Lady in Green Read Online Free PDF Page B

chided, “just because you’re happy not to be Rob Hennipicker any longer, no reason to have your nose out of joint. I intend to enjoy my visit, see the sights, the Tower and Pall Mall and everything.”
    “And as soon as Aunt Ros and her friends hear my story, I’ll be safe with my own name, Uncle Rob, so you can stop grizzling.”
    They passed through twisty, dirty streets, then broad avenues shaded with trees and wide thoroughfares choked with traffic. They saw mean slums, then vast open spaces with houses set in parks minutes apart, right in the middle of the city. After a while they left the fancier neighborhoods for narrower houses on narrower streets.
    “This don’t look like Mayfair,” Rob grumbled.
    “It isn’t,” Annalise answered. “Didn’t you hear me give the driver the address? We’re going to Laurel Street, Bloomsbury.”
    “Thought your aunt was Quality, knowing all the nobs. What’s she doin’ out in Bloomsbury?”
    Henny looked out the window. “Oh, my, they sell near everything on every corner, don’t they? Look at that, Robbie, fresh lavender and milk and—”
    ‘Is Rosalind Avery respectable, or ain’t she?”
    Annalise answered: “I explained that the duke cast her off, remember? I never knew the whole story; it happened before my time. As far as I understand, Lady Rosalind was beautiful and in love with a handsome soldier, but her father wanted her to marry a crotchety old nobleman whose land marched with his. Aunt Ros tried to elope with her soldier instead, but they were stopped before reaching the border, but not before, uh…”
    “I know what uh is, chickie.”
    “Papa always said she was just young and in love, like him and Mama. He said the Averys fell in love with their hearts, not their minds, but the Duke of Arvenell never did care about anything but the family name. So the handsome young soldier was sent back to the army, where he died. Aunt Ros refused to marry anyone else, which was of no account, I suppose, for the duke’s choice refused to marry her since she was ruined, although there was no child. But Arvenell never forgave her, and she never forgave him, so she left home and came to London.”
    Henny nodded. “Leastways he didn’t cut her off entirely. She had enough income to set up her own establishment, though not the first stare, naturally.”
    “And it was a brave thing to do, because most of her old friends cut her at first. Not all of them, though, not when they saw she wasn’t setting herself up as a cyprian or anything.”
    Henny squealed, “Missy! What do you know about such things?”
    “Enough to know my aunt would never be one! She’s not invited to all the ton parties, of course, and the highest sticklers didn’t recognize her when Mama was alive, but she is still Lady Rosalind Avery. Maybe they do now.”
    “And maybe they don’t. Them niffy-naffy types have long memories.”
    “So what? Mama was not received, either, so I have no place in society anyway. Can you see Henry Bradshaw’s granddaughter being invited to Almack’s?”
    “I can see the Duke of Arvenell’s, for sure. And that’s ’xactly what I thought I’d see when I agreed to this harebrained scheme. Not settin’ you down on any primrose path with a fallen woman.”
    “Now, Rob,” Henny put in, “Miss Annalise’s mother always’ spoke highly of her sister-in-law, and she was real upset when Sir Vernon made her stop writing. Lady Rosalind led a quiet life, she said. I suppose she couldn’t do much better on the portion she had.”
    “And I didn’t come down in yesterday’s rain, chickie. No gentry mort lives in Bloomsbury.”
    “Aunt Ros is respectable,” Annalise protested, “and her friends are influential. You wait and see. Besides, until everything is settled, I’ll be safer there, where it’s quieter and away from all the gossip. No one will care tuppence about some hagridden female on the fringes of town.”
    “And when you get roses back in your