If Wishes Were Earls Read Online Free PDF Page A

couldn’t.
    “The Miss Darby novels are not horrible,” she shot back, more out of habit than not. “I just got the latest one. Miss Darby’s Reckless Bargain . You must read it. Both of you. She’s been captured by a Barbary sultan, a prince actually, and he’s about to—” Harriet came to a stop as she found her friends pressing their lips together to keep from laughing over her earnest enthusiasm for her beloved Miss Darby.
    Preston and Lord Henry, after exchanging a pair of befuddled glances, begged off and went to find where Lord Knolles kept something stronger than lemonade.
    “Oh, don’t look now, Tabitha, but Lady Timmons is here,” Daphne said, nudging the duchess in the ribs.
    “My aunt won’t come over here as long as you are beside me, Daphne,” Tabitha replied, and rather gleefully so.
    “Whyever not?” Harriet asked, glancing over at Lady Timmons, who stood across the ballroom encircled by her three unmarried daughters. With a duchess for a niece, it made no sense that the lady wouldn’t be cultivating Tabitha for introductions.
    “She considers Daphne a bad example,” the duchess confided. “She wrote me that it was imperative I sever my friendship with Lady Henry or else she couldn’t, in good conscience, acknowledge me.”
    “Then I suggest you stay close at hand for Tabitha’s sake,” Harriet told Lady Henry. They all laughed again, for Lady Timmons had done her best to prevent Tabitha from marrying Preston, then had conveniently forgotten her objections to the match once she could claim a connection to a duchess.
    As Tabitha and Daphne begged Harriet for news of Kempton—the most recent antics of the Tempest twins, Theodosia’s newest scholarly pursuits, Lady Essex’s latest complaints—Harriet noticed something else.
    She looked from Tabitha to Daphne. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she nearly burst out, looking at the swell of their stomachs, Tabitha’s far more advanced than Daphne’s.
    “You know these things are not spoken of,” Tabitha whispered, once again the vicar’s daughter.
    “Pish,” Daphne said. “Men talk of breeding dogs and horses all the time! We mention a single thing about being in the family way and you would think we were asking them to walk down Bond Street without their breeches on!” She huffed a grand sigh. “Henry has gone so far as to forbid me from dancing—he won’t have me exerting myself in any way.” Her hands folded over the bulge. “He’s become as fussy as Aunt Damaris, but I don’t dare tell him that.”
    “Speaking of your Dale relations,” Harriet said, “your mother actually mentioned your name the other day.”
    Daphne’s parents had refused to acknowledge their daughter after she’d gone and eloped with a Seldon. Harriet never understood the point of it all, but to the Dales, the Seldon clan was akin to the devil. And vice versa. That their daughter had married one . . . well . . .
    “Our happy news has helped, but I believe I have Cousin Crispin’s recent match to thank for their changing opinion about my husband and his family.”
    “Then it’s true,” Harriet said. “Lord Dale has married her?”
    Daphne covered her mouth to keep from bursting out with laughter. “Oh, he did. Mr. Muggins saw to that.”
    Tabitha, mortified over the part her dog had played in making Lord Dale’s proposal of marriage—having locked the viscount and his unlikely choice in a wine cellar—changed the subject. “Is it true the Tempest twins are coming to London for the rest of the Season?”
    Harriet nodded. “Yes. They’ll be here in a fortnight. Their godmother, Lady Charleton, is sponsoring them.”
    “Lady Charleton?” an old matron who was standing nearby blurted out. “Did you say Lady Charleton?”
    “Aye, ma’am,” Harriet replied.
    “Can’t be right. Lady Charleton died . . . What is it now?” She turned to the even more ancient crone beside her. “When was it that Lady Charleton died?”
    “Two