The Bridal Season Read Online Free PDF Page B

county?
    Her head swam with new interpretations for Sir Elliot’s
sidelong glances and frowns of puzzlement, one that had nothing to do with her
irresistibility as a woman. And then, just as she was castigating herself for
her conceit, her sense of humor saved her and she stifled a laugh.
    “Yes. He was a barrister until a few years ago when he
accepted the position, Little Bidewell being the county seat and all,”
Eglantyne said.
    And who had his clients been, Letty wondered, linking her arm
through Eglantyne’s, the local livestock? She was amazed a barrister could even
make a living in a burg like this, but then maybe Sir Elliot didn’t need to make
a living. He certainly dressed beautifully. And expensively.
    They mounted the front steps and the door swung open, held by
a small, rosy-cheeked, redheaded maid who took one look at Letty, scuttled
backward, and slammed the door shut.
    “Merry.” Eglantyne sighed and rapped sharply on the door.
    “Our Merry is in awe of titles,” Angela explained. “It was a
full three months after he was knighted before she could bring herself to open
the door to Sir Elliot.”
    The door abruptly swung inward with nary a sign of Merry to be
seen. Lambikins, nee Fagin, appeared out of nowhere and trotted past them into
the hall as though to the manor born. Letty followed, looking around in
delight.
    Feudal? This was positively arcane. The oak-coffered
ceiling soared two stories overhead, while beneath her feet an enormous
Oriental carpet glowed in the last of the sunlight pouring in through a bank of
west-facing windows. Tapestries, suspended from the minstrel gallery railing
above, fluttered in the evening breeze. The headpiece from a suit of armor
peeked sheepishly from behind a lush arrangement of potted palms.
    “Stop popping your head in and out of the door, Anton,”
Eglantyne said, interrupting Letty’s looking about.
    “Confound it, Eglantyne, I wasn’t popping.” A slight gentleman
with thin, snow-white hair appeared in a doorway at the side of the hall. The
sharp upward tilt of his bristling white eyebrows stamped his face with an
expression of perpetual surprise, while beneath them sparkled small,
raisin-dark eyes. On his shoulders, fluffy white muttonchops bobbed like
frothed egg white.
    “Ahem.” He cleared his throat.
    “May I introduce my brother, Lady Agatha?” Eglantyne said.
“Anton Bigglesworth. Anton, Lady Agatha Whyte.”
    Anton crossed the room with a scurrying gait and, before she
realized what he was about, grabbed her hand and shook it eagerly. “Pleased to
meet you, Lady Agatha. Kind of you to... That is, it’s deuced nice ... Er.. .”
    He flushed profusely.
    Poor old duffer. He didn’t have any better notion about how to
go on than she. Though socially her inferior—or rather Lady Agatha’s—he was
still her—or rather Lady Agatha’s—employer, and the social niceties of the
situation were obviously right posers for him.
    “That is to say, I am honored ... You do us a great fav—”
    She couldn’t let the poor little grub quibble himself into a
stew like this. “Not at all, Mr. Bigglesworth. I am only too pleased to be able
to offer my services.”
    He broke into a relieved smile. “Thank you. I suppose we ought
to go into my office and see about paying you your fee?”
    “Father!” Angela broke in, scandalized. “Not now! Lady Agatha
has traveled all the way from London. She must be exhausted. She’ll want to see
her rooms and rest before dinner.”
    “Indeed, Anton,” Eglantyne said, equally shocked. “Tomorrow
will be soon enough to discuss, er, business.”
    The color that had slowly been ebbing from Anton’s puckish
face returned with renewed vibrancy. “Of course! Inexcusable of me. Merry!” he
shouted before remembering Merry’s problem with titled persons. “Drat! Grace!”
    Within seconds a tall, buxom, middle-aged woman with
suspiciously black hair appeared in the doorway wiping big, square hands on an
apron tied about her narrow waist. “Aye?”
    “This is our