Unbefitting a Lady Read Online Free PDF

life
disapproving. Still, Phaedra preferred not to be on the receiving end of her
aunt’s disapproval and there seemed to be a lot more of it headed her direction
since Kate had left after Christmas with her new husband.
    In the breakfast room, Giles was already present with his
coffee and newspapers. He looked up as she entered and uttered a brief
good-morning. She nodded. This had become their ritual. Both of them enjoyed
rising early but early rising was not synonymous with a desire to engage in
conversation. They wanted to eat first, let their minds sift through the agenda
of their days.
    Phaedra piled her plate with eggs and hot toast. Chances were
she wouldn’t be back to the house for luncheon. Her mind was already sorting
through the things that needed doing at the stables: check on the gelding with
the sore leg, make sure the hay delivery had arrived from the home farm, do a
general walk-through to check on the stalls and horses. There was Warbourne to
see to and horses to exercise.
    The activity would fill her day until sunset. The busyness was
a blessed relief from the empty house. She’d grown up in a large family, used to
being surrounded by brothers and a sister, but war and the passing of years had
brought an end to that. The boys had gone to battle. Only Giles had come home
and then only because duty demanded it. Harry had come home and left again. Kate
had married. Really, Kate’s marriage was the last blow, the last desertion. The
two of them had lived here together during the years the boys were at war. It
had brought them close in spite of the difference in their ages. Now Kate was
gone, choosing Virgil and a new life in Boston over Castonbury and the familiar.
And her.
    Now it was just her and Giles, the oldest and the youngest,
nine years separating them. She hoped it wasn’t disloyal to Jamie to think of
Giles as the oldest. But Jamie was dead now, whether there was a body or not,
and Giles had done his best to pick up the reins of duty in the wake of great
tragedy.
    Phaedra sighed and bit into her toast. Since Kate had left,
mornings were hardest of all, the time when she was most acutely aware she’d
been left behind. The once merry and heavily populated breakfast room was empty.
Giles was here but he had Lily and in the summer they would marry. They would
fill Castonbury with a new generation of Montagues. Time would move on. Would
she? What would happen to her? What would become of
her? Anything could happen. She told herself she had Warbourne now. He was her
chance.
    Phaedra pushed back from the table, her appetite overruled by
the need to see Warbourne, to get to the stables where worries and thoughts
wouldn’t plague her.
    ‘Leaving so soon?’ Giles looked up from his paper. ‘Anxious to
see your colt?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I don’t suppose we’ll see you before dinner?’ Giles arched a
dark brow in query.
    ‘There’s a lot to be done. I was gone for two days,’ Phaedra
said.
    ‘That’s what Basingstoke is for. Let him do the job he’s been
hired for.’ Giles gave her a patient, brotherly smile. ‘You need time to be
yourself, to do things you enjoy, Phae. You’ve been working too hard. Don’t
think I haven’t noticed.’ Giles folded the newspaper and set it aside.
    ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this spring, Phae. I
know now isn’t the best time, but perhaps after dinner tonight?’ It was a token
of how much Giles had softened this year that he was asking at all. Last year
Giles would simply have issued his edict and considered it done.
    ‘Perhaps,’ Phaedra offered noncommittally. Giles could talk all
he wanted. She wasn’t going to London for a Season. She had the Derby to think
about. She couldn’t be spending her days on Bond Street trying on dresses to
impress men she wasn’t going to marry, not when Warbourne needed her here.
Phaedra grabbed up an apple from a bowl on the sideboard and made a hasty
retreat before Giles decided to have the discussion