Not Quite a Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

of her nature and the brightness of her spirit. She laughed easily—at herself, especially. This easy laughter not only lit her face but brightened everything and everyone about her.
    “She’s full of life,” Papa always said.
    That was what drew him to her in the first place.
    At the time he met Elizabeth Bentley, Lord Lithby was not looking for a replacement for the wife he’d loved so dearly. He did not believe anyone could take her place. Still, he was looking for something; and though, as he’d admitted, he had been too lonely to think clearly, Fate had smiled on him.
    He could not have chosen better.
    Charlotte knew this. She knew, too, that had her stepmother been a fraction less perceptive, Lord Lithby’s precious daughter would have been utterly and irrevocably ruined ten years ago.
    All the same, she did wish, this once, that her stepmother would not study her quite so closely.
    “No doubt you thought you would have your favorite wilderness to yourself for a while longer,” Lizzie said. “But how curious it is that your father did not tell you about Mr. Carsington.”
    “He told me,” Charlotte said. “But I fear my mind wandered.” She let out a small sigh and began to peel off her dirty gloves.
    “He told you of his matchmaking scheme first, is that it?” said Lizzie. “That was a great deal for you to take in. That would explain why you became distracted.”
    Distraught was more like it. Desperate.
    “I was a little surprised, yes, though I should not have been,” Charlotte said. “It is perfectly reasonable for Papa to wish me wed. All of the girls I came out with are married. With children.”
    Her child would be ten years old now, if he lived. She felt the stab in her chest, the old ache. She still wept sometimes for her lost baby. Only when she was alone, though. Lizzie would grieve for her if she knew, and Charlotte had long ago vowed never to cause her another moment’s trouble.
    “I asked Lithby to let me tell you about his plan,” her stepmother said, “but he said it was his responsibility.”
    Naturally, she had respected his wishes.
    Only the once, very early in her marriage, had Lady Lithby gone behind her husband’s back. She had done so because Charlotte insisted, because she was so sick with shame—over what she’d done, over deceiving him. She couldn’t live with the disappointment and hurt she’d cause him. She was the center of his life, and she feared she’d break his heart.
    Charlotte would never ask such a sacrifice of her stepmother again. She knew Lizzie deeply loved Papa and respected him. She loved Charlotte, too. At the beginning, his new bride had loved her stepdaughter mainly for his sake. Charlotte had soon learned that for Papa’s sake his young wife would move heaven and earth.
    If only Charlotte could have seen that. If only she had been mature enough to understand what a remarkable woman her father had married.
    Had Charlotte understood, she would not have behaved so stupidly. She wouldn’t have given Geordie Blaine a second glance. Then she might have had a chance at a marriage as affectionate and happy as her father and stepmother’s.
    If onlys were a waste of thought, she told herself for the thousandth—or ten thousandth—time.
    Lizzie’s voice interrupted her brooding. “Your father is right, you know. It is time, well past time, for you to make a life of your own. We cannot undo the past. You suffered two grievous losses, following close upon each other, when you were very young. Though it is natural to feel sadness about these matters, we must not let sorrow cripple us.”
    “I am not crippled,” Charlotte said. “I think of—of him as dead, like my mother. One mourns, but life goes on.”
    “All the same, if you are at all uneasy, my dear, on account of that long-ago time—”
    “I am not uneasy,” Charlotte said. That was not a lie. She was so far beyond uneasy that she had no word for her state of mind.
    Lizzie did not look