A Difficult Disguise by Michaels Kasey

Author:Michaels, Kasey [Michaels, Kasey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: New York Times Bestselling Author, regency romance
Published: 2012-05-15T23:00:00+00:00

Aunt Belleville, belatedly smarting ever so slightly under the niggling thought that her dearest nephew had only been flattering her and really did prefer the yellow saloon to be yellow, deliberately shunned the saloon and sat in the music room, her mind still struggling over the possibility of gilding the room’s depressingly plain, domed ceiling.

Even Lethbridge, the dear man, had warned her that the price of gilt being what it was could put a crimp in her latest inspiration, giving rise to the unhappy thought that even dearest Lethbridge had attempted to tell her something. Perhaps, just perhaps, her contributions to the beautification of Lakeview were not appreciated.

“No, no, I must be wrong,” she assured herself aloud, arranging her many-tasseled paisley scarf more comfortably about her shoulders. “My personal taste cannot be at fault, for surely I have been complimented on my dress more than once by the good women in the village. Perhaps there exists the problem of cost, although I have yet to see any hint of economizing in the way of cheaper vegetables or tallow candles.”

The notion that her wonderful nephew could be penny-pinched brought a frown to Mrs. Belleville’s round face. If economies must be employed, her days at Lakeview were numbered, for surely the first thing to go would be a useless female relative.

Aunt Belleville took her bottom lip between her teeth, pondering the distasteful thought of being once more set out upon the road, searching for some infirm relative to nurse in order to keep a roof over her own head.

She sighed, not for the first time repenting her decision to naysay Richard Casterbridge’s proposal some forty years earlier. True, he had been a widower with six truly terrible children, a drafty old pile of a house somewhere near Newcastle, terrible teeth and worse breath, but he had offered her his hand in marriage, which was more than she could say about any other man she’d ever met. Besides, by now Richard’s children would have been raised and, with any luck, Richard himself safely underground, and a drafty old pile of a house could be very comforting if it were her drafty old pile.

Aunt Belleville sat up very straight, resolving to spend no more precious time regretting past mistakes, and determined to think her way past her current problem. Clearly Lethbridge, who could not seem to take a hint even if it were dressed up in ribbons and placed in his porridge, was not about to rescue her through marriage—not that marriage to a butler was exactly what she had dreamed of when she turned down Richard. But Lethbridge was a lovely man and she silently acknowledged that she had grown a little long in the tooth to be picky.

No, she would have to discover some other way, some wondrously foolproof plan, to make herself indispensable to her nephew once more, and she had better locate it quickly, before the cook took to serving day-old bread or else she was apt to be the next “economy” at Lakeview.

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