The Pretenders Read Online Free PDF Page B

Reeve’s age, with smoothly brushed blond hair and attractive hazel eyes.
    Mr. Miles said, “I am so pleased to meet you, Miss Woodly. It was quite a shock to learn that Reeve has decided to get riveted, you know, but now that I’ve seen you I can perfectly understand his decision.”
    “Thank you,” I said.
    I knew as soon as Mr. Miles said Reeve’s name that he was in fact an old friend. Reeve had been called by his father’s second title, Baron Reeve, ever since he was born. At his father’s death five years ago, he had become Lord Cambridge, but to those of us who had known him since childhood, he would never be anything but Reeve.
    “Wonder if you would give me the pleasure of the next dance?” Mr. Miles continued charmingly. He looked at Reeve. “That is, if Reeve don’t mind my poaching on his territory.”
    I glanced at Reeve, but all he did was give me a bland smile and tell me to go ahead.
    I danced with Mr. Miles.
    I danced with Colonel Macintosh.
    I danced with a large number of other gentlemen whom Reeve presented to me.
    Except for the two times that he danced with me and the one rime he danced with Mama, Reeve didn’t dance at all. Instead he spent the evening leaning against the wall next to Mama’s chair, with his arms folded across his chest. He talked occasionally to Mama, and the rest of the time he watched the room with hooded eyes and a faintly mocking smile on his lips.
    Most of the women in the room appeared to be surreptitiously watching him.
    It was not until I paid a visit to the ladies withdrawing room that I learned something about Reeve’s London reputation.
    It began when a very young lady with a heart-shaped face and huge violet eyes came up to me and said breathlessly. “I am Amanda Pucket, Miss Woodly, and I’m sorry if you find me rude but I will just
burst
if I don’t find out how you and Lord Cambridge met.”
    I repeated what I had said earlier, about Reeve and I knowing each other forever.
    “Oh you are so lucky!” This came from another starry-eyed seventeen-year-old. ”To be marrying the Corsair!”
    This was the second time someone had called Reeve the Corsair.
    “Er, is
Corsair
Lord Cambridge’s nickname?” I asked in bewilderment.
    The circle of girls stared at me as if I were mad.
    “But… surely you know
The Corsair
?” Amanda Pucket said.
    My face told her that I did not.
    “It is Lord Byron’s newest poem,” she informed me. ”Ever since it was published in February people have done nothing but compare the hero, Conrad, to Lord Cambridge.”
    “Good heavens,” I said faintly. Poor Reeve.
    “Conrad is supposed to be modeled on Byron himself, of course, but Lord Cambridge is so much handsomer,” Amanda told me reverently. ”He has sable-colored hair that tumbles down across his forehead, just like Conrad’s, and flashing dark eyes, just like Conrad’s, and…“
    Another young lady closed her eyes and quoted soulfully:
    There was a laughing Devil in his sneer, That raised emotions both of rage and fear…
    “A
laughing devil
?” I had to struggle to keep from laughing out loud myself.
    Another young lady quoted even more soulfully than the first:
    He knew himself a villain
—
but he deemed The rest no better than the thing he seemed
.
    All of a sudden I didn’t feel like laughing anymore.
    “You see, Miss Woodly,” Amanda explained, ”Conrad has this deep dark secret that has wounded his very soul, and that is why he acts as he does.” She gave me a sunny smile. ”You must read
The Corsair
, you really must.”
    “Yes,” I said. I felt slightly sick, but I did my best for Reeve. ”Lord Cambridge is really nothing like the Corsair, you know, even if he does have sable-colored hair and flashing eyes.”
    The smitten Amanda sighed. “You know what Caro Lamb said about Byron, Miss Woodly: “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.’ Well, my Mama said that those words are twice as applicable to Cambridge and that I was to stay out of his