The Waltzing Widow/Smith Read Online Free PDF Page A

clouded his simple mind that Adrian would be anything but as delighted as he was himself at the circumstance.
    Avedon was out when his sister returned from Rose Cottage, but they met at tea, and he listened with mixed feelings to her account. He was happy to learn the women were respectable. That they were apparently well-to-do was a matter of indifference to him, though it was what impressed Lady Sara. When Mrs. Percy began to emerge in the tale as “so very charming,” “really quite youthful,” and finally “extremely attractive,” his heart sank.
    “How did Tony behave himself?” he asked with foreboding.
    “Oh, very polite. Distant, you know. The husband is a captain, by the way, and he must be youngish, which means he bought his commission, so there is clearly money in the family somewhere.”
    “If there were real money, they would not be renting up a little cottage; they’d have an estate to go to.”
    Lady Sara ignored the comment. “I counted at least six servants, four women and the groom and a footman. Or perhaps he was a butler.”
    “Living beyond their means,” Avedon scoffed. “Are they to take Jinny’s milk, by the way?” he asked, wondering if success in that quarter colored his sister’s account.
    “No, it does not agree with her, but she wants dairy products and vegetables. I daresay she will be happy for some chickens and eggs as well.”
    “You speak as though there was only one woman.”
    “The chaperon was there, too. An elderly lady, a respectable dame, certainly. There is nothing to fear there.”
    It was at this point that Bigelow sauntered in, smiling from ear to ear in a besotted way that announced he was in love. “Oh, God!” Avedon moaned. “I hope you haven’t been making up to a married woman all afternoon, Tony!”
    “No, to a widow,” he answered, “so there is no need to be looking at me in that disparaging way, as if I was a lame nag.”
    Avedon jumped to his feet. “Is that Lacey creature back here?”
    “Lacey?” Bigelow could hardly remember his former love. “No, you sent her to Tunbridge Wells.”
    “What widow has got that imbecilic smirk on your phiz?” Avedon demanded.
    “Widow Percy,” he replied promptly. “Mrs. Percy ain’t married at all. That is to say, she was married. The husband’s dead. Ain’t that a stroke of luck, Uncle?”
    Avedon looked in alarm to his sister. “Sal, is this true?”
    Lady Sara looked alert but not worried. “It cannot be. She said her husband is a captain. I’m sure that is what she said. And the letter, you recall, said, ‘My husband is in the Peninsula with Wellington.’ Might she have meant he is buried in the Peninsula? Oh, dear!”
    “That’s the way it is,” Tony informed them, beaming with pleasure at this fortunate stroke.
    “Did you not mention her wearing something pink, Sal?” Avedon inquired. “An odd way for a respectable widow to be dressing.”
    “She wore a lovely pink lawn gown, which was very inappropriate for travel, now I think of it. Only it is warm today, of course, and that might account for it.”
    “The husband’s been dead for years. She ain’t mourning in the least,” Tony assured them.
    Lady Sara was never slow to find fault and was soon reassessing her first generous opinion of the ladies. “That was a very lively bonnet I saw perched on the stairpost in the hall, now that I think of it,” she said. “Très gai for a widow. Almost garish, in fact, with a surfeit of primroses.”
    “Not so garish as that basket of cherries you had on your head,” Bigelow objected.
    “I am not a widow, dear,” Lady Sara pointed out.
    Avedon looked from one to the other in consternation. “You have been telling me for the last quarter hour what a stylish dresser she is,” he said accusingly to his sister.
    “Stylish for a married lady; garish for a widow,” she explained.
    “Surely you haven’t been at Rose Cottage all this time?” Avedon demanded, turning to his nephew.