The Reluctant Widow Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ned, thank God you are here! I had nearly rid home, only that Hitchin told me in the very nick of time that you had driven over here! I am in the devil of a pucker! In fact, I don’t know what’s to be done, and I thought I had best come to you at once, even if you are not quite pleased with me!”
    One glance at this fair-headed, fresh-faced youth, with his open blue eyes and tanned cheeks, had been enough to convince Miss Rochdale that whoever else he might be, he was not Carlyon’s dissolute cousin. A second glance was needed to enable her to discern an indefinable likeness in him to Carlyon, for it was not marked. He was plainly in considerable agitation, and he looked more than a little scared. Her experience of Carlyon, brief as it was, prevented her from feeling any surprise at his damping response to the young man’s impetuous speech.
    “Yes, certainly it was the best thing to do,” he said. “But I cannot believe there is any occasion for all this commotion, Nicky. What have you been doing?” His young brother heaved a large sigh, and smiled blindingly at him. “Oh, Ned, you always make a fellow feel there is nothing so desperately bad after all! But indeed there is! I’m excessively sorry, but I have killed Eustace Cheviot!”
     
    Chapter III
    A shocked silence fell upon the room. Carlyon stood perfectly still, staring at his brother under suddenly frowning brows. Nicky returned his gaze, deprecatingly, but not unhopefully. He put Miss Rochdale strongly in mind of a puppy who, having chewed up his master’s shoes, was doubtful of winning approval.
    It was Carlyon who broke the silence. “The devil you have!” he said slowly. “Yes,” Nicky said. “And I know you won’t like it, Ned, but indeed I never meant to do it! You see, it was—well, you know how he—”
    “Just a moment, Nicky! Let me have this from the start! What are you doing in Sussex?” “Oh, I’ve been rusticated!” Nicky explained. “I was on my way home when—” “Why?” interrupted Carlyon.
    “Well, it is nothing very bad, Ned. You see, there was a performing bear.” “Oh!” said Carlyon. “I see.”
    Nicky grinned at him. “I knew you would! Keighley was with me—just kicking up a lark, you know! And, of course, when I saw that bear—well, I had to borrow it, Ned!” “Of course,” Carlyon agreed dryly.
    “The Bagwig said I stole it, but that’s fudge! As though I would do such a thing! That made me as mad as fire, I can tell you! Well, I don’t mind his abusing me like a pickpocket for setting the brute on to tree two of the Nobs—it did, Ned! It was the most famous thing you ever saw in your life!”
    “I dare say, but I didn’t see it.”
    “No, and I wish you might have done so, for I do think you must have enjoyed it. Well, there it was, and of course I expected I should have to fork out my knocking-in money, or some such thing, and I didn’t care a fig for that. But then, as I say, the Dean would have it I had stolen the bear, in spite of my telling him that I had only borrowed it, and I fired up at last, and said I’d no need to steal bears, because if you knew I wanted one you would very likely give me one—”
    “It is the last thing in the world I would give you.” “Well, I don
    ’t want one; I should not know what to do with it. But I dare say my saying that put him in a worse pet, for the long and the short of it is that I am rusticated for the rest of the term. But I don’t think the Bagwig was so very angry, you know, because for one thing he don’t like one of the Nobs the bear chased, and for another, I’ll go bail he had a twinkle in his eye, for I saw it. He’s a great gun!”
    “Very well, and what happened next?”
    “Oh, then, of course, I had to come down! Keighley drove me to London in his new phaeton. He has the prettiest pair of bays, Ned! Regular sixteen-mile-an-hour tits, and—” “Never mind that! I want to hear the rest of this story.”
    “Oh, yes! Well,