Marjorie Farrell Read Online Free PDF Page A

in her situation, but the lassitude of early pregnancy. She was ecstatic, and at the same time terrified. She could think of no better proof of their love than a child, but she delayed her announcement to Breen. She told herself it was because she wanted to be sure, but knew deep down that she wondered if he would despise her for conceiving out of wedlock.
    It was finally Breen himself who delicately queried about the absence of her monthly flow. When she nodded a yes to his quiet questions, he pulled her to him.
    “Ah, Honora Margaret, we will have to make an honest woman of you this very week.” He laughed, and she relaxed in his arms. He did love her and they would be married.
    Breen put his head on her belly and said softly, “If it is a boy, we will name him after your father.”
    “And what if he is a she?” Margaret teased.
    “Then we will call her Miranda.”
     

Chapter 1
     

1818
     
    “The Countess of Alverstone to see you, my lord.”
    Marcus Samuel Vane, known to his intimates as Sam, looked up from his desk. “Damn and blast! What does the woman want this time?” he muttered, and immediately felt ashamed of his irritated response. After all, the countess was the widow of his best friend, and had been, many years ago, his own first love. But over the years, and especially since Charles’s death, those characteristics which had drawn both of them to her, her air of fragility and helplessness, had become more than occasional sources of annoyance. What was most attractive in an eighteen-year-old girl was less so in a twenty-five-year-old and positively irritating in the thirty-nine-year-old woman she was now. And Sam, in the last four years, had had plenty of exposure to Lavinia’s worst side, since he had been named guardian of the late earl’s son and heir.
    The young earl was no wilder than any young man his age, and, in fact, seemed to be growing into as fine a man as his father. Lavinia, however, became hysterical at his occasional high-spirited escapades, and on those occasions Sam had endeavored to explain to Lavinia that too tight a rein would only cause rebellion.
    “Both his father and I turned into responsible men, after all, my dear, and we both got into as many scrapes as Jeremy.”
    “I cannot believe that of Charles.”
    “Oh, but you can of me?” replied Sam with a glint in his eye.
    “You know what I mean, Sam,” Lavinia replied hastily. “You always seemed less serious to me. Charles was…well, someone to lean on. That is why I married him. I needed his strength.”
    And an earl is, after all, a better catch than a viscount, thought Sam. The knowledge that Charles had been the better catch no longer rankled, as it had done in the early days of the Whitford marriage. A marriage, he had to admit, that was certainly grounded in mutual affection. Lavinia’s love for her husband had been genuine and she had clearly not recovered from his death. Which was why, Sam knew, she often felt so inadequate to the task of raising Jeremy on her own. As the boy matured and settled into his studies, however, Lavinia recognized that her son was growing into a fine, steady man. And although, like an ivy whose oak has been cut down, she tended to twine around whatever was available, usually Sam, he had not had such a visit in months. When Lavinia walked in, still wearing one glove and not as impeccably dressed as she usually was, he knew something serious, to her at least, had occurred.
    “Come, sit down, my dear. Now, tell me, what is the problem?” he queried.
    Lavinia sat down and then stood up again, and began to pace back and forth across the library. She pulled at the fingers of her kid glove, which had stuck on her engagement ring, a large emerald she had not taken off since Charles had placed it on her finger. Sam watched her pace, knowing that she would eventually wear down, but he hoped she would come to the point quickly this time, since he was in the middle of researching a speech on