The Luck of the Devil Read Online Free PDF

evening. There were also jaunts to Vauxhall and picnic expeditions in the countryside, masquerades and musicales, card parties, and poetry readings. With so many functions Rowanne's wardrobe constantly needed replenishing, so she had to figure in time for shopping and fittings. Then, of course, she had to hire a dresser, in addition to her abigail.
    Miss Simpson accompanied Rowanne, as did Gabe when she could drag him from his meetings and papers, but even without her brother Miss Wimberly was never without a male escort. Any number of bucks and blades, fops and fribbles were anxious to be at her side, some of them forever. Being of an elevated mind, Miss Wimberly did not keep count of the offers she was able to discourage, or the ones Gabe rejected on her behalf. They were considerable and, despite Gabriel's begging her to have one of the chaps so he could get back to his work without those awkward conversations in his library or tripping over the mooncalves in his drawing room at tea, Rowanne was not even tempted to accept a single one.
    She was a success, and saw no reason to trade her pleasure-seeking freedom for the fetters of matrimony. There had been no scandals, no further missteps, and no grand passion, either. Her steady callers ranged from callow youths cheerfully following the fashion to plausible basket-scramblers more interested in her assets, with enough intelligent and sophisticated men-about-town thrown in to keep Rowanne entertained—and heart-whole. Of course she continued to read the journals for news of the war and the dispatches for the progress of Sir John Moore's troops, but so would any loyal Britisher, she told herself.
    As the London Season waned with the coming of hot weather, so too did Rowanne's enjoyment of the frenetic pace. Conversations did not seem so witty, changing clothes four and five times a day grew to seem an absurd waste of time, and one ball was much like every other one: on dits served with the lobster patties, warm rooms, and warmer-blooded swains hoping to lead a young lady to a balcony or garden or indiscretion.
    Rowanne wrote to her uncle in Dorset that London was growing hot and thin of company as the belle monde retired to their country estates and house parties. The old curmudgeon replied with the suggestion that she visit Lady Silber in Bath; Rowanne must need the restorative waters if she was finding London dull.
    Lady Silber was Rowanne's great-aunt Cora on her mother's side, a fragile old woman, or so she said whenever Rowanne had asked her to come to London to lend the Wimberlys countenance. She was a tiny birdlike woman with the thin bones and neck of a scrawny sparrow and the nose of a parrot. Aunt Cora had a tendency to tipple and a firm belief that age bestowed the right to speak one's mind, which she did loudly, due to her own deafness and refusal to use an ear trumpet. Aunt Cora also had one favorite question: "Why ain't you married yet, gal?"
    When Rowanne was a gap-toothed moppet and her parents sent her to summer at the shore, she could giggle and reply, "Because I'm just a little girl."
    Later Rowanne could grin and say she wasn't even out yet.
    Last year she had smiled and reminded Aunt Cora that she was in mourning.
    This summer the question was not amusing. She was hardly unpacked and seated in the yellow drawing room in Laura Place when Aunt Cora shouted, "I hear you turned Almack's on its ear, girl. Why ain't you married yet?"
    "There's no hurry, Aunt. I am only nineteen."
    "Close on twenty, 'n I miss my guess. I was married at sixteen and a widow at twenty-one, missy. Nothing wrong with that."
    Rowanne saw a great deal wrong with it, but knew Aunt Cora grew deafer with disagreements. She sipped her tea. "I haven't met anyone who suits me and I see no reason to contract an alliance just for the sake of being married."
    "That's a hen-witted notion, girl. Every woman's got to get married. Marriage is a lot like medicine: They all taste bad, but if you take