Lord Clayborne's Fancy Read Online Free PDF

not a virgin, it had shattered him. He had invested the whole of his affection and trust in her, and she had deceived him.
    For years he had considered himself gripped by a hopeless passion for Alexis Hannis. As a young man he had courted her assiduously for a year before she had chosen an older, richer and better-titled man. The blow had driven Clayborne to some excesses of behavior which he looked back on with regret. As Lady Hillston, however, Alexis had produced the required male heir and then had looked about her for amusement. When she had beckoned to Clayborne, he had come. He had despised himself for the weakness, and had seen as little of her as he could bear, but he had gone.
    It had surprised him, therefore, to find that his meeting Rebecca had upset his equanimity. He was charmed by her youth and enthusiasm, her eclectic search for knowledge, her personal integrity. Compared with Alexis, Rebecca was a shining gem, pure and enchanting. After a mere few weeks of acquaintance, Clayborne had found to his amazement that he had fallen in love with Rebecca.
    He did not tell her so. There was a reserve in her relations with him that warned him to proceed with caution. But he felt she was fond of him and he knew her mother would press for his suit, so he had asked her to marry him. She had not given her answer immediately, and he was glad that he had not told her that he loved her. It would have frightened her from him, to think that she could not reciprocate his affection.
    Wish to God that he had told her, he thought angrily as he watched her across the length of the table. He would not be sitting with her now, this gem with its fatal flaw! The triteness of the sentiment made his hurt no less real, and it did nothing to assuage the pain that his wife acted the injured party. If she had told him before they wed, he supposed he would have accepted it. How could he not when he loved her? Surely such a confession would have been a sign of her remorse. But she had not admitted it then, and she would not admit it now. He took himself off from Gray Oaks filled with anger, confusion and hurt.
     

Chapter Three
     
    Clayborne was gone the next morning before Rebecca awoke, and she wasted no time starting her project. Since Bridge, the estate manager, was by far the least amiable of the Gray Oaks staff, Rebecca had to marshal all her resources to approach him, but she was determined to spend her days doing something useful and refused to let him deter her.
    Mrs. Lambert, once she recovered from the shock of finding that Clayborne had no intention of taking Rebecca with him to Yorkshire, did her best to ease her new mistress’s loneliness by appearing to share her enthusiasm for the schemes Rebecca laid before her. A new bride should not be left at home, in Mrs. Lambert’s humble opinion, and although she could not help but be horrified that the Green Saloon was to be done over in blue and gold, she did no more than unconsciously purse her lips when shown the new drapery and upholstery materials. She watched, perplexed, as Lady Clayborne threw herself wholeheartedly into the project, with excursions to Chichester, hours spent studying fabric samples and evenings doing needlework chair covers by the light of several candles. It was Mrs. Lambert who urged Rebecca to take time out for her rides on Firely, and who informed the butler, Griggs, who was inclined to sniff at all the activity in the lovely old house, that his new mistress knew what she was about. She even approached the estate manager in her zeal to vindicate Rebecca’s projects.
    “You may be sure, Mr. Bridge,” she told him, “that Lady Clayborne is not spending a farthing above what is necessary. Why, she works the whole of each day on this undertaking. Never have I seen a more industrious young lady. And when her hands are not busy with a needle, she has her nose in a book in the library. Can’t imagine what she sees in some of those old volumes—nasty, dusty