The Hermit's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

as a substitute father, but he intended to do it all the same.
    Though he had been in love numberless times, he had never been so deeply, hopelessly, irrevocably in love as now. The string of blondes who had preceded Mellie were but weak imitations of her. She was the apotheosis of his dream. The sweetest, blondest, most adorable girl in the world. He hadn’t a doubt he would die if deprived of her. Nothing of this was said to his uncle, however. Derwent’s courage was not so great that he intended a direct confrontation. He would slip away as soon as he could escape from Monstuart, and marry behind his back.
    When Lord Monstuart returned to the Colchesters, he was in a foul mood. He gave his hostess a hint that she had been negligent to have let Derwent fall into the clutches of a fortune-hunting bunch of harpies. His cousin stared at him in shocked disbelief.
    “The Hermitages are unexceptionable, Monstuart,”she said at once.
    “No, ma’am, they only appear unexceptionable, and hardly that, with the late Mr. Hermitage a mere solicitor.”
    “Oh, but not just any solicitor. He was the Hermit.”
    Monstuart, usually a highly composed gentleman, gave a start of alarm and exclaimed, “What?”in a loud voice.
    “He was the Hermit. You must have heard of him—he was famous.”
    “Certainly I knew the Hermit, but he was as rich as may be. His widow and family would not be living off their capital in some provincial backwater.”
    Mrs. Colchester stiffened at this slur on her chosen neighborhood. “Some of us like it here,”she informed him.
    “You said these people come from Bath.”
    “They were at Bath for a while, and Brighton, too, before settling here.”
    “I thought I had heard the family moved to Bath. They ought to be wealthy.”
    “I made sure they were. Everything is of the first style of elegance. You never mean their pockets are to let!”she inquired with avid curiosity and not a little satisfaction. Mrs. Hermitage’s exquisite toilette had plagued her for many months.
    “Not completely broke,”Monstuart admitted, “but in tighter straits than the Hermit’s family ought to be. They are related to any number of good families that should ... Oh, lord!”Monstuart realized that his quick temper had led him into a highly disagreeable situation, antagonizing so many worthies. He was often called upon to rescue Derwent from such persons as he imagined the Hermitages to be, and wasted no ceremony in the doing of it. Perhaps his reaction on this occasion had been a little more ferocious than usual.
    In some danger from the feline lady himself, he had intended making the rupture totally irreparable, to forestall any unseemly alliance on his own part. Demands as to why he had not been informed of the family’s background were futile. He hadn’t, and he had acted unconscionably as a result. He still didn’t consider the match with Miss Melanie a good one by any manner of means, but the extrication must be more seemly than he had made it.
    He must go back and try to smooth the many ruffled feathers he had raised in that velvet roost. He wished to keep Derwent away from them, however, and so gave no indication of his plan. He took the boy out in the country that afternoon to try to talk some sense into him. The silence that greeted his every word was not the silent acquiescence usually encountered. There was a sullen set about Derwent’s lips that promised trouble. And really he couldn’t do a demmed thing about it but give him a good Bear Garden jaw, which he did.
    The boy did not openly oppose him, so the objections to the match were only raised, condemned as intolerable, and then the talk turned to what Monstuart considered more cheerful subjects, such as Lady Mary DeBeirs. “We’ll stay here a day or two with the Colchesters, then take a run up to Chêne Baie,”He said bracingly. Chêne Baie was the abode of the DeBeirses. There was Norman blood in the family, and French names aplenty.