The Earl Claims a Bride Read Online Free PDF

and said, “Papa what’s wrong?”
    “I know it’s a poor choice of words to use, Angelina, but I have good news and bad news.”
    “Oh, dear,” her grandmother whispered behind Angelina.
    The fine hairs on the back of her neck tingled, and she swallowed slowly. “I’ll take the bad news first,” she said calmly, knowing that no news could ever be as bad as when she’d heard four years ago that her mother had died in her sleep.
    For as long as Angelina could remember her mother was sickly, needing more and more medication as the years passed. Angelina had done her best to help care for her. Still, it was a shock when she went to sleep one night and didn’t wake the next morning.
    A tired, rueful sound passed her father’s lips before he said, “You have always been far braver than me, Angelina.”
    “Nonsense,” she said with more confidence than she was feeling. She wasn’t brave at all. She was terrified she’d hear he had some dreaded disease and little time to live, but instead of telling him her fears she said, “This way, the good news will help soothe the bad.”
    “Archard, stop stalling and tell us what’s wrong,” her grandmother injected in a worried tone. “Angelina, come sit by me.”
    “I’ll stand,” she answered her grandmother, though her legs were already feeling weak.
    “I’ll get right to it then,” her father said, though he hesitated again. “No use in delaying longer. I’m afraid I’m in dire jeopardy of going to debtors’ prison.”
    A jolt of shock jerked her. “What?” Angelina whispered.
    Debtors’ prison? My father?
    “Archard, no!” Granna exclaimed and rose to stand beside Angelina.
    “It’s true,” he answered, not meeting his daughter’s or his mother-in-law’s eyes. “I foolishly invested everything we own in a fool’s game of chance and lost.”
    “Even my accounts?” Granna asked.
    His gaze darted to his mother-in-law. “You must understand that in the end I had to. I had borrowed money to ease the burden of our increasing creditors and then had to borrow more to pay the first lender, and then the second. It’s a nasty group of jackanapes who have me twisting in their grip. I’ve not been able to break free from them. Now there is no one left to borrow from and I have no means of paying back any of them. We’ve lost everything.”
    Amid the crushing blow of helplessness, Angelina immediately wondered what she could do to aid her father. He had changed after her mother died, drinking more than usual and staying away for days at a time. She knew her father spent time at his clubs, and gambled from time to time. But how was it possible that he’d allowed his debts to mount so extensively?
    “What do you mean by ‘everything,’ Archard?” Lady Railbridge asked what Angelina was thinking but couldn’t voice.
    Her father’s regal shoulders flew back and he turned an irate gaze toward her grandmother. “What do you think I mean by it, my lady? Every investment I had, every piece of furniture in this house, every piece of jewelry that would have gone to Angelina, every pence, pound, and shilling. Everything including eighty percent of my yearly allowance going to a tightfisted money lender! The only reason this house isn’t included is because it belongs to my second cousin.”
    Angelina could not hold in her gasp. She squeezed her hands into tight fists and winced. He truly was in danger of prison?
    Her grandmother’s eyes flashed wild with worry. “I don’t understand. What did you do to get in this position? Cards? Dice? Something else?”
    “Must I give all the sordid details, Lady Railbridge?” he asked indignantly. “Will you not leave me some thread of self-respect? Will only the airing of the intimate, sullied details of my downfall satisfy you?”
    “No, Papa, no,” Angelina said, blindly stepping into the conversation. “She doesn’t want that.”
    “Good, because I won’t subject myself to that evil,” he said