Imprudence Read Online Free PDF

full mane of brown hair in a manner that made her latest beau sound not unlike a very desirable racehorse. Rue would have been supportive if she sensed any real affection from her friend, but Primrose seemed to be in hot pursuit of a fiancé merely because she felt she
ought
to have one.
    Rue was a romantic. Her parents were a love match. Had to be, for there was no other possible explanation for them tolerating one another. Thus Rue held the very peculiar opinion that love made for a most agreeable form of companionship.
    Primrose, on the other hand, was trying to
arrange
a match for herself – affection be damned.
    â€œPrim, are you sure it is a good idea? Do you love him?”
    Prim gave a brittle laugh. “Oh, I’m not certain I’m capable of loving any man. I’m too sensible for that. This is easier. And he does have
very
nice legs.”
    Rue could think of no better reason, at the moment, for marrying. Quesnel, she mused, also had nice legs. And then she reminded herself she was annoyed with him. Her erstwhile beau had disappeared. He’d received an aetherogram while they were still in India and promptly floated off to Egypt. He was supposed to be educating her in the ways of the carnal flesh, or so she thought they’d agreed. But before anything got carnal or fleshy, he’d abandoned her for a
rented
dirigible berth with nothing more than a peck on the cheek and a cheery farewell. Rue felt rather rejected as a result. He ought to be teaching her French techniques and instead he and his nice legs were gallivanting about deserts and whatnot.
    â€œI should be wary of a man with nice legs, if I were you.” Rue considered stretched buckskin meditatively. “They use them rather too readily.”

    The
Spotted Custard
, Rue’s pride and joy, was moored off Worple Road in Wimbledon, not far from Baroness Tunstell’s hive house. Rue was paying a handsome sum to the All England Croquet, Lawn Tennis, and Airborne Polo Club for hovering rights and use of the green for outfitting and repairs. They’d lost their old mooring in Regent’s Park to float squatters, and Rue wanted something with more security than Hyde Park afforded. The court was well lit, well guarded, and quite respectable, proving to be an ideal arrangement all around, so she tried not to resent the expense.
    Although Rue adored her airship, she did have a tendency to push the chubby craft to its limits. This – plus a certain near aetheric attraction for sharp objects hurled by, for example, weremonkeys – had left
The
Spotted Custard
more in need of repairs than outfitting upon their return to London. Thus, while the officers of
The
Spotted Custard
– mostly comprised of Rue and her friends – kept supernatural hours, the rest of the crew switched to daylight for ease of visibility in order to conduct said repairs.
    Outfitting had included restocking and refuelling and the addition of a sparkling new Gatling gun for the port side, much to Spoo’s delight. Spoo, head deckling, was quite as bloodthirsty as any boy of her age was wont to be. Amusing when compared to her best friend, Virgil, who was as prissy as any girl of his age.
    The gun was a gift from Dama, who, despite his tea-drenched grudge, refused to let Rue’s twenty-first birthday slip by without acknowledgement. Rue had been in India on the actual date of the occurrence, likely acting the part of naked native goddess. Frankly, attaining her official majority had entirely slipped her mind. But no one could refute that she had indeed turned twenty-one, papers were filed, she was legally an adult, a free woman, and a ward of no one – vampire or otherwise. At her return home, Dama had presented Rue with a large shiny rapid-fire gun because, as he said, she was all grown up and a fully fledged independent now, and
knowing her family propensities, she’d need a ruddy big gun
.
    It being well after dark, Rue, Prim, and