The American Earl Read Online Free PDF

the portraits. When we had finally finished and were walking back along the passageway that connected the two main wings of the house, he said to me, “Mr. Shields wishes to go over the financials of the estate with me. I understand that your father left a large number of personal debts.”
    “I’m afraid that he did.”
    He stopped walking and turned to me. He was so big that my head reached only to his shoulder. He said, “I understand that you have been running the estate since before your father died. I hope you will consent to sit in on this discussion.”
    I was surprised by the request and said quickly, “I would like that very much.”
    “Good.”
    Maria was shivering and I told her to go on back to the library to get warm. “We don’t heat this part of the house,” I said.
    “No use heating a house you don’t use,” he said practically.
    “I suppose so. But it’s not good for the paintings to be exposed to the cold like this.”
    He looked amused and I said stiffly, “I will have our maid show you to your bedroom. Don’t worry, it has a fire.”
    His amusement deepened. “Julia, I live in Massachusetts. Nothing you have here in your small island can be colder than what I’m accustomed to at home.”
    Maria said eagerly, “I’ll show Evan to his room, Julia.”
    She likes him, I thought. That smile has won her over.
    Well, it hadn’t won me.  Small island, indeed.  I thought. And watched Maria walk beside the earl, chatting comfortably, as they went toward the stairs that led to the upstairs bedrooms.
     
     
     

Chapter Five
     
    Mrs. Pierce was an excellent cook and for dinner she produced roast mutton with roasted vegetables and potatoes that melted in your mouth. The soup was a repeat of the fish soup from lunch and was exquisite.
    Evan – I supposed I had to learn to call him that – ate with gusto.  We talked for a while about the weather, always a safe topic, and when that petered out, Evan asked Maria where she went to school.
    “School?” Maria was understandably surprised. No Marshall girl had ever gone away to school. “I study at home,” she explained. “I had a governess when I left the nursery, then, when Papa couldn’t pay her any more, Julia taught me. But the family decided I needed someone older, and Cousin Flora came.”
    ‘The family’ was my Aunt Barbara, who was always trying to stick her nose into our business. She had looked around for the poorest relation she could find and persuaded Cousin Flora to come. It’s not that I didn’t like Flora. She was always so pleasant it wasn’t possible not to like her. But I knew I did a better job of teaching than she did.
    “It’s a good thing I did come,” Flora said to Evan. “Julia’s ideas of subjects suitable for a young girl were hardly appropriate.” She shot me a reproachful glance. We had had this discussion before. “Nor were they subjects Julia herself should know anything about,” Flora concluded.
    Evan turned to me, his blue eyes curious. “What were you teaching that was so unsuitable?”
    I had a mouthful of potato and couldn’t speak, so Flora answered. “For one thing, she was teaching Maria what I can only consider to be warm stories from some old Greek books she found in the library.” She gave me the reproachful look again. “Julia’s governess failed to monitor her reading material, but she cannot be allowed to pass these indelicate tales along to her impressionable sister.”
    Evan’s eyes glinted with curiosity and he asked Maria, “What ‘old Greek books’ did Julia teach you?”
    “Homer, Sophocles, Euripides. We started to read Plato, but Cousin Flora took it away and hid it,” Maria said sadly.
    “Did you like those books?”
    “Yes, I did!” Maria’s voice took on a note of enthusiasm. “There was one particular story where this man has a prophecy that he’ll marry his mother…”
    “Stop!” Flora cried in horror.
    Evan grinned. “ Oedipus Rex .  I had to read