Second Season Read Online Free PDF Page B

settle the children’s future. Since I’m here, I should make a tour. I’m promised to Beaufort for a week, I’ll go on to Melton, renew my acquaintance. After that it depends on the weather. If propitious, I’ll cross to Keighly, although Ireland depresses me. Otherwise, a week or two at Rickaby—the same at Bascombe, and as much of London as I’m allowed to enjoy. At least they don’t permit women in the clubs!” The duke tossed off his wine at a gulp. “Sorry, Arthur—I’m blue-devilled tonight. Yes, Robsey?” as the butler entered with a small salver.
    “A note for your Grace.”
    “Already?” Julian raised his eyebrows sarcastically, but smoothed when he’d read the sheet. “Do we know any Stanwoods?” he tossed it to his cousin.
    “I think we do,” Arthur said cautiously. “More mother’s generation than ours, although I fancy there was a Miss Stanwood last year. What is this apology?”
    “There is still a Miss Stanwood, with a devilish sharp tongue!” Julian remarked, refilling his wine glass. “Oh, I was in a temper ... letting the horses out, y’know. I came around a curve—there’s the mail coach coming at me and this hellish old traveling chariot blocking my road. I could have hauled in, I think but I chose to go past and grazed the chariot wheels. No harm done, just a bit of jolting, so I went on to draw up in Melsham ... and damned if two girls didn’t invade my parlor! I was in no mood for it, I can tell you.
    “To say the truth,” Julian smiled the sudden impish grin that captivated his intimates, “I thought it was a put-on: two females who’d seen the carriage crest, y’know, and were casting themselves innocently in my way. You’ve no idea what they’ll do to catch my eye! Anyway, I ordered them out, and one of ’em gave me a roundabout—called me a whipster who’d upset her sister, and by God, it was true—not that I knew it then, but when she moved aside and the other one rose, she was a sick little schoolgirl. I felt cheap as a clipped farthing.
    “And to make all worse, Stepan gives me the stable gossip. It’s a Lady Eleanor Stanwood and her daughters. The coach was slowed because the young’un felt queasy. She cast up her accounts at the wheel graze, and to round it off, they’re bound for Park Street. Damned if I ever heard their name, but Park Street—you know they’re part of the ton. So I wrote a civil apology for the inconvenience, and here is a civil acknowledgement. That’s all.”
    “What a dull little story,” Lord Arthur remarked, getting to his feet. “I’m for White’s and a few hands of piquet. Come with me, Julian, and chase the blue-devils?”
    “You chase ’em better than piquet,” the duke rose with a smile, “but I’ll go along to see who’s in town...”
    His Grace remained a week in Grosvenor Square, by which time he had received twenty-seven carefully-casual invitations from such company as was to be found in the unfashionable months, bidding him to “a small informal evening,” or a “few friends for dinner.” Among them all one name was missing: Lady Stanwood. Julian was obscurely pleased by this. He might have been even more pleased had he known that the Stanwood ladies had dismissed him from their minds.
    They were, in fact, completely concentrated on clothes. Daily the coach took them to Bond Street where they pored over the latest fashion plates and fabrics at Madame Elvire’s ... or ordered slippers from Dashwood, purchased gloves, embroidered silk stockings, knots of ribbon or feathers for the hair, gauze scarves and reticules, and bonnets from Fanchette. It all took an immense deal of time, and Lady Stanwood thanked heaven she had arrived early enough to be certain all would be completed in time. In the few hours left of each day, Emily was informally introduced to tea parties and instructed in the finer points of social behavior—not that it was necessary.
    Emily took to London like a flea to a dog’s back,