Lady Anne's Deception (The Changing Fortunes Series Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

said Marigold triumphantly.
    “Well, he didn’t say
just
you, Marigold. He asked for permission to call on
both
of you.”
    Marigold gave a jarring laugh. “Annie! When was anyone ever interested in her, with me around?”
    “We’ve never had young men around before,” Annie flashed back.
    “Young! Pooh! Torrance is at least thirty.”
    “That’s not old, but maybe it’s too old for
you
?”
    “Oh, no,” Marigold said sweetly. “I have quite made up my mind to break his heart.”
    “It’s me he’s interested in,” said Annie defiantly. “He asked
me
for the last waltz.”
    “And what a little fool you looked, too, dancing on after the music had stopped. Lord Clabber, who had been dancing with me, just laughed and said you must have had a little too much to drink at supper.”
    Annie’s face flamed with mortification. “Well, it wasn’t my fault. It was
Torrance
who didn’t want to stop dancing. And he—he said we were
friends
, so there.”
    “Oh, really! Just like a big brother. Now men in love never want to be friends. Wicked marquess! To cultivate the friendship of my little sister just to get close to me.”
    “That’s it!” exclaimed Annie, seeing that Aunt Agatha had fallen asleep. “I’m going to punch you on the nose!”
    She sprang to her feet and the open landau swayed dangerously. “Just you try!” screamed Marigold, lashing out with her fan.
    “Ladies! Ladies!” called the coachman. “Your ladyships will have us over.”
    “What is going on here?” Aunt Agatha’s stern tone as she woke up made both girls subside silently into their seats. “Can’t I close my eyes for a moment, Annie, without you starting a fight?”
    The dawn sky was pearl gray and the birds were beginning to sing in the trees of Hyde Park as the horses pulling the landau clopped over the cobblestones. A water cart was washing the street silver, and already shopkeepers were taking the shutters down from their windows. A crossing sweep doffed his hat, and Annie, despite her sulks, could not resist giving him a wave. Her anger never lasted long.
    Carts laden with flowers and vegetables were straining toward Covent Garden market. Thin spirals of smoke were beginning to rise from the chimneys, and, in Manchester Square, there was the smell of frying bacon as the servants started the day’s work.
    The footmen jumped down from the backstrap to assist the ladies in alighting. When they were on the shallow steps in front of the house, Annie suddenly remembered Marigold’s wicked push at the ball. As her sister moved forward to enter the house, she stuck out her foot. Marigold tripped and went sprawling into the hall.
    With a scream of rage, Marigold leaped to her feet, her fingernails ready to rake Annie’s face. Then she saw the look on Aunt Agatha’s face and subsided into noisy sobs, burying her dry eyes in a wisp of a handkerchief.
    “Go to your room, Annie,” said Miss Winter, in awful tones. “I will need to think of a way to punish you. If this behavior continues, I shall have no alternative but to send you home.”
    “Mother locks her in her room when she’s bad,” said Marigold.
    “Then that is what I shall do,” said Aunt Agatha. “Go, Annie, and I shall come with you and turn the key in the door and take it away. You will not leave your room until you have written, five hundred times, ‘A lady does not betray excess of emotion,’ and you will spend at least the whole of tomorrow locked up.”
    “But the Marquess of Torrance is coming to call,” wailed Annie. “It’s not fair. Why am I always the one who’s punished when
she
…”
    “That’s enough!” Aunt Agatha pushed Annie toward the stairs with surprising strength.
    Annie realized that it would be useless to protest. As she mounted the stairs, she could not resist looking back.
    Lady Marigold Sinclair stuck out her tongue.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    Annie awoke to a feeling of doom. A housemaid was pulling back the curtains to flood the