The Sherbrooke Bride Read Online Free PDF

probably no different. Staid and well set in his ways, I’ll wager, just like his father, Justin Sherbrooke, was. Well, none of that has any bearing now. I suppose I should speak to your sister.” He paused a moment, looking toward his daughter’s profile. Pure and innocent, he thought, yet there was strength there, in the tilt of her head, in the clear light in her gray eyes. Her nose was straight and thin, her cheekbones high, and her chin gently rounded, giving the impression of submissiveness and malleability, which wasn’t at all the case, at least in his experience with his daughter. But, strangely enough, she didn’t appear to know she had steel in her, even when she argued with him. Her rich titian hair was pulled back from her face, showing her small ears, and he found both her ears and her lovely. She wasn’t an exquisite creation like her older sister, Melissande, but she was quite to his taste, for there was little vanity or pettiness in her and there was a good deal of kindness and wit. Ah, she was the responsible one, the child who wouldn’t gainsay her papa ever, the one who would do her duty to herfamily. Again, he had the inescapable feeling that she was distressed and he wondered at it. He said slowly, “I told you of this first, Alex, because I wanted your opinion. Even though your mother believes you to be much like the wallpaper—quiet and in Melissande’s shadow—I know differently, and thus I would like to know what you think of this proposed match.”
    He thought she trembled slightly at his words and frowned, wondering if her mother had perhaps tried to flatten her spirit again with her constant comparisons to her sister. He watched her closely. “Are you ailing with something, my dear?”
    â€œOh no, Papa. It’s just that—”
    â€œThat what?”
    She shrugged then. “I suppose I wonder if Melissande would have him now. She wants to enjoy another Season, you know, and we are to leave next week. Perhaps she would wish to wait to see what other gentlemen are available to her. She much savors the chase, she told me. Oglethorpe, she said, was a spineless toad and she was vastly relieved when his mama made him cry off before he cried on, so to speak.”
    The duke sighed. “Yes, your sister was right about him, but that isn’t the point now. You know, Alex, that money must play a big part in any decision. Our family hasn’t been in overly plump current for many years now, and the expense of London during the Season, the cost of staffing the Carlyon Street house, the price of her gowns and gowns for her mother, all of it together is exorbitant. I was willing to do it again as an investment, for I could see no alternative. Now with the Earl of Northcliffe proposing to her, I will get a settlement without having to endure London and all its costs.” The duke realized,of course, that by canceling out another Season for Melissande, he was also preventing Alexandra from having her first Season. But the cost of it—he ran his hand through his dark red hair. What to do? He continued, saying more to himself, than to his daughter, “And there’s Reginald, my twenty-five-year-old heir, gambling in every hell London can boast, raising huge debts to Weston his tailor, and to Hoby his bootmaker, even to Rundle and Bridge for ‘trinkets’ as he calls these supposed insubstantial baubles for his mistresses. My God, you wouldn’t believe the ruby bracelet he bought for one of those opera dancers!” He shook his head again. “Ah, Alex, I’ve felt trapped for so long now, but no longer is my life falling down on my shoulders. You know well the economies I’ve tried to initiate, but explaining the necessity to your mother, well, an impossible task, that. She has no concept, telling me in a bewildered way that one must have at least three removes at dinner. Nor does Melissande. You, of course,