The Rake Read Online Free PDF

been
talented enough, her looks might not have mattered. If she had been
beautiful enough, a lack of talent wouldn’t have been a problem,
but she was fairly certain having neither would only land her in
the streets.
    The immutable truth was that she was
completely at her aunt’s mercy, and her aunt had none.
    By the time the maid came to summon her to
the dreaded luncheon, she had calmed somewhat and realized she had
no option other than accepting her fate. She felt distinctly ill.
She was also angry with her fate, but she knew she could not fight
it.
    She got up, washed her face, tidied her hair
and smoothed her gown. Dragging in a deep, sustaining breath of
air, she left the room and went downstairs to face her future.

Chapter Three
    Simple obedience, Demitria knew from past
experience, was not sufficient. Her aunt would expect her to be
pleased, or give the appearance of it. If she sat like a stone
throughout the luncheon, pale, uncommunicative, refusing to eat,
her aunt would take it in the same way that she would see open
defiance. She would be livid and she would leave Demi in no doubt
of it once Mr. Flemming took his leave.
    She ate slowly, and with extreme care, to
keep from choking or being violently ill when her knotted stomach
rejected the food she swallowed determinedly. She managed to smile
at every mildly witty remark that Mr. Flemming made and even to
participate in the conversation beyond a simple yes or no to
questions put to her.
    Alma Moreland sent her several approving
glances during the course of the meal. Instead of being relieved,
however, Demi began to think of them as gloating smirks. Slowly,
the shock wore off and anger began to simmer beneath the surface of
her calm. Presently, it occurred to her with a touch of surprise
that she hated her aunt. She hadn’t considered it before. If anyone
had asked, she would almost certainly have said, dutifully, that
she loved her aunt, but the truth was she had never felt any warmer
emotion toward the woman.
    She had tried. In the beginning, when she
had first come to live with the Morelands, she had wanted
desperately to win her aunt’s affection. She had hungered for the
love she had lost when her parents were killed and had been eager
to please. In time, she’d come to realize that Alma Moreland simply
was not capable of feeling any affection for anyone beyond herself.
It was not only she who failed to engender it. So far as she could
tell, Alma Moreland had never felt more than a distant sort of
fondness for either Lord Moreland or Phoebe. What little she had to
give had been reserved for her son, and Demi was more inclined to
think that less akin to love than pride.
    There had been a time when she was younger
when she had pitied her aunt, certain that some terrible thing had
happened to her that made her that way and that, deep down, she
suffered. Perhaps it was true, but Demi neither pitied nor
empathized with her any longer. Whatever might have occurred to
make her the cold, unfeeling, tyrant that she was, was not an
excuse for her complete disregard for the feelings of others.
    Demi entertained herself thorough the latter
half of the meal with fanciful revenges, but in the end she was
obliged to admit to herself that there was little hope of her ever
being in a position of power that would allow her to seek any sort
of satisfactory retribution.
    She was well and truly under her aunt’s
thumb and about to be passed off to another thumb that was probably
just as merciless.
    Her interview with Jonathan Flemming was as
uncomfortable as she’d envisioned but, fortunately, even her own
personal purgatory had a time limit. Mr. Flemming professed a great
regard for her, all the while staring down at her bosom
lasciviously, as if she were sitting before him naked. Demi managed
to repress a shudder, pasted a smile on her lips and mouthed the
same lie. Her aunt returned to the room, professed her delight at
the match, allowed Demi to kiss her cheek, and she