Masquerade Read Online Free PDF Page B

of their son marrying the daughter of a knighted Englishman with a vast estate. It’s quite puzzling, really. Even though the Americans are proud of their independence from the motherland, they still yearn for many of its accoutrements.” He suffered a sigh. “All that being said, the timing is right. We need … we want you to find stability, for if things go badly, in the future there might not be the usual inher—”
    Lottie finished the sentence for him. “The usual inheritance?”
    Father slipped the pipe into the pocket of his tweed jacket, and Mother coughed into her handkerchief. “We currently have a dowry set aside for you, but circumstances may force us to dip into that income in order to …”
    Survive? Fight a lawsuit? Pay your way out of the scandal?
    Another notion came to her. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”
    “You had no wish to know, dear,” her mother said.
    “Of course I wished to know. I am not a child.”
    “Perhaps not,” Father said. “But you see the world as a child. As far as the financial issues, didn’t you notice the closure of the north wing? Or how we’ve been forced to let half the staff go?”
    Oh. That. “Of course I noticed.”
    “Didn’t you ever once wonder why?”
    Lottie felt the fool. How stupid to have the signs set before her, yet pass them off as inconsequential.
    Lottie’s mother relinquished her place, sat beside Lottie, and cupped her daughter’s chin in her hand. “Now is not the time for delay, Charlotte. The Tremaines wish to meet you and me. We must accept their invitation in order to cement the match. For your sake. And our own.”
    Lottie had a realization. “The Tremaines are unaware of our troubles?”
    Father cleared his throat. “What the Tremaines don’t know won’t hurt them.”
    Mother shook her head slightly. “The Tremaines are unaware—as yet. But again, dear, time …”
    Time would wait for no man.
    Or woman.
    The clock was ticking.

    J Dora paced the floor in Lottie’s bedroom from bed to window and back again. What was happening downstairs? What was taking so long? What had transpired between Lottie and Ralph?
    Without warning the door opened and Lottie stormed into the room. Dora ran to her. “What happened? What did they say?”
    Lottie flung herself on the bed. “It’s over. My life is over.”
    Dora had witnessed other tantrums for reasons as inconsequential as not getting a new dress or Lottie having to finish her lessons before going riding. Yet she knew that this time, on this day, there was the potential for true torment.
    She climbed upon the bed beside Lottie and moved the hair from her face. “Tell me. Perhaps I can help.”
    Lottie shook her head. “No one can help. Father is ruined; our family has no money. Ralph has shunned me for Edith Whitcomb, and I have to go to America and marry Conrad Tremaine before they find out I’m not an English heiress but a pauper—with a father who’s being named in a divorce.”
    “What?” Dora knew about the financial situation, and Lottie had told her about Mrs. Lancashire, but she hadn’t heard anything about a lawsuit. This was bad. Horrible.
    Lottie stared at the ceiling. “Apparently a man can be unfaithful as much as he wants and society looks the other way. But when the woman’s husband asks for a divorce and cites the guilty man by name, it’s unacceptable and grounds for scandal.”
    The list of crises was nearly too much for Dora to grasp. Each one deserved its own tantrum, much less the swell of them together. “I don’t know what to say.”
    Lottie attempted to sit up, but her bustle and the drapery of her birthday dress worked against her. Fully frustrated, she clambered to the floor, where the layers of her dress fell into place. “Help me out of this thing.”
    Between the two of them, Lottie’s dress was relinquished and a dressing gown put on. Lottie sat at her vanity and, with a sigh that moved shoulders from up to down, gazed upon