Little Coquette Read Online Free PDF

opened door. Something in her wanted to go in and see him, but a hot, angry lump in her chest steeled her against the impulse.
    “Papa is still awake, if you want to say good night to him,” she mentioned to her mother when she was in the saloon.
    Lady Trevelyn looked up from her embroidery and replied, “I shan’t disturb him, Lydia. He will be busy with his reports.”
    “It wouldn’t disturb him to say good night.”
    “Why don’t you do that then, dear? I want to finish this tulip.”
    Lydia didn’t say good night to him either. She still couldn’t face him. Her sleep was troubled, but she awoke early and had been waiting half an hour before Lord Beaumont’s curricle and team of matched grays drew up to the door. She had already taken leave of her mama, who usually took her breakfast in bed.
    “I thought you would be taking your closed carriage,” she said, surprised to see the open sporting rig standing outside. She actually preferred the open carriage, but she knew her mama would dislike it. “Raffish” had been Lady Trevelyn’s pronouncement when Beaumont first appeared in the dashing rig, all shining with yellow varnish and silver mountings.
    Beaumont, who felt he was being chivalrous to help a damsel in distress, was miffed that her greeting should be so cool, and when he was wearing his new jacket, too. He noticed that Lydia hadn’t taken any pains with her toilette. A virtual stranger to London, she dressed in the provincial fashion in a low poke bonnet with a few small flowers around the brim. Her mantle was navy worsted with some modest frogging down the front. As to dismissing his blood team with that chiding remark about the closed carriage! Dozens of ladies hinted for the privilege of sitting in his curricle.
    “They are all the crack in London. Everyone drives them,” he said.
    “Everyone? I doubt the royal family drives such things.”
    “I mean everyone who is anyone,” he riposted. He looked up at the blue sky, dappled with a few pearly clouds. “It’s such a fine day, I thought you would enjoy the open carriage.”
    “You would enjoy it, you mean,” she replied.
    “That, too. It’s a deal faster than a chaise. Sixteen miles an hour.”
    “It’s not a race,” she said. Her troubles left her short-tempered.
    Beaumont was not pleased to see the small trunk the servants carried down to the carriage. “A good thing,” he muttered. “What the devil are you bringing to London? We’re staying only a day.” He helped her into the passenger’s seat and took up the reins.
    “I may have to stay longer. I daresay you have clothes in London. I don’t. I have to bring what I may need.”
    He jiggled the reins, and the team set off at a lively gait, despite the trunk. With a two-hour trip to look forward to, Beaumont decided to forget the poor beginning and make some light conversation. “Why didn’t you make your curtsey this past season, Lydia?” he asked.
    Her first name slipped out unnoticed by either of them. Beaumont used to call her that before she let her skirts down and pinned her hair up. He had liked her better in those days. She had been just a troublesome youngster, and therefore of no romantic interest to him, but he liked her. He never imagined she would grow up into such a stiff-rumped young lady. She used to pelt through the meadows with that water spaniel trailing at her heels; she used to ride a white cob and climb trees. More than once he had had to rescue her from the old willow by the river.
    “I am not on the catch for a husband,” she replied.
    “Isn’t it about time you were? You must be—” He peered at her, trying to remember the exact difference in their ages.
    “Eighteen. I wouldn’t care if I were twice that. I’m not interested in marriage.”
    “You shouldn’t let this little contretemps at home put you off,” he said in an avuncular fashion that got her back up.
    “Little contretemps? You call twenty years of a sham marriage a little