Lady Madeline's Folly Read Online Free PDF Page A

wholly slipped my memory that one of the better offers was from myself.”
    “You are the one who brings it up. I don’t know how it is we always end up discussing my marriage, when you really come here to pick my brains to see what I have learned from Papa.”
    “There must be some reason for it, I suppose,” he replied reasonably.
    Before he could say more, Lady Madeline diverted him with a completely new topic. “Where do you have your jackets made up, Eskott?”
    “Weston. But he is too expensive for your country cousin,” he told her with a sneering smile.
    “Nonsense. No price is too high for such a well-fitted jacket.”
    “Better send him along then, or he’ll discover Stutz, and have even more wadding stuffed into his shoulders than he already has. It is your intention to turn the sow’s ear into a silken purse, is it?”
    “Why yes, I am a famous magician in that respect. I usually perform one such miracle every season.”
    “You might pass your magic wand over his manners while you are about it.”
    “I come to think you could use a touch of it yourself. You are not usually so high in the instep, condemning a man for so little reason.”
    “If we can find nothing more interesting than Aldred to discuss, I shall take my leave and try my luck with Lady Holland instead. Good day, ma’am.”
    “Oh, Eskott, would you mind very much dropping my books off at the circulating library?” she said as he arose. “I am staying home today, in case of a note from Papa.”
    “A pleasure and a privilege, Maddie. Could I deliver any messages for you while I am about it? Polish your boots, fill you a tub for bathing? Groom your mount?”
    “Thank you, dear Eskott. They are on the table in the hall. Evans will give them to you. Save me a dance if I go to Almack’s.” She wiggled her fingers at him and laughed.
    A reluctant smile settled slowly on his lips as he stood looking at her. “There is not another lady in London who treats me so shabbily as you do. One of these days, milady, you shall pay the piper,” he said with mock menace.
    “How much do I owe you? Don’t be shy to present your bill.”
    “Thirty thousand pounds,” he answered cryptically.
    She could make nothing of it, till she remembered it was the sum of her dowry. She wasted very little time thinking about it, for she had a lengthy list to make up if she was to transform her cousin into a buck of the first water.
    Eskott had long since stopped being a suitor in her mind, and become a good friend. The offer of marriage, still occasionally mentioned, had occurred in her first season. At eighteen, she had been aware of the glory of having attached such a prime parti without feeling the least desire to become his wife. Not wishing to lose his friendship, she had couched the refusal in polite but unencouraging terms.
    It had been accepted with no evidence of hard feeling or heartbreak on the gentleman’s part. They continued to frequent the same parties, standing up together for a dance, meeting several times a week at one do or another. About three years later, they began going out occasionally for a drive or visit together, as friends, and no more. His calls at the Second Court of St. James had resumed that year, and had increased in frequency since, but there was little gallantry in him. The intimacy between them had become something like a familial affection.
    Madeline was never seen to bat her eyes at him over a fan, to either glare or poker up or increase her attentions to another beau on those frequent occasions when he escorted other ladies about town or took up with a new dasher. She had long since taken to herself the matron’s privilege of teasing all the gentlemen about their chéres amies. Eskott was roasted along with the rest, with the same frank jocularity and good nature.
    No formality lingered. If she needed an escort, she asked him to accompany her. If he could not comply, she was not at all put out. She used him to perform