Two Beaux and a Promise Collection Read Online Free PDF

banker’s daughter. Yet she is an Almack’s patroness with the power to ostracize the highest in the land. As long as your manners conform, you should be fine. You mentioned a governess. Who was she?”
    “Miss Elizabeth Coburn, Sir Reginald Coburn’s youngest daughter.”
    Richard raised his brows.
    “Did you know him?”
    “Not personally, though I’ve heard the stories. He lost everything at cards, including his estate. Drunk, of course, though that is no excuse for ignoring his duty. The shock drove him to his death.”
    “You are putting too nice a face on the incident. He wasn’t a greenling gaming away his allowance. He was a forty-year-old man responsible for his own extensive family, four tenant families, and a hundred employees. Family and friends had often urged him to protect his estate by entailing it, but he refused. Just as he refused to learn anything from earlier losses – except cowardice. His wife had been furious after the previous disaster lost all of her jewelry, so rather than tell her that they must leave their home, he shot himself. Miss Elizabeth found his body the next morning.”
    “Poor girl.”
    “She rarely spoke of it. And she was never openly bitter. She did her best to mold me into a lady.”  She sighed. “Derrick turned her off the day Grandfather died. I’d always suspected he was cold, but that confirmed it. She would have starved if I hadn’t written a glowing reference and convinced Grandfather’s secretary to sign his name to it. It let her find a position with a squire in Hampshire. When Derrick discovered that we were corresponding, he burned her letters and forbade further contact. Never again was the post left where anyone else could see it.”
    “I’m liking Herriard less and less.”
    “He deserves it. But returning to your question, Miss Elizabeth came to us when I was five, so I had her for ten years. And Mother was quick to correct any mistakes. She died when I was fourteen.”
    “Good. Your training settles the matter. I will speak to Lady Inslip – my friend Charles’s mother,” he added when she frowned. “Once she agrees to present you, we can ask Inslip to stand as your guardian. A marquess will carry the day in court no matter what protest Herriard raises.”
    “You don’t know Derrick.”
    “I know Herriard very well. He’ll lose – not that it matters, for he won’t be able to bother you much longer anyway.”
    “Why?”
    “He is a cheat. I’ve been trying to catch him for years.”
    “Why?  Cheating at cards isn’t illegal.”
    “True, but he would be banned from the clubs and dunned by his victims for recompense. The unpleasantness would probably drive him to the Continent. Not a satisfactory solution, but the only one available, at least until recently.”
    “What happened?”
    “He switched to fraud. I’ll be presenting evidence to Lords next week. In the meantime, the bishop will readily sever his guardianship. Fraud aside, the bishop is Inslip’s cousin.”
    She frowned. “That should work in my favor,” she agreed. “But I have no intention of letting Lady Inslip push me into society. I fully intend to set up my own establishment.”
    “We will discuss that later. For now, relax. In another hour we will stop for dinner. I can’t ask the Oakhaven staff to feed us without warning.”
    * * * *
    Georgiana laid down her fork and smiled. The food at the Yellow Oak was surprisingly tasty. Only the refreshments at Hawthorne House had been better – but they had been made for a wedding.
    “Delicious,” she said, wishing she had room for more. “Do all inns serve food like this?”
    Richard looked surprised. “Delicious?  I would describe it as average myself. You have had a rough time of it, haven’t you?”
    “It is over.”
    He was opening his mouth to respond when a voice boomed outside the door. “Herriard!  What are you doing so far from town?”
    Georgiana gasped as all the blood drained from her head.