The Maverick's Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

woman as a lady. Her husband’s refined face with its aquiline nose was a study in classic grace.
    “Lord and Lady Delamere,” Pickering said. “I present my elder daughter, Miss Emmaline Pickering. Her sister, Miss Priscilla Pickering. Ladies, this is Hugh Cholmondeley, third Baron Delamere of Vale Royal in Cheshire, and his wife, Lady Delamere.”
    “Such formality!” Lady Delamere laughed. “I’m Florence, and everyone in the protectorate calls my husband ‘D.’ You must do the same.”
    “You have a lovely home,” Emma spoke up.
    “Oh, this is not our home! It belongs to Sir Charles Eliot,Her Majesty’s commissioner in East Africa. He’s on leave in England. Hugh and I live up country at Njoro. But you both must be exhausted. Shall I have tea sent to your rooms?”
    “Yes, thank you.” Emma looked ruefully at her blood-spattered gown and dusty hem. “I must apologize for my appearance today.”
    “Take no trouble over it, Miss Pickering,” Lord Delamere said. “You’ll learn one can’t be terribly proper here—though we try to keep up a good show.”
    “Thank you, sir. You see—”
    “Never mind, Emmaline,” Pickering interrupted. “Get on with you now. I shall see you at dinner.”
    Biting her tongue at being summarily dismissed, Emma watched her father step into the house with Lord Delamere. His wife led the young women into the house. The grand home might have been in England for all the lace antimacassars and porcelain figurines scattered throughout. Only the zebra skin on the hall floor reminded Emma that she was in Africa.
    Left alone at last in their suite, Emma and Cissy hurried to the settee and dropped onto the soft cushions. “I could do with a bath to calm my nerves.”
    “Nothing better,” Emma agreed. Then she frowned. Actually, things could be better. But a bath would have to do.
     
    With a warm soak and a cup of tea to rejuvenate her, Emma set her sights on the evening ahead. As Cissy laced the corset over her sister’s chemise, Emma worked out her strategy.
    She would not allow the evening to go to waste. Nicholas Bond had lived in the protectorate for some time. She must make him tell her everything she wanted to know—locations of hospitals, the need for nurses and all the other questions that clamored to be asked.
    Once she had answers, Emma could map out a plan. The sooner she set that plan into motion, the less time her father would have to think up other options for her future.
    When the sisters were dressed at last, they descended the stairs to dinner. Cissy floated in a cloud of blue silk and feathers. A pair of nervous African ladies’ maids had managed to arrange her golden hair around an artificial bluebird, and she did look stunning.
    Emma felt as awkward as she always did beside her glowing sister. Although her green gown had a silk sash and was trimmed in soft pink roses, she could never compare with the dainty treasure at her side. Her sleeveless shoulders were just as creamy and her waist as narrow, but she knew she would never look as enchanting as Cissy did. Such trivialities had long ago ceased to matter. Neither men nor fashion were the objects of her dreams.
    Cissy placed a gloved hand on Emma’s arm and leaned close. “Do I look all right?”
    Emma smiled. “You’ll turn all the men’s heads.”
    Cissy’s face did not brighten. “I miss Dirk. I miss him dreadfully.”
    Stifling the sigh that threatened to escape at the hundredth mention of Cissy’s German soldier, Emma directed her sister’s attention to the opposite side of the room, where their father stood. “You must not speak of Dirk to Father, Cissy. You know how he feels about that sort of thing.”
    “I know how he feels about our future husbands,” Cissy replied. “Well, I won’t marry without love. I assure you that.”
    The dinner bell rang, and the young women made their way to the dining room. It might have been an evening at Aunt Prue’s house in London for all Emma