Winter Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page A

gazetted flirt, who spent his days flitting about from house to house, visiting any family with a nubile daughter.
    They talked for thirty minutes, at the end of which time Lady Marguerite went to her room to clean up after her trip, and Clara went belowstairs to see if she was needed and to see as well, of course, if Miss Muldoon and her escort had arrived yet.
    Clara had been gone scarcely half an hour, but during that short interval many carriages had arrived and unloaded the occupants, who swarmed about the entranceway, the gold saloon, and even up the stairs. Many of the visitors were strangers to Clara, but Oglethorpe’s relations were hers also, and she knew them. She had spent time in many of their homes and had to seek these relatives out for a friendly word explaining what she was doing here at Branelea. She was introduced to the Lucker relations—the names familiar to her from writing invitations, as well as various lists.
    Accustomed to meeting many strangers as she was, Clara enjoyed this free-for-all. Her mind was quick to fit a name to a face, and with a leg in both the Lucker and Oglethorpe camps, she was soon busy making introductions of her own. So busy that she failed to remark the gentleman in the far corner of the room, observing her every move and trying to catch her eye.
    She didn’t even know Lord Allingcote was there, while his gray eyes first widened in disbelief, then crinkled at the edges in a smile, and finally narrowed in impatience. Till he rose and lounged toward her at a familiar gait, with his well-shaped head preceding his shoulders a little, she didn’t even see him. But as soon as Lord Allingcote was seen, he was recognized, and she stopped dead in the middle of welcoming her Cousin Esmeralda to stare at him, as if he were a ghost.
    In two paces he was at her side, bowing and saying in his familiar offhand way, “Fancy meeting you here, Miss Christopher!” The warmth of his voice removed any casual air from the trite remark. That, and his remembering her name after two years.
    “Oh, Lord Allingcote, you remember me,” she said, and dropped a curtsy.
    “Remember you!” he exclaimed, shocked. “But of course! Well, well, small world, isn’t it?” he said, then emitted a laugh that was a little too loud and sounded almost nervous—so unlike his usual social polish. “Have I left out any of the customary banalities?” he asked her with a smile. “We’ve had ‘fancy meeting you here’ and ‘small world.’ I had no idea you would be here. I didn’t realize you were a friend of Prissie’s.”
    “I’m not. That is—I am now I hope—but I am here because of Oglethorpe. He is my cousin.”
    “Is he indeed? No one told me that. What a pleasant surprise this is, seeing you again.” He put his hand on her elbow and continued, “Won’t you join me in that quiet little corner there between the palms, that I have usurped for myself? Quite a tropical oasis in the desert of Auntie’s saloon, with a good bottle of claret standing by. You don’t remember, I suppose, my predilection for claret at the Bellinghams’, but I remember you always preferred sherry, and shall procure you a glass if you’ll join me among the palms.”
    His friendly interest, his remembering where they had met before, and even her preference for sherry, amazed her. Clara was so overcome she could hardly reply. While she hesitated, he went on, “Do come. We have so much to talk about, and at a big do like this, you need not worry about mixing with everyone. I have been hiding for thirty minutes and no one has missed me.”
    As he spoke, he led her to the palm trees in the corner, magically picking a glass of sherry off a passing tray along the way. Soon they were seated, a little apart from the others, looking at each other with conscious, almost shy glances.
    Clara racked her brain for something to say, but the only thing she could think of was Nel Muldoon, and she disliked to let him know she had