Little Coquette Read Online Free PDF Page B

contretemps? Twenty years of adultery? You are lenient, milord.”
    “Who says it was twenty years? The lady in the river is hardly old enough for that.”
    “Do you think she is his first mistress?” she asked with a sneer. “I don’t. And anyway,” she added, lifting her chin, “I had decided against marriage before I learned about Papa and Mrs. St. John. Why should I subject myself to a lord and master? Ladies are fools to marry, to hand their dowry over to a man, and to beg pin money from him as if they were children. Sit at home and look after the house and children—and have to bear them as well—while the man rackets around with lightskirts. Marriage is an excellent thing—for men.”
    Beaumont looked bored. “I’ve heard all this before. It is all the crack these days for ladies to claim a disinterest in marriage, but it don’t stop them from leaping at the altar at the first opportunity. When it comes down to it, what is the alternative?”
    “Remaining free,” she said grandly.
    “Remaining spinsters,” he retorted. “Whatever their difficulties, married ladies have a deal more freedom than their unmarried sisters. They may go pretty well where they wish, even have affairs if that is their inclination.”
    “It sounds charming,” she said with a withering look, “but I have no taste for lechery. I plan to do something useful with my life.”
    “Such as?”
    “Such as finding out about this murder, to start with. Later, I shall find some worthy cause and devote myself to it.”
    Bored with the conversation, he said, “Did you discover anything from your papa?”
    “He is not likely to say anything now, when he has kept his secret from us all these years. Did you find the reticule in the river?”
    “No. I dove in a dozen times and searched all along the bank as well. Perhaps the man who searched her room at the inn got it.”
    “I plan to search Papa’s desk in London and see if I can find out about that woman—where she lives and so on. Mama and I are seldom in London, so he might have felt free to leave letters from her in his study or bedchamber.”
    “If you can find an address, I’ll go to the house and quiz the servants. Find out who her friends were.”
    Lydia lifted a well-arched eyebrow and stared at him. He would go to her house and quiz her friends. How eager these men were to take over.
    “We’ll see,” she said, for she didn’t like to berate him when he was necessary to her trip. “I’ll tell Aunt Nessie he wants me to take some papers home for him, to make an excuse to search his desk.”
    He lilted his eyes from the road and said playfully, “Despite your little rant, you are a complete woman, Lydia. Deceit comes naturally to you.”
    “You wrong women to claim deceit as a feminine vice, milord. I inherited it from my papa,” she replied in a bitter voice.
    “Don’t be too hard on him. He spends much time alone in London.”
    “I doubt he spends much time alone.”
    “Without his wife and family, was my meaning. A man needs company.”
    “He has Nessie. Mama never felt the need of a boyfriend. She is away from him for weeks on end.”
    “By choice,” he pointed out. “What is to stop her from going to London with him? Most wives do.”
    “Why should she, when he has—had that woman?”
    “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
    She tossed her curls angrily. “Naturally you would take his side.”
    “We men are all alike, you mean?”
    “Precisely.”
    “I have observed your mama’s experience hasn’t put her off the notion of marriage. She is all in favor of your nabbing a husband. My mama tells me Lady Trevelyn was disappointed when you refused to make your debut.”
    “She doesn’t know any better,” Lydia said with a shrug of her shoulders. “It is the only life she can envisage for a lady. I have different plans.”
    “London is full of worthy causes. You are no longer a child. You could go to London to provide company for your