True Born Read Online Free PDF Page B

that they could strike blows,
should it be necessary, and that the bastard should be thrown out
in the street on his arse.
    That night a soirée was being given: it was
relatively common for the Earl and Countess to have guests over for
dinner, music and dancing, as it afforded Hugh an occasion to
participate in politics or talk of some other manly pursuit with
friends and acquaintances, and it gave his wife the opportunity to
parade the sisters who needed to be married. Bess and Cecily looked
pretty and shiny, as expensive wares ought to look in window shops,
and men took a renewed and more serious interest in them because of
whose sisters-in-law they were. Dorothea was upstairs since, at
fourteen, she was far too young to be courted.
    And the new arrival, Hester, stood away from
others in her simple dress, yet she seemed feral rather than shy.
She observed everyone restlessly, eyes darting to and fro, flitting
among faces, as if she were looking for something that was not
there.
    Very often Georgiana would find those black
eyes on her, scanning her, a frown distorting Hester’s brow and
closing over her long nose.
    The Countess was a great contrast to the poor
cousin, as she looked magnificent tonight with her powdered hair
piled high, and an ostrich plume of midnight blue perched on it.
Her pewter dress with its wide skirt and fur trimmings made her
look like the moonlight. Diamonds shone on her ears, in points of
her coiffure and over the lovely breasts that rose from her
fashionable low décolletage. She did her best to smile and turn
around the room greeting everyone who mattered to her husband. Few
people mattered to her.
    Until, of course, John arrived.
    No one had expected him to, least of all
Hugh, who stood in a circle of his friends, drawling sentences that
passed for epigrams, and holding a glass of wine which was
constantly filled.
    London knew, of course, who John Crawford
was, and the information that his half brother Halford had paid
lawyers to punch holes through his father's will so that the
bastard was left with nothing was not only known, but had even been
exaggerated. Various accounts circulated, ranging from the belief
that the previous Earl had married John's mother, and made the
bastard his true born son, to the affirmation that John was Mr.
Crawford's son, and his widow had tried to convince the Earl that
the child was his, to get him to marry her.
    The majority of society sided with Halford,
for a bastard, especially one who was left a great deal of money,
was a risk to the all important issues of inheritance, family line
and pedigree. Bastards were undesirable, troublesome and even
dangerous, as everyone present that night was about to see.
    As music played and guests chatted and
laughed, there was a slight upheaval at the door; it was only
slight, for John Crawford had entered the house at the pace of a
military man, a man used to charging against an enemy much more
formidable than a group of servants, even if they were armed with
cudgels.
    The footmen at the door and the added
security didn't know what to do when this officer in his imposing
red coat and boots marched in, his face as black as a storm.
    He walked through the servants and they
hardly dared go forward to try to stop him; when they did, they
were pushed away unceremoniously. John was holding a saber, too,
though it was sheathed, and he had the look of knowing how to wield
it.
    When he irrupted into the large drawing room
where all the company was assembled, there were gasps from the
people nearest the door.  Hugh and Georgiana had no idea what
was happening until the crowd started to part and John stood before
them, his face bronzed by the Indian sun and his eyes the piercing
grey of a blade. He looked like Satan loosened out of hell.
    Georgiana stared at the love of her life with
so much longing and terror that she thought she might run into his
arms.  He was here!  But he never looked at her.
His eyes bore into his brother's.