Joan Smith Read Online Free PDF Page B

nostrils pinched dangerously, and the cold flash of his eyes would have frozen fire. “She’ll tell me if she takes the idea I’m not interested.”
    Lady Clappet directed a withering look at this piece of obtuseness. “She will know you are interested. Why else would you be there—Peter’s uncle.”
    “She doesn’t know that.”
    “You may be sure the ninnyhammer has been boasting of you. He always does.”
    “He won’t have showed her my picture. It’s not Peter’s uncle that will call, but Mr. Somebody or Other, who wishes to learn Latin. That is her story, according to Nettie Rolfe, is it not, that it is Latin lessons she purveys?”
    “Yes, that’s what she says.”
    “Let us see how she handles a homo bellicosus , ” he sneered, and arose from the sofa.
    “You won’t go to her at this hour?”
    “It’s only evening. Her sort open their doors after dark, Maggie. They don’t close ‘em, not on well-inlaid gents. I’ll not be back till tomorrow.”
    “I shan’t sleep a wink all night.”
    A parody of a smile pulled Luten’s face into a grotesque mask. “With luck, I may not either,” he said, through thin lips.
    Lady Clappet sat wondering what he could possibly mean, till she happened to remember her laudanum, and sent off for it.
    Luten went home to add to his toilette those expensive and gaudy ornaments that might appeal to a Cyprian. His largest diamond stud was inserted in his cravat, an emerald ring with a stone too big for its setting was slid onto his finger, and two or three gold fobs attached to his watch chain.
    With a shrug of his shoulders, he picked up a quizzing glass that lay on his dresser and attached it to a ribbon. He patted his pocket to ensure the presence within of a hefty wad of paper money. He had no intention of parting with any of it, but a thick wad of bills would impress an avaricious female of Mrs. Harrington’s sort.
    His preparations complete, he had the team removed from his crested carriage and harnessed up to a plain black one that was seldom used. Mr. Mandeville, whom he was about to become, would not drive a crested carriage, but in all other respects, he would be the pink of the ton. A financier perhaps, having the sound of big money attached to it, would impress the female.
    Inside the upper apartment on the corner of Conduit and Swallow streets, Mrs. Harrington got up off her chair, stretched her arms, yawned, and said she was for bed.
    “It’s only nine-thirty,” Trudie pointed out.
    “The light is too poor to knit on these dark woolens, and I have read the newspapers. I could write a few letters,” Mrs. Harrington said listlessly.
    The ladies had spent the entire day without company, except for Peter’s flying visit that morning. It had been a long, extremely tiresome day, and the immediate future promised more of the same. It was frustrating for Trudie to know that bustling, teaming, social London was out there, just at her fingertips, but held aloft from her by the lack of connections, and the inelegance of the apartment. In fact, they didn’t even have a carriage to accept an invitation in dignity, should one be offered. But she refused to admit to Aunt Gertrude that she was suffering. She had encouraged Norman in this plan, and for a year she could stick it.
    There was no warning sound of footfall on the steps, for Luten had crept up softly and held his ear to the door a moment before knocking. The first knowledge of a caller was a sharp rapping at the door. “Who could that be?” Mrs. Harrington asked in alarm.
    “I’ve no idea,” Trudie said, but she walked with hopeful anticipation to the door, expecting nothing more than a call from one of the neighbors. She was greeted by a tall, elegant gentleman with dark hair and eyes. His wide shoulders nearly filled the doorway, and on the shoulders sat a jacket that bore little resemblance to the provincial tailoring she was accustomed to seeing on gentlemen. It looked as if it had been poured