Mutual Consent Read Online Free PDF Page A

It was one thing to accept Lady Azaela’s advice as sound; it was quite another to put it to the test and actually pay an uninvited and unexpected call upon a gentleman whom she had never met.
    The hackney cab stopped. Barbara got out of the carriage. She quietly requested the driver to wait for her return. For reassurance, she touched a finger to the heavy veil that covered her face. Then she took a deep breath and ascended the steps of the Earl of Chatworth’s town house.
    She pulled the bell. The door was opened by a porter and she was ushered into the entry hall. She was prepared to give her name as she requested an interview with the Earl of Chatworth, but she was given no chance to do so.
    “I shall inform his lordship of your arrival,” the porter said. He showed her into a small sitting room and quietly shut the door.
    Barbara was disconcerted by the ease of her reception. But she was of a quick intelligence. It was readily apparent to her that the earl had received anonymous female callers such as herself before.
    She glanced around the well-furnished sitting room, noting the priceless Ming vase, the sumptuous oriental carpet, the gilded candle branches, the cut-crystal Waterford flower bowl charmingly set off by an arrangement of blushing pink roses, and the striped rose silk upholstery covering the chairs and the settee. The Earl of Chatworth appeared to be a wealthy gentleman, an appearance that she knew was deceptive or otherwise her father could not have gained the leverage that he had claimed to have over the nobleman.
    Babs sat down on the pretty settee. Through the mesh of her veil she thoughtfully regarded the portrait hanging over the mantel. The subject of the painting was a gentleman of another age, pomaded and laced in the extravagant style of the century past, whose handsome saturnine features and droop-lidded knowing eyes transcended the canvas and time. The earl’s ancestor had definitely been a rakish fellow, decided Babs, and if the porter’s high discretion was anything to judge by, so was the present earl.
    All the trappings of wealth, probable libertine tendencies of the worst sort, and under her father’s thumb, thought Babs. She tugged gently at the strings of her reticule as she reflected. Perhaps she had come on a fool’s errand. She had very nearly decided to go find the porter so that she could tell him that she had changed her mind when the door to the sitting room opened.
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Chapter 4
    The Earl of Chatworth entered, shutting the door gently behind him.
    Barbara regarded the gentleman with acute interest as he sauntered toward her. Her immediate impression was favorable, which surprised her.
    The earl was younger than she had expected, apparently but a few years older than herself. He was a well-set-up gentleman, broad of shoulder and lean of limb, as was evidenced by the exquisite cut of his morning coat and the close fit of his pantaloons. The earl’s attire was finished with an intricately tied white silk cravat and Hessian boots. His dark hair was cut fashionably short and looked to have been impatiently run through with heavy fingers; Babs could not but wonder if it had been the porter’s announcement of her own presence that had earned that particular reaction.
    However, in the end it was his lordship’s face that caught and held her interested gaze. Her eyes flew fleetingly to the portraited gentleman and back again. The present Earl of Chatworth owed much to his ancestor, possessing the same heavy-lidded eyes and aquiline nose, as well as the same half-smile. Babs decided that the knowing arrogance of that smile was particularly unsettling.
    “You are safe here, m’dear. There is truly no more need of the veil,” said Lord Chatworth, studying his visitor with at least equal interest. The woman was dressed in the high kick of fashion in a well-cut green pelisse and matching bonnet. Except for the unmistakable message of the veil, she might have been one of his