The Marriage Wager Read Online Free PDF

Haughston taking notice of us! I could have dropped dead in my tracks when Lady Welcombe introduced her to us. I’d no idea that such a one as she had even noticed us, let alone wanted to make our acquaintance. What did she say? What was she like?”
    It took a little effort for Constance to pull her mind back to her stroll about the room with Lady Haughston. What had happened afterward had driven it completely out of her head.
    “She was very nice,” Constance said. “I liked her a great deal.”
    She wondered whether she should tell her aunt about Lady Haughston’s offer to take her shopping the next day. It seemed, in retrospect, unlikely that the woman had actually meant what she said. The conversation had been pleasant, but it was absurd, surely, to think that a woman of Lady Haughston’s position in the Ton would make such an effort to befriend her. Constance came from a respectable family, certainly, one that could trace its ancestors back to the Tudors, but her father’s title had been merely that of a baronet, and her family was not wealthy. She and her father had lived a quiet life in the country; she had never even been to London before this Season.
    Constance could not imagine what had driven a woman like Lady Haughston to seek her out. She had not seemed inebriated, but Constance could only think that she had tippled too much punch. Whatever the reason, by tomorrow, Constance suspected, it would be forgotten…or, if remembered, it would be regretted. In any case, she doubted that Lady Haughston would call on her the next day, and she did not want to tell her aunt that Lady Haughston wanted to take her shopping and then be proven wrong.
    “But what did she say?” Aunt Blanche asked in some irritation. “What did you talk about?”
    “Commonplaces, mostly,” Constance said. “She asked if I had been to London before and I told her no, and she said that I must be sure to enjoy myself while I was here.”
    Her aunt gave her an exasperated look. “Surely you did not keep all the conversation on yourself.”
    “No. Lady Haughston said that it was kind of you to bring me here,” Constance told her, hoping that Aunt Blanche would be well enough pleased with that information that she would cease her questioning.
    But Constance’s words only seemed to cement Aunt Blanche’s determination to discuss Lady Haughston. She continued to talk about the woman the rest of the time they were at Lady Welcombe’s rout and all the way home in their hired carriage, extolling Lady Haughston’s looks, lineage and virtues—though what her aunt could have known about the latter, Constance could not imagine, since she had talked to the woman for no more than three or four minutes.
    “Such a lady,” Aunt Blanche said enthusiastically. “There are some would say she is a trifle showy. But I would not. Not at all. Her appearance is exactly what is pleasing. Her dress was clearly sewn by the best modiste. I have heard that she favors Mlle. du Plessis. She is always in the forefront of fashion. Her family is the very finest. Her father is an earl, you know.” She paused, looking almost starry-eyed. “And to take an interest in us…well, it is just the most complete luck. When I think of what her patronage will do for Georgiana and Margaret!”
    Constance had not noticed any particular interest on Lady Haughston’s part in Georgiana and Margaret. Indeed, it had been Constance herself whom she had singled out, though she had no idea why. But she thought it prudent not to point this out to her aunt.
    Aunt Blanche looked at her eldest daughter, Georgiana. “You were in your best looks tonight, my dear. No doubt that is why she noticed us. That dress is the loveliest we bought. Although I do think it would have been better with that extra ruffle the dressmaker would not put on.”
    Again Constance held her tongue. As far as she was concerned, Georgiana’s dress was far too ruffled as it was, and if it had drawn Lady