The Love Affair of an English Lord Read Online Free PDF Page A

Pamela asked in disappointment.
    â€œNot to—” Chloe rose slowly from the bed, her gaze moving to the closet door. Her gown slid down to her waist, and she shivered. She wondered if she might be coming down with another cold. The strangest prickles had just run down her spine. “What was that noise?”
    Pamela glanced over her shoulder. “What noise?”
    â€œIt sounded like a man moaning,” Chloe said quietly.
    â€œA—oh, that. It’s probably the creaky old gate in the drive. Ever since Lord Stratfield was killed, Mama has it locked for the night, though I’m not sure whether it’s to keep out his ghost or his murderer. A ghost wouldn’t use a gate, would he? Oh, look at this.”
    Pamela had dropped to her knees, sifting happily through a trunkful of scented fans, shoes, and fringed shawls. Her eyes brightened as she removed a French buckram corset of ivory silk with whalebone supports designed to slim a woman’s waist while enhancing the size of her breasts.
    Chloe couldn’t help laughing at her cousin’s expression of shocked delight. Sometimes it did her heart good to see things from Pamela’s unsophisticated perspective. “It came all the way from Paris.”
    â€œNo wonder they had a revolution.”
    â€œWhy don’t you try it on?” Chloe suggested teasingly. “It’s not as if I’ll have much use for it in the near future.”
    â€œMe?” Pamela rose before the oak-framed cheval glass, holding the corset to the modest curves beneath her plain calico bodice. “Can you imagine?”
    Chloe slipped out of her gown and stretched across the bed in her own chemise, short corset, and stockings. “Perhaps if I’d been wearing that tonight, Lord St. John would have offered for me on the spot.” The thought of which should had made her feel happier than it did.
    â€œRavish you is more likely,” Pamela said somberly. “I suppose you ought to consider yourself honored. Justin seems to think himself a bit above the young ladies of Chistlebury.”
    â€œWhy don’t you wear that corset under your Sunday dress?” Chloe propped herself up on her elbow, deciding she must be desperate indeed if luring her cousin into fashion decadence was her only source of excitement. “Heavens, Pamela, I think you need to position it a little lower. You aren’t meant to enhance the size of your chin.”
    â€œLower? But how do you get your, er, bosoms, into position?”
    â€œIt looks complicated, but the design really does flattering things to one’s figure.” Chloe sat up slowly, shivering again for no reason. Just her luck to be coming down with another cold when Justin had mentioned a possible boating party at the end of the week. “The first time I put it on, my maid laced me halfway in and halfway out on the top. I looked like one of those Amazon women who lopped off one of their breasts so they could take better aim with their bows.”
    Pamela blushed pink to the roots of her auburn hair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Chloe Boscastle, and I suspect you’re making fun of me.”
    â€œI’m not, honestly.”
    Both young women paused, sighing as Aunt Gwendolyn began to shout for Pamela from the bottom of the stairs.
    â€œWell,” Pamela said, “that’s the end of me for the night.” She tossed the corset at Chloe. “And I’ve never heard of Amazon women, but if they aim their breasts at their beaux, I’m probably better off not knowing.”
    She swept from the room in such a fit of giggles that the beeswax candles on the chest of drawers blew out. The flames died in a flutter of ghostly vapors.
    Chloe slipped off the bed and stared around the smoky shadows of the darkened room. She felt chilly and very aware of being abandoned. She breathed in the scent of melted wax. She was certain she had caught some