The Dreadful Debutante Read Online Free PDF Page A

the back.”
     
    “Off with you. I will find someone to guard my horses and then create a diversion.”
     
    Mira scampered off across the square. The marquess found one of the grooms from the nearby mews to hold his horses. He went up to the Markhams’ house, rapped on the door, and said to the surprised butler who answered it, “Fire on your roof! Get everyone out.”
     
    The butler promptly turned and began shouting, “Fire!” at the top of his voice. “Everyone outside,” urged the marquess as scared servants followed by Mr. and Mrs. Markham and some beauty he judged to be Drusilla came crowding into the hall.
     
    Meanwhile Mira had scrambled over the wall at the back. She heard the commotion coming faintly and cries of “Fire!” She quietly slipped in by the garden door, ran up the stairs to her room, tore off her masculine clothes, and with shaking hands put on a gown. She tidied her hair with trembling fingers and then ran back down the stairs and out the front door with the last of the servants to where everyone else was gathered in the square. She stared up at the roof in time to hear the marquess say, “I am most sorry to have alarmed you. It must have been a brief chimney fire. Still, it is better to be safe than sorry.”
     
    “Indeed, yes,” agreed Mr. Markham, who had just learned the identity of his would-be deliverer from danger. Marquesses must always be believed; it was only the common people whose word one doubted.
     
    “We are most grateful to you, my lord,” said Drusilla, dimpling up at him.
     
    He smiled at her and said, “Alas, no beauty in distress to rescue. No knight errant, I. Good day to you all. You are fortunate, Mr. Markham, in having two such beautiful daughters.” He bowed before Mira and whispered, “Your boots are showing under your gown,” straightened up, and with a casual wave of his hand strolled off.
     
    Mira turned and hurried indoors so that she could get rid of her boots before her parents noticed. It was only much later that day that she reflected on the happenings of it and realized with a little surge of gratitude that she had found a new friend.
     
    All that the marquess had said to her about moral courage turned over and over in her brain, and Mrs. Markham said with some surprise to her husband that little Mira was taking an interest in clothes at last.
     
    And it was Mira who said she did not want to wear feathers in her hair to the Mondays’ ball, those tall osprey feathers dyed different colors. She said she was too short and that she had read that a garland of fresh flowers was considered very fashionable and she would prefer that. Drusilla gave her a little, curved, complacent smile. She knew she herself had the height to carry a headdress of feathers, and besides, when had little Mira had any idea of how to go on?
     
    Mr. Markham ordered that Mira was to have her way. But Mira, who had been feeling confident, for she knew she would see the marquess there, began to feel uneasy again. For when she made calls with her mother and Drusilla on the various London hostesses, the talk was suddenly all about the Marquess of Grantley, how handsome he was, how rich, how he had never “done” the Season since the death of his wife, and how he was rated the best catch on the marriage market. Mira was all too aware of Drusilla’s increased interest in this marquess and saw how eagerly she regaled the ladies with a story about how the kind marquess had warned them of a fire and how warmly he had looked at her. And the ladies smiled indulgently, for Drusilla was already being talked of as the belle of the Season. Despite her beauty the hostesses, with daughters of their own to puff off, treated her with indulgence, for she prattled on in a light manner about all sorts of trivial things, and that was their idea of the perfect young lady. Mira they regarded with suspicion. There was, they said to one another, something of the caged animal about the girl.