The Arrangement Read Online Free PDF Page B

tendency to chuck her under the chin and bounce her on their knees when she was young—and she had always looked younger than her years. And then there had been landlords to hide from when they were slipping away from yet another set of rooms for which they were in arrears on the rent, and merchants and bailiffs who came looking for payment of various debts. She had spent most of her childhood, in fact, trying to be invisible and silent so that no one would notice her.
    Her father, the younger son of a baronet, had been one of those gentlemen who had looks and charm and even intelligence to spare—he had taught his daughter to read and write and figure—but who lacked any ability to cope with life. His dreams had always been as big and wide as the ocean, but dreams were not reality. They did not put a permanent roof over their heads or a regular supply of food in their stomachs.
    Sophia had adored him, occasional drunken sprees and all.
    She had been content to be invisible to Aunt Mary, her father’s elder sister, to whom she had been sent after his death, even though she was fifteen at the time. For Aunt Mary had raked her from head to toe with one contemptuous look upon her arrival and pronounced her impossible. She had proceeded to treat her accordingly—she had virtually ignored her, in other words. But at least she had allowed her to stay, and she had provided her with the basic necessities of life.
    And being ignored was actually better than being noticed, experience had taught her during those years with Aunt Mary. For the only friendship she had ever enjoyed, the only romance that had ever stirred her heart, had been brief and intense and ultimately soul-shattering.
    And then Aunt Mary had died suddenly after Sophia had lived with her for three years, and Sophia had been taken in by Aunt Martha, who had never pretended to look upon her as anything more than a glorified maid who must nevertheless be suffered to dine and sit with the family when they were at home. Only very occasionally did Aunt Martha call her by name. Sir Clarence did not call her anything except, sometimes, the mouse. Henrietta seemed unaware of her very existence. But she did not want to be visible to any of them. She did not like them, even though she was grateful to them for giving her a home.
    Sophia sighed, careful to make no sound. Sometimes she might almost have forgotten her own name if it were not for the fact that she was the mouse only to the depth of her skin—not even so deep, actually. Inside, she was not a mouse at all. But no one knew that except her. It was a secret she rather enjoyed hugging to herself. Except that she worried sometimes about the future, which stretched long and bleak ahead of her with no prospect of change—the lot of poor female relatives everywhere. Sometimes she wished she had not been born a lady and could have sought employment on the death of her father. But it was not considered genteel for ladies to work, not while they had relatives to take them in, anyway.
    “Viscount Darleigh will no doubt be more than happy to marry you, Henrietta,” Sir Clarence March said. “He is not quite a marquess, heir to a dukedom, as Wrayburn was, it is true, but he
is
a viscount.”
    “Papa,” Henrietta wailed, “it would be intolerable. Even apart from his wrecked face and his blind eyes, the very thought of which make me feel bilious and vaporish, he is
Vincent Hunt
. I could not so demean myself.”
    “He
was
Vincent Hunt,” her mother reminded her. “He is now Viscount Darleigh, my love. There is a world of difference. It still amazes me that his father lived here all those years as the village schoolmaster, the not very well-to-do schoolmaster, I might add, and we never suspected that he was the younger brother of a viscount. We might never have known it if the viscount and his son had not been obliging enough to die and leave Vincent Hunt the title. Why they stood up to a gang of highwaymen instead of