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

is…”
    “Just outside the window,” said the marquess blandly.
    Aunt Agatha and Marigold were sitting in chairs facing him, with their backs to the window. They turned slowly around, and Aunt Agatha let out a shrill scream.
    A pair of white, glace kid, button boots were dangling outside the window somewhere at the top of the frame. Inch by inch, the apparition descended. First the boots, then an inch of frilly petticoat, then a white tussore skirt, then a jade-green silk blouse, and then Annie’s red head topped with a wickedly simple straw hat.
    “She’s gone mad,” said Marigold shrilly, as Annie’s gloved hands holding on to a rope of sheets cautiously descended.
    Miss Winters closed her mouth and leaped into action. “John!” she shouted to the footman. “Rescue Lady Annie immediately. Dear me! She will be quite killed.”
    “I wonder how one gets quite killed?” asked the marquess, but the ladies were not paying any attention.
    Annie was now adding insult to injury by placing the soles of her boots against the window so that she could swing out over the area railings in front of the house and land on the pavement.
    The footman caught her just as she showed every sign of swinging back like a pendulum through the window glass.
    Marigold and Aunt Agatha sat down again, their backs rigid. The door opened and Annie sailed in. Marigold waited triumphantly for her sister’s humiliation in front of the marquess. Annie looked disgustingly band-box fresh considering her perilous escape from her room. Marigold felt that Annie had come off the best at the hands of the dressmaker by not having her clothes chosen for her by Aunt Agatha.
    Annie curtsied to the marquess, who had risen to his feet.
    “My apologies, my lord,” she said lightly, bestowing a charming smile on her aunt. “I’m afraid the silly servants locked me in my room by mistake.”
    “Then you were most enterprising to escape from it,” he said smoothly, with a smile lurking in his eyes. He was well aware that Annie had been locked up for some misdemeanor. For if she had been locked in by accident, she had only to shout or ring for the servants.
    “I see you are ready to join me for a drive, Lady Annie,” he went on, “and since your sister does not favor the exercise, I fear you will have to put up with my company. With your permission, of course, Miss Winters.”
    Annie looked pleadingly at her aunt. Marigold gleefully waited for the storm to break.
    Aunt Agatha said mildly, “Of course you are free to go, Annie. I know his lordship to be a fine whip, so you will be in good hands.”
    Marigold made a gulping, spluttering noise.
    When Annie and the marquess had left the room, Marigold started to scream, “How could you? How dare she? I shall write to Mother…
Oh! Oh! Oh!
”
    “Shut up!” said Aunt Agatha. “Yes, it might do very well,” she went on slowly. “Torrance may be a rake, but he’s quite a catch. I must telephone Mrs. Burlington and tell her the news. She has been after him for
years
for one of those pasty-faced daughters of hers and she said only the other night that, as an
unmarried
lady, I would find it a disadvantage in getting you girls fixed up. Hah! Wait until she hears
this
!”
    She sailed from the room, leaving Marigold to writhe on the floor in quite the worst fit of hysterical rage that that young lady had ever had.
    Annie was too unsophisticated to realize that Miss Winter had some grounds for being so triumphant. The Marquess of Torrance had never at any time in his life shown enough interest in any young debutante to take her driving. He had kept a succession of demimondaine ladies, which was not to be held against him. Such behavior in a marquess was glamorous. In Mr. Joe Bloggs of Clapham, say, it would be considered disgusting and immoral.
    Now that she had achieved the beginnings of her ambition, Annie felt quite shy and tongue-tied as she sat beside Torrance in the carriage. He was handling his pair of