Lady of Ashes Read Online Free PDF Page A

sort of maîtresse de maison cannot manage her own servants? If you cannot do so adequately, I’ll . . . I’ll send you to Brighton to your parents.” Graham shifted his eyes downward as he said this.
    How dare he suggest such a thing? Violet took a deep breath, quickly sorting through the multitude of retorts in her mind and focusing on what was most important.
    “I think your sense of reason has left you, Graham. I’ll not return to my parents’ house any sooner than you would bake an apple tart and serve it to the inmates at Newgate. Besides, you know perfectly well how much you need me at the shop.”
    He exhaled. “Darling, you don’t know how hard I work to keep you insulated from world events. In return, I ask that you keep a decent home for me, one that reflects our standing and makes me proud when I come home each night.”
    “I’ve never asked to be insulated from world events. Besides, I don’t even understand what you’re talking about.”
    “Violet, if you understood the insidious forces at work against our kingdom, you’d beg me to let you return to Brighton.”
    “What insidious forces? Who is working against Great Britain?”
    “This is what I mean. You don’t understand how the United States is attempting for the third time to break Great Britain’s back. It can’t be tolerated.”
    “I cannot for the life of me understand why the Americans have made you so angry, Graham. What have they to do with you?”
    He slammed his fist down on the desk, causing Violet to jump. She’d never seen Graham so passionate about politics before. “They nearly destroyed my family is what they have to do with me! My grandfather was a shattered man because of the United States. We should have smashed and annihilated them the moment they had the audacity to dump good British tea into their harbors. We would have saved generations of trouble.”
    Violet sat down in a chair across the wide expanse of desk. Its top was carefully arranged with decorative painted boxes, porcelain bird statues, a piece of elephant tusk, and a letter opener carved from black ash.
    “Graham, please tell me the truth. What bothers you so?”
    He ran his hand through his curly mop of hair again before rubbing his eyes and looking at her bleakly.
    “You never met my grandfather, Philip Morgan. He died probably three or four years before we met. He was a brave and honorable man, and was revered not only by my father, but by Fletcher and me.”
    “I know you respected him.”
    “Pap fought under Major General Ross during the second war with the Americans. They landed in Benedict, Maryland, and marched through that pestilent state before horsewhipping the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg. Pap was particularly proud that they were able to burn the U.S. Capitol afterward. However, after that he was separated from his unit when it was sent on to Baltimore, but he successfully made it through American lines, throwing on a disgusting hide coat he lifted from a dead American in order to cover his own uniform. Pap was not only brave, but resourceful. I’ve seen the coat. It was a patchworked thing made from weasels and dogs. Even years later, it was absolutely hideous and stank worse than a four-day-old corpse.
    “But he made it out of there safely wearing it, walking miles through woods while trying to find the British line. He collapsed from exhaustion, and while he was sleeping, a group of Yanks found him, thought he was dead, and tried to lift the coat from him.
    “When they realized he was still alive, they carried him off to their camp and held him prisoner for weeks, treating him abominably. He wasn’t sure whether he would die from exposure to heat or if they would starve him to death first.”
    Violet had never heard this story before. “How did he escape?”
    “By pretending to be even more injured than he really was. They quit paying attention to him after a time, thinking he was too lame to get very far. One night while