Scandals of an Innocent Read Online Free PDF Page B

leaves in the coronet!”
    “It is four strawberry leaves for a marquis, Mama!” Alice called after her. “Eight for a duke.”
    She saw Miles laughing and despite herself couldnot prevent a small, embarrassed smile in return. “Oh, dear. I do apologize. Mama seems to exist on a different plane where every titled gentleman is embraced as the perfect prospective son-in-law.”
    “She is very anxious to see you wed,” Miles said. “Why would that be?”
    Alice moved away, avoiding his surprisingly perspicacious gaze. “She imagines that marriage into the aristocracy would provide security for all of us,” she said carefully. Some of Mrs. Lister’s aspirations were based on snobbery, but at their core was an unshakable fear that she and Alice might once again be plunged into penury.
    “I suppose she wants you to have the type of security that your family has never had before,” Miles hazarded. “Based on inherited rights and privileges—”
    “Rather than the endless need to work one’s fingers to the bone for a pittance on a farm, or in domestic service,” Alice finished for him. “Precisely. Poor Mama, she so longs to be accepted in society and cannot understand why we are not. She thinks that marriage to a man of rank will solve all problems.”
    “You must have had many offers,” Miles said. “Why have you not taken one?”
    “I do not care to be wed for my money by a man who otherwise deplores having a one-time housemaid as a wife,” Alice said coldly. She took a seat, realizing a second too late, as Miles sat down, as well, that by her actions she had tacitly encouraged him to stay. “But that cannot be of any interest to you, Lord Vickery,” she said. She looked at the wedding gown, which was now drooping rather forlornly over the arm of Miles’s chair. “I thank you for returning the gown to me. Now you may go.”
    Miles sat back in the chair and stretched out his legs, showing every sign of settling in for a long chat in direct contradiction of her words. “Not so fast, Miss Lister,” he murmured. A rather disquieting smile curved his lips. “I am not at all sure that as an officer of the law I should be returning stolen property to you.”
    Alice felt ruffled. It was not a sensation she was accustomed to feeling. As the elder child, she had always been the sensible one. She never got into trouble.
    “The gown was bought and paid for,” she said defiantly. She knew she was blushing.
    “It may well have been,” Miles said, “but then it was removed from the shop by theft.”
    “The shop had gone out of business without honoring its customers’ purchases! Madame Claudine is the one who has cheated her customers!”
    “Your case would not hold water for a moment in a court of law, I fear,” Miles drawled. “Would you like me to be a character witness for you, Miss Lister, and protest that you were suffering from a moment of madness?”
    “No, thank you,” Alice said crossly. “All I require is for you to hand it over, promise to keep quiet and go away.”
    “You ask a great deal,” Miles said. “The very least you owe me is an explanation. Is the wedding gown for Miss Cole?”
    Alice was startled. “For Lydia? No, of course not! How could it be when Tom Fortune is in prison?” She sighed. “It is Mary Wheeler’s wedding gown. If you must know, Mary was inconsolable when Madame Claudine’s business closed, and she took it as an omen that her marriage was doomed from the start.”
    “It probably is,” Miles murmured. “Stephen Armitage is a scoundrel.”
    “Well,” Alice said, “Lizzie and I tried to make her see that he is a blackguard but it did no good, for the foolish girl is in love with him. So what could we do—” She stopped, realizing that she had somehow managed to implicate Lady Elizabeth Scarlet in the conspiracy as well now.
    “It’s all right,” Miles said reassuringly. “I know Lady Elizabeth was party to your housebreaking last night. I heard you