to bills and responsibilities. His manners, while open and charming, were never restrained but shared equally between all the women he knew.
    “He probably flirts with you, Diana,” her mother used to say, “merely because he knows how it torments me to see you being made an object of ridicule.”
    One could never tell with Nathaniel where the jokes ended and the real feelings began. Part of her didn’t want to know. Facts were easier to deal with than emotions. Her mother, the greatest influence in her life, dealt in facts and therefore so did Diana.
    Sarah read on in her clear voice.
    Captain Wentworth had no fortune. He had been lucky in his profession; but spending freely what had come freely, had realized nothing…
    The man, as her mother had said, was rootless, a gambler. He spent money as fast as he made it, had no appreciation for the polite ways of society, and seemed to make his own rules. All true, and he would gleefully admit it to be so. It was part of his awful charm that he knew his own faults and never tried to deceive anyone about them.
    Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth, and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it, must have been enough for Anne; but Lady Russell, saw it very differently. His sanguine temper, and fearlessness of mind, operated very differently on her. She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil… Lady Russell had little taste for wit; and of anything approaching to imprudence a horror. She deprecated the connection in every light.
    There was also an underlying worry for Diana’s mother, another reason for her disapproval of Nathaniel. Mrs. Makepiece had eloped with a man of whom her proud family did not approve. The mésalliance was brief, for he died early, but as with most missteps in life, the consequences of it stretched on. He had left his young wife with a baby daughter in her arms and a sack full of debts on her back.
    Since most of her haughty family had snubbed her, Diana’s mother was forced to rely upon the charity of an unwed brother who was then the parson of Hawcombe Prior. She became his housekeeper, and when he died, he had left them a small annuity and a few bits of china. The new parson did not require a servant, so she and Diana had been forced to find new accommodations.
    Then the Sherringhams came along and Mrs. Makepiece found herself paying rent to the eccentric, salty-humored major, her new landlord—a man she considered socially inferior. Oh yes, her fall from grace might have obliged the lady to take in private pupils for French and music lessons, but her pride remained undented. She still thought her blood finer than that of anyone in the village.
    Shortly after the Sherringhams arrived in Hawcombe Prior, Diana’s mother wrote to her very grand relatives, seeking forgiveness for past sins. These fine cousins, the Clarendons, had finally begun to acknowledge her again, and the sinking lady grasped desperately at this slender branch.
    “You must know, Daughter,” she exclaimed once to Diana, “that any close association with Nathaniel Sherringham—a young man of no breeding, no manners, and no fortune—will finish us completely with the Clarendons. And certainly do him no favors either.”
    Again, her mother’s advice was perfectly sound. It was evident that with his looks and charm Nathaniel could find a richer prospect, a wife with many more advantages. Diana was not lively like him and did not bring smiles to a room simply by being in it, the way he did. She preferred shade and quiet corners from which to observe the action. Nathaniel needed the sun. He thrived in it.
    He needed a woman who would never be bothered by his flirtatious streak. Perhaps a woman just as capricious as Nathaniel, a