Lady of the Butterflies Read Online Free PDF Page A

and calculating smile, and for once did not pause to consider what he, ever the merchant, might be looking to trade this time. I did not think of him at all.
    “I’ve been looking forward very much to coming here,” Edmund Ashfield said with sincerity enough for both of them.
    I silently cursed myself for being so tongue-tied. For what must have been the first time in my life, I could think of absolutely nothing to say.
    “Are you staying in Bristol for the winter, Mr. Ashfield?” my father inquired.
    “Oh, no, sir. I’m on my way home from the Twelfth Night celebrations in London.”
    My eyes flew anxiously to my father and I saw his bushy gray brows knit in a tight, disapproving scowl. My need to cover his displeasure and make Mr. Ashfield feel entirely comfortable was so great that it helped me to find my voice at last. “Have you been to London before, sir?” I asked.
    He turned to me and gave me his full attention. “I have, miss. Several times.”
    I felt myself flush in the full warmth of his glorious smile, now miraculously directed solely at me. “And is it very foul and wicked and full of thieves and cutthroats?” I asked.
    “And many more things besides. Not all bad.” His eyes shone with such amusement that I could not help but smile back. I thought how I had never seen a face so full of laughter. He looked like a person who was always happy, would never have a care in the world. A person who could never look dour or severe or puritanical. He seemed made for Twelfth Night festivities, for capering and merrymaking, and, for me, the knowledge that he had come direct from such forbidden entertainments, from the great and wicked capital city, only served to add to his appeal.
    “Have you seen the lions in the Tower?” I asked. “What do they feed them?”
    “Nosy little girls, I shouldn’t wonder,” Mr. Merrick sniffed.
    Mr. Ashfield ignored that remark completely. “I am afraid I have not been there at feeding time,” he answered, finding my question worthy of a considered reply. “I shall make an effort to do so and report back, since it interests you.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “You are most welcome.”
    I wondered who had been lucky enough to enjoy the Twelfth Night festivities in his company. “Do you have family in London, Mr. Ashfield?”
    “Do hush, Eleanor,” my father chided. “You mustn’t interrogate our guest before he has even taken some refreshment.” He apologized on my behalf. “My daughter is renowned for her curiosity.”
    “I was there with a very good friend of mine,” Mr. Ashfield said to me, and my heart melted, because again he’d taken the trouble to answer me. “Another lad from Suffolk. Name of Richard Glanville.”
    I saw my father tense.
    “Ah, that young blade again,” Mr. Merrick snorted obsequiously. “You mustn’t judge a man by his friends,” he added hastily, with a glance at my father that was, astonishingly, almost nervous. “Edmund’s a very respectable fellow, aren’t you? For all that you choose to mix with Cavaliers.”
    My mouth fell open. I gaped at Edmund Ashfield, whose allure had suddenly multiplied beyond all imagining with this new revelation. He actually knew a Cavalier! Was friends with a Cavalier! He might as well have admitted to supping with the King himself, or rather with the Devil. Which, in my father’s eyes, amounted to exactly the same thing.
    “Richard has never been anywhere near Whitehall Palace and he was born during the Commonwealth,” Edmund said very amiably. “After the war was over.”
    “Makes no difference,” Mr. Merrick said, with another fawning glance at my father. “He’s the son of defiantly Royalist parents who mixed with the court in exile, which makes him as Cavalier as Rupert of the Rhine.”
    “I’m surprised that an upstanding gentleman such as yourself would choose to fraternize with men of pleasure,” my father said critically.
    “They are not half as debauched as we’ve been led