The Kindred of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

to do with her mother’s determination to prove her offspring ‘acceptable’ than with any desires of Emily’s own. Tall and slender, like most of the Halfdenes, Emily took after her mother’s sallow coloring: Lydia wondered if she could order her gown in ivory hues rather than the ‘snow-princess’ satins her mother rhapsodized over.
    After all
, she reflected,
I AM paying for it
… Another ‘duty to the family’, attendant upon her mother’s having ‘betrayed her lineage’ by marrying extremely well.
    â€˜â€¦ entire interior of the house in different colors of marble!’ exclaimed Aunt Harriet, setting down her fish fork. ‘I never heard of anything so vulgar in my life!’ Barrister’s wife or not, she remained every inch a Viscount’s daughter and knew to a carat’s-weight what was vulgar and what wasn’t. ‘Though how the Crossfords got Colwich to propose to the girl I can’t imagine. Noel has always been a little
fond
of that friend of his …’
    â€˜With a settlement of three million dollars,’ retorted Aunt Isobel, whose marriage to Richard, Lord Halfdene, had much more to do with her dowry than her family’s non-existent background, ‘I don’t suppose there was much shilly-shallying. Charles, this water is
cold
! You know what Dr Fielding said about chilled water being bad for the liver!
Honestly
… And I don’t suppose there was any trouble getting Lady Mary Wycliffe to present the girl at Court … Lady Mary Binney, I
should
say!’
    â€˜Poor Lady May,’ sighed Aunt Harriet. ‘Married to that
dreadful
man, but they say her father was all to pieces, with Wycliffe House about to be sold out from under them …’
    Grippen can’t be keeping them in London
, thought Lydia.
I’m not sure you COULD keep a kidnapped baby hidden – unless he drugged her …
    Dear God, don’t let him have drugged her.
    Eight months of internship at a London charity hospital had given Lydia deadly experience in how small children could most easily be kept silent.
    Don’t let him have harmed Nan
…
    She tried to push from her mind the sight of her companion Margaret Potton’s body lying, drained of blood, on that high carved bed in Constantinople. Did Miranda’s
jailer
even know that he – or she – was in the pay of a vampire? And that vampires had an expeditious habit of cleaning up after themselves in order to keep the secret of their existence?
    â€˜Not that it will make any difference to this what’s-her-name American – Miss Armistead – millionaire’s daughter or not, with that frightful father of hers tagging along to “make sure the job gets done properly”.’
    â€˜Job indeed!’ Isobel sniffed. ‘I’m told she’s gone to Worth for her gown, so we’d probably better do the same for Emily, Lydia …’
    If Grippen was with his human accomplice for the first hour or so, they could have taken the train and no one would notice
…
    â€˜Crossford’s heir or not, Colwich isn’t anyone I’d care to see wed to one of
my
daughters,’ opined Aunt Harriet smugly. ‘Running off to Paris to paint things … turning himself into a veritable disciple of that
ghoul
Millward … Urania Ottmoor tells me he was at Andromache Brightwell’s tea yesterday and prosed
dreadfully
! Spending every penny of his allowance on nasty old books …’
    â€˜The portion he doesn’t spend on kif,’ added Aunt Isobel, anxious to dissociate herself from her former plans to wed Emily to the Viscount. ‘And I’m sure neither of
your
daughters need fear being proposed to by the Earl of Crossford’s son.’
    Harriet lifted patrician brows. ‘Oh, not with a fortune like Titus Armistead’s on offer.’ She prodded the cold roast beef set before her, then