Midwinter Manor 2 -Keeper's Pledge Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’d found a job far enough away for the scandal not to have followed him.
    Surely now Philip and Danny might relax their code of conduct a little? Spend some time together now and then? Philip had a feeling it might be the only thing that would save his sanity in the weeks ahead.
    He shuddered, then took a deep breath, feeling a little ashamed of himself. It was only a family gathering for Christmas, for heaven’s sake.

Chapter 3
    T HE ladies arrived a good half hour after their menfolk, in a rather smart-looking green Morris Cowley with mud spatters up one side. Having been pacing the hallway, unable to relax until the last of these introductions were over, Philip was in an excellent position to see them alight.
    Millicent Cranmore was a smallish, slender woman with a fashionably boyish figure. Indeed, so far as Philip could judge these matters (which was, he supposed, not very far at all), everything about her was fashionable, from her shingled hair to her buckled shoes over flesh-colored stockings. However, instead of the polished, sophisticated air for which she was presumably striving, all this modernity made the woman inside look curiously old-fashioned. Beneath her modish accoutrements, Millie looked pale and ill at ease.
    Her elder sister, Lucy Shorwell, on the other hand, seemed utterly relaxed, though her skirts were far too long even to Philip’s eye, and her hair, although bobbed, gave the impression of having been hacked short more for ease of management than for any fashionable ideals. Having presumably recognized that her figure was too full to carry off the gamine look, it seemed Lucy had resolutely refused to make any attempt to conform. It made her appear the far more natural of the two of them.
    He gathered his courage to greet them as they approached the front door. “Miss Shorwell? And Mrs. Cranmore. Delighted to meet you.” Philip shook hands with them in turn, and despite his nerves, noted with amusement that Millicent’s handshake was as limp as might be expected, while her sister’s was as firm as any man’s.
    “Oh, call me Lucy, won’t you? ‘Miss Shorwell’ makes me feel like an elderly spinster.”
Philip and Millicent were then obliged to offer their own Christian names up for public consumption, but on the whole Philip found he minded it much less than he would have thought. One could hardly avoid being on first-name terms with one’s—what? Cousin-in-law?—and to extend the familiarity to her sister did not seem so great a hardship when the sister in question was such an easygoing person as Lucy.
“I, ah, trust you had a pleasant journey?” Philip offered, having racked his brains for some conversation. “Frederick and Matthew got here a short while ago.”
    “Damn!” Lucy swore carelessly. “I was hoping we might have beaten them. This is all your fault, Millie,” she added good-naturedly. “If only you hadn’t made me stop on the way!”
    “I wasn’t feeling very well,” Millicent protested weakly. “You know it always scares me when you drive like the wind. Freddie doesn’t drive so quickly when I’m in the car,” she added with a show of spirit.
    “Frederick doesn’t do anything quickly,” came the droll retort. “Oh, don’t make that face at me. You know I don’t mean anything by it. He’s the steady sort, Frederick. Good husband material. You two go well together.”
Millicent looked sidelong at her sister, as if uncertain whether she were being mocked.
    “I’ll, ah, get Mrs. Standish to see you to your rooms,” Philip said and fled. Lord, he hadn’t a clue how to speak to women. Never had.
    There hadn’t been time for cocktails before dinner—not if the ladies were to be allowed leisure to dress, which of course they must be—so they all met for the first time in the dining room.
    It seemed odd to have such color around the dining table. Philip found himself almost wishing for his old gas lamps again, to mute the tones a little. Millicent had