The Glittering Lights (Bantam Series No. 12) Read Online Free PDF

instinctively, because subconsciously she had known even then that the Marquis was to mean something in her life.
    After her father had told her that he intended her to marry the Marquis she had bought the leather Album and stuck in the cuttings, starting with 1878 when she first met him and adding to them year by year until they had stopped abruptly in August 1885.
    She had known then that her feelings towards him had changed.
    It would have been different if their engagement could have taken place when she was seventeen and had made her debut in London.
    Then in her heart the Marquis had assumed the proportions of a hero, the ideal man who had already occupied her adolescent dreams for more than two or three years.
    At times when she had gone to London to buy clothes and visit the theatre with her father, she was still in mourning and he had made no suggestion that she should meet the Marquis.
    She had heard people talk about him, as of course, he was undoubtedly jeunesse doree of society.
    Despite the fact that the Duke was known to be spending more than he could afford, the Marquis from a matrimonial angle was nevertheless a much sought after catch.
    Then last year, when it had been arranged for the Marquis to come and stay at The Towers and Sir James confidently expected to announce their engagement before Ascot races, Cassandra knew that her feelings were now not the same.
    It was not that he did not continue to haunt her dreams, to linger at the back of her mind whatever she might be doing.
    It was just that she knew that, unless things were very different than they appeared to be at the moment, it would be impossible for her to marry him.
    Three months after his father’s death and the Marquis had not suggested a visit to Yorkshire, Cassandra was saying to herself:
    “I cannot marry him.”
    She had been idealistic enough to believe romantically that when they met they would fall in love with each other and live happily ever afterwards.
    She was well aware that she was beautiful and it would be unlikely for her not to appeal to the Marquis’s taste in women.
    Then she discovered grounds for thinking that he would in all respects be quite unresponsive to her attractions.
    When she visited London the Spring before the debut was cancelled because of the death of her grandfather, Cassandra had somewhat shyly asked her Aunt whether she would be likely to meet the Marquis of Charlbury at the Balls she would attend during the Season.
    “The Marquis of Charlbury?” Lady Fladbury had exclaimed. “Whatever makes you think that he might be a suitable partner?”
    Her genuine surprise told Cassandra that the Duke and her father had kept their plans for their children a secret. If there had been any gossip about their intentions, her Aunt quite certainly would have heard of it!
    Cassandra did not answer and after a moment Lady Fladbury went on:
    “But of course, I forgot, your father races with the Duke. Well, I should not bother your pretty head over young Charlbury. He is far too interested in the footlights to dance attendance on any mourtante, however attractive!”
    “In the footlights?” Cassandra questioned.
    “He is one of the many men about town’ who hang around the stage-door at the Gaiety,” Lady Fladbury explained. “There are a whole number of them making fools of themselves over pretty girls who have no breeding and who most certainly will not make them good wives.”
    “Good wives?”
    Cassandra was aware that actresses were considered fast and extremely improper and were not accepted by any society hostesses.
    “Kate Vaughan, who starred at the Gaiety, married the Honourable Arthur Wellesley, nephew of the great Duke of Wellington, last year,” Lady Fladbury said. “A Billie Bilton is now the Countess of Clancarty. The Earl has made an idiot of himself and his mother is in despair, as you can well imagine.”
    “I did not realise that gentlemen actually ... married actresses,” Cassandra