The Rake Read Online Free PDF Page A

to heart,” Demi added
placatingly.
    If possible, Alma Moreland looked even more
outraged. “Are you suggesting that you have been used as a mere
servant?”
    “ Certainly not!” Demi
disclaimed immediately. “I am glad to help out in any way I can,
knowing what you have expended on my behalf … and cousin Phoebe is
very dear to me. I am only saying that I would not mind being a
help to Phoebe, for she is certain to marry well and will have a
large household.”
    “ Which you would not be
qualified in any way to be of help to her!” Alma Moreland reminded
her sharply, not appeased in the least by Demi’s attempts to
placate her. “I will not hear of it! I have given Mr. Flemming my
approval, assured him that you would welcome his offer and you will
not disappoint me. Is that clear?”
    Demi felt ill. She didn’t trust herself to
speak. Finally, she managed to nod. She was dismissed, but she felt
little relief. Rising a little unsteadily, she left the study. To
her dismay, Phoebe’s party was milling about the hall, on the point
of departure. She glanced blindly in their direction when she heard
her name called.
    “ You are not coming with
us?” Phoebe asked, for the second time, Demi dimly
realized.
    She formed her lips into the semblance of a
smile with an effort. “Thank you, but no. I have a touch of
headache. I believe I will lie down for a bit.”
    “ Oh! You poor thing! You
must ask my maid to fix you up. She has a marvelous cure for
headache.”
    Demi nodded and forced another smile,
flicking her gaze across the faces turned toward her before turning
away. Gripping the banister, she climbed the stairs with an effort,
feeling as stiff and uncoordinated as an elderly woman. It wasn’t
until she had collapsed upon her bed that the images resolved
themselves into individual faces. Lord Wyndham had been among them,
his gaze piercing although his face had been a mask of polite
boredom.
    She wondered a little vaguely if she had
given herself away. She had smiled and spoke and comported herself,
she thought, remarkably well under the circumstances. Phoebe had
not seemed to notice she was laboring under any sort of distress.
She could not recall a single smirk that indicated any of the
others saw anything in her behavior to amuse them.
    It was amazing, really, how often a group of
people took on the characteristics of a pack of wolves.
Individually, they were seldom predatory, but they had only to find
themselves surrounded by their peers to bring out the worst in
them, the search for weakness in a loner that they might use to rip
them to shreds.
    She found she was too distressed to think up
an alternative to her aunt’s ultimatum. She suspected that, even
had she not been distressed, nothing would have come to mind. Her
aunt’s assessment of her situation was all too true. She did not
have enough education to seek a post in teaching. She had no talent
with either water colors or musical instruments that might make her
desirable to families with daughters. Without her aunt’s support,
she had no references and no connections to secure a place for
herself in service. Her lack of a dowry had been sufficient to
discourage any interest in her as a matrimonial prospect with the
exception of Mr. Flemming. Her aunt had made it clear enough that
she would accept Mr. Flemming’s proposal or find herself on the
street. The prospect of having no where at all to go was only
slightly more frightening than that of marrying Jonathan
Flemming.
    She finally concluded that
it was worse,
however. On the streets, she would be prey to many men of Mr.
Flemming’s ilk, or worse, not just the one.
    It was a great pity she had not been born
with the beauty to become a courtesan. She knew she would be a
pariah even for thinking such a thing, but it was almost better to
contemplate the life of a mistress or courtesan.
    Unfortunately, that was out of the question.
So, too, was the wild idea of taking to the stage. If she’d