Reckless Griselda Read Online Free PDF

believe that I consented to such an arrangement.”
     
    “Then how, pray, has she fixed the notion in her head that you have?” said Lady Amberleigh. She might have been a well-dressed widow but her manner of cross-examination would not have disgraced a member of the bar. “You must have said something to her to suggest that you did not find the idea of the match abhorrent.”
     
    “No, I have always been very definitely opposed to it. Do you think I would have addressed your daughter as I have, if I had believed I was not free to do so?”
     
    “I do not know, Sir Thomas,” said Lady Amberleigh. “Ah, here is Caroline.”
     
    Caroline had apparently quit the drawing room for some minutes when he was announced, presumably to compose herself. Tom thought she looked shaken. She was paler than usual – her usual fresh rose colour seemed banished, but she walked into the room with all her usual elegance.
     
    He rose from his chair to greet her, and would have taken her hand, but he saw Lady Amberleigh frowning. Caroline confined herself to a curtsey and took her place beside her mother.
     
    “What must you think of me?” he said, drawing his chair a little closer to her. “I have been trying to reassure your mother but can I say enough to convince you?”
     
    “Your mother must have had very good reason for writing as she did,” she said at length.
     
    “Because she does not wish us to marry,” said Tom. “That is the matter in a nutshell. She is a worldly woman and she expects me to seek worldly advantage.”
     
    “But if Lady Mary’s affections have been engaged?” Caroline said looking across at him. She had dark brown eyes and there was a melancholy in them that he had not seen before.
     
    “Then it was not my intention,” said Tom. “I swear to you I have done nothing to make her think that I was anything but an acquaintance. I believe my mother must have talked her into believing that she feels something for me. Lady Mary is a highly suggestible creature – and very young. She is but seventeen. She does not know what she feels.”
     
    “Nevertheless,” Caroline went on, “her feelings have been engaged and her expectations have been confirmed by those whose opinions she values. If that is the case, I think she does have some sort of claim upon you. I do not wish to have such a thing on my conscience as another woman’s broken heart. She has a prior claim on you, Sir Thomas. I must recognise that.”
     
    “You would not say that if you had seen her,” Tom said. “She is a schoolroom chit. She knows nothing about anything. She only does as she is bid.”
     
    “That,” put in Lady Amberleigh, “is a sign of virtue in her.”
     
    “It cannot be thought virtuous to pretend to love merely because your father tells you that you must,” said Tom. “Surely?”
     
    Lady Amberleigh got up suddenly and said,
     
    “That may be so. But I am more concerned that you are merely using my daughter in order to disentangle yourself from a disagreeable marriage. My concern is that my daughter shall be well married – and by that I mean that the man who is lucky enough to be her husband shall have a strong, pure-hearted regard for her. If you were to have fixed on Caroline as a solution to your difficulties, then –”
     
    “No madam, I assure you I have not,” Tom said.
     
    “I am glad to hear you say it, Sir Thomas, but I am still not easy. Your mother’s words were strong – and I cannot believe she would have written so strongly without good cause. This matter does you very little credit sir, and I must be given more proof of your good faith until I can give my consent to this match. I hope you do not consider this unreasonable.”
     
    She stood over him as she spoke and Tom looked up at her. As he did so he had the strange impression that she resembled the girl from the Abbey. A fleeting similarity passed over Lady Amberleigh’s handsome, middle-aged face. There was something