Smuggler's Lady Read Online Free PDF

troubles would be over.”
    â€œYour levity is most unedifying, Theodore,” Hugo reproved. “It is also quite inappropriate. While I would be the first to agree that the Trelawneys are as ancient and respectable a family as any in the county, it would hardly be considered a suitable match for a Keighley.”
    His audience burst into peals of laughter at the conclusion of this dignified speech.
    â€œHugo, you are a nod-cock,” Theo gasped. “I was only funning. Can you imagine Merrie as a duchess?”
    â€œEnough, all of you!” Meredith attempted to restore order to the proceedings. “Since I consider the likelihood of my making the acquaintance of Lord Rutherford remote in the extreme, I should be obliged to you if you would drop the subject. I have absolutely no intention of marrying anyone at all and would be much obliged, Rob, if you would refrain from match-making.” She softened the words with a smile, tugging his hair, but they were all well aware that their sister had spoken in earnest, and it was never wise to arouse her anger.
    The double doors to the parlor were opened at this juncture to admit a thick, broad-shouldered figure in britches and baize apron. “The horses have returned from the fields, Lady Merrie. Jem will bring the carriage round in five minutes.”
    â€œThank you, Seecombe.” Meredith picked up her cloak from the arm of a sofa. “I do feel a little guilty, expecting the horses to work in the evening when they have spent a hard day in the fields. Perhaps I should tell Jem to bring the carriage back after he has left me at South Hill. I will attempt to procure a ride home with the Abbotts. It is not a great deal out of their way.
    â€œYou cannot do that, Merrie,” Theo protested. “It is so shabby. It is bad enough that everyone should know we have no carriage horses, but there is no need to draw attention to it.”
    â€œWell, if I do not mind, I cannot imagine why you should,” his sister retorted. “We cannot overwork the horses in the interests of pretending to a position that we do not have. I shall most definitely send Jem home.” With that, Lady Blake swept from the parlor, leaving two of her brothers glaring at the discomfited third.
    â€œIf you had not said that, Theo, she would not have decided to send the horses home,” Hugo declared.
    â€œNo,” Rob put in, for once in agreement with his senior. “You know how out-of-reason cross she gets if we seem to complain about being poor.”
    â€œWell, I am sorry,” Theo said in an unapologetic tone. “But I was not really complaining, I was just stating a fact. Merrie is overly sensitive, sometimes.”
    â€œShe is not!” Rob, who would never hear a breath of criticism of his sister, flew at Theo, and Hugo, after failing to halt the scrap with the weight of his words, resorted to methods both more effective and more natural.
    Meredith sat back against the shabby leather squabs of the heavy, old-fashioned carriage as the two cart horses drew it, bumping and creaking, across the ill-paved roads toward South Hill. Although she had laughed when her brothers had accused her of looking a fright and a dowd, there were moments when she regretted the necessity for her drab disguise, moments when she dreamed again of dressing with the elegance and frivolity of the years before and during her brief marriage. Had she wished, she could still have dressed with a degree of modishness in spite of her straitened circumstances. Silks, satins, and laces were easily available to the smuggler, and Nan was an accomplished seamstress, but the need to appear as a sorrowing, impoverished widow, bravely shouldering her responsibilities, was too important to yield to vanity. No one, not in their wildest fantasies, would suspect that the smuggler who played with the coastguard like a cat with a mouse, who conducted a most efficient business to the satisfaction