Miss Westlake's Windfall Read Online Free PDF Page B

for the sacrifices she makes.”
    He should have had the tea that Purvis recommended.
    “If you were a daughter, Charles, you would not be this constant disappointment to me. Your sisters married well and have already provided their husbands heirs. Granted the children are being raised like savages, but—No, do not distract me with your drivel. The least you can do is listen when your own mother speaks.”
    Chas had groaned. He apologized, thinking that perhaps he was the one who should have gone into the diplomatic corps.
    Lady Ashmead nodded her exquisitely coiffed head. “Where was I? Oh, yes, daughters. Well, if you had been another daughter, then I’d have had to do the whole thing over again, wouldn’t I, to ensure your father’s succession? I knew my duty to the family. Unlike some others I could name.”
    Chas wished he’d thought to check the time, to see how long it had taken his mother to get to her inevitable point. Then again, he wished he had a cool cloth to put on his forehead. He grunted in pain, which she took as participation in the conversation, and continued.
    “As did your father, of course. Ashmead knew his duty, and did not shirk his responsibilities. Why, if he were alive, and the old baronet, you’d be hitched to that bran-faced female before the cat could lick its ear. If that nodcock Sir Rodney had lived long enough, you could have arranged with him to wed the chit. The wastrel would have been willing enough to hand her over, if you settled a few of his debts in exchange.”
    “What, you think I should have forced Ada into marriage?”
    “Why not? Gal doesn’t seem to have the sense of a slug, living hand-to-mouth while moneybags wait down the street. Nothing wrong with an arranged marriage anyway. That’s how it was done in our day, and good enough for your father and me. Good enough to see you brought into the world.”
    Good enough, when Lady Ashmead lived in Bath, her husband lived in London, and the children were left in Lillington to be reared by servants and schoolmasters? That was not what Chas wanted for his offspring, not by half. Besides, the thought of marrying Ada Westlake against her will was even more nauseating than the coffee.
    “Marriages of convenience might have been the norm in your day, ma’am, but I would find such an arrangement dashed inconvenient. I would never consider marrying a woman who did not lo—like me enough to marry me of her own free will.”
    “Love? What’s that got to do with anything? Niminy-piminy emotion’s got no place with carrying on the family line. Your father and I managed well enough without that romantical claptrap.”
    Of course the previous Lord Ashmead had died in the arms of his mistress, while the viscountess filled her own empty arms with endless embroidery. In an effort to change the subject, Chas asked, “What is that you are working on now, Mother?” The house was already filled with wall-hangings, fire screens, and decorative pillows. Chas had a new pair of slippers every year for his birthday, all embellished with the family’s coat of arms of red and white roses, separated by a winged lion. His closets were filled with them, for how many slippers could a fellow wear out in a year? Chas had a lifetime supply. Handkerchiefs with his monogram, too. The church got a new altar cloth every year, and the dining room chairs had been recovered twice in the last three years. A hoop or a frame or a work basket was never far from the viscountess’s side. The only thing she directed more energy toward, in fact, was her son’s future.
    Lady Ashmead held up a small scrap of fine white cloth to which she was adding delicate flower blossoms in tiny stitches.
    “Lovely,” Chas said, attempting another swallow of the still too hot coffee. “But what the deuce—That is, what exactly is it, Mother?”
    “It’s a baby bonnet, of course, you clunch.”
    “Ah, one of the cousins having another child? Be sure to let me know, so we