The Waltzing Widow Read Online Free PDF

months that she and Abigail seemed to have more frequent differings of opinion. She thought that she could directly attribute those instances to the increasing influence that Viscount and Viscountess Catlin had on an impressionable and unworldly young girl. Abigail's grandparents had always indulged her and cosseted her, but now that she was seventeen and on the verge of womanhood, they filled her head with inflated expectations of life. Their wishes for Abigail included a distinguished social position gained through marriage, with the accompanying prestige, rich living, and unending parties and shopping that went hand in hand with it.
    Lady Mary knew from her own childhood just how seductive such promises and expectations could be. She would have made the advantageous and socially prominent marriage her parents wanted for her and lived a life of glittering dissipation, bored with herself and with her neglectful husband, who would naturally have had his mistresses and his gaming and his own life quite apart from hers. She would have given her husband the obligatory heir and then perhaps have taken a lover or two of her own.
    So would she have spent her life, caught in a marriage of convenience that was made on considerations of birth and wealth alone, if it had not been for meeting Sir Roger Spence.
    From that fortuitous moment on, Lady Mary's whole perspective had changed. In Sir Roger she glimpsed the possibility of a different sort of marriage, one entered into with mutual love and respect. She had blithely assumed that her parents would give their blessing to her chosen suitor. It had come as a distinct shock when they did not, and even went so far as to forbid her ever to speak of or to acknowledge Sir Roger Spence's existence again. All of her tearful and disbelieving entreaties and Sir Roger's humble assurances could not alter the viscount and the viscountess's unequivocal decision.
    Lady Mary had not known where to turn or what course to pursue, especially when she received a letter of farewell from Sir Roger. That evening she learned from her maid, who was sympathetic to the star-crossed lovers, that Viscount Catlin had threatened Sir Roger that he would disown his only daughter if she married to disoblige him, before he had had Sir Roger whipped from the house.
    On the spot, Lady Mary had packed her portmanteau and in the company of her maid had gone brazenly to her beloved's lodgings. There she had discovered him burning with fever from infection. He had not been in the most reflective frame of mind, and upon her proposal that they fly to Gretna Green, sent his manservant out to purchase a special license.
    When the fever broke, Sir Roger had awakened to discover Lady Mary at his bedside, quite unconcerned that he was shirtless, and caring for his wounds. He had earnestly begged her to return to her parents, which she refused to do, and they had had the first quarrel of their acquaintance. In the end, Sir Roger had reluctantly come to agree with Lady Mary that if they were ever to be together the marriage would have to be born out of a scandalous flight to Gretna. So they had set forth, and upon the quiet exchange of their vows, they had spent the night as man and wife.
    The following morning during breakfast, the door of their private parlor had burst open and Viscount Catlin had stalked in. He was verbally abusive to Sir Roger and ordered his daughter down to his carriage. Lady Mary had calmly told her father to swallow his threats and cease his demands that she return to London with him. “I am with child, Father,” she had said proudly, not then realizing how truly she had spoken.
    The viscount had drawn himself up and in an awful voice he had declared that she was no longer his daughter. Then he had stormed out, leaving Lady Mary in tears and seeking what solace her husband could offer to her for the loss of her family and all the life she had ever known.
    But she had survived, and splendidly so, thought Lady