The Study of Seduction by Jeffries Sabrina

Author:Jeffries, Sabrina [Jeffries, Sabrina]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Historical Romance, Historical
ISBN: 9781472232151
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2016-03-21T18:30:00+00:00

Fourteen

Everyone in the street could probably hear Lady Margrave scream when they told her the news.

Edwin grimaced. He hadn’t intended to cause a rift between Clarissa and her mother.

Lady Margrave stomped about the drawing room with her cane, pausing occasionally to brandish it at them. “What do you mean, you were wed this morning? How could you just . . . just sneak off to get married, without a word to me! No lace, no wedding breakfast . . . no orange blossoms . . . I can’t believe it!”

“We didn’t have a choice, Mama,” Clarissa said. “Besides, you know I hate that scent. I wouldn’t have worn orange blossoms anyway.”

“Yes, but you would have worn a more impressive gown,” she said, taking in Clarissa’s dress with a look of contempt. “Why, just this morning I laid out the recent copies of La Belle Assemblée for us to go over in picking your design.” Her mother pouted spectacularly. “And I saw the most perfect little wedding bonnet in a shopwindow a week ago that I wanted you to look at. And now . . . now . . . you’re already married!”

The dowager countess burst into tears.

Edwin blinked. Blast, blast, and double blast. He sincerely hoped that becoming a watering pot was not one of Clarissa’s attributes.

With a side glance at him, Clarissa put her arm around her mother and said, “There, there, Mama, I know it’s a disappointment. But Count Durand was threatening awful things, and we saw no way around it.”

Edwin felt he should say something to help. “I saw him right outside your house the other night, Lady Margrave. I was afraid he might abduct Clarissa if we didn’t marry at once.”

“And it wasn’t as if Edwin could stay here all the time. It wouldn’t be respectable.”

His wife was handling the woman with surprising aplomb. Come to think of it, she always had. Perhaps she wouldn’t be so unsuitable a wife after all. Assuming he could get her to share his bed eventually.

God, he must stop thinking about that.

“But why couldn’t I attend the wedding, too? And perhaps a few of our friends? We could have kept it small.” Her mother began to tick names off. “Just Lady Anne and the Lamonts and the Sweeney sisters, since they’re my closest friends, and of course—”

“Mama! That’s precisely why we didn’t include you. You would have started making a big to-do, Count Durand would have got wind of our plan, and he would have spread scandal in hopes of preventing the wedding. It had to remain secret until it was over.” She frowned at her mother. “Admit it, you do not know how to keep things secret.”

“That’s not true,” Lady Margrave said with a sniff.

“Who told Cook that I disliked her veal sausages?”

The dowager countess lifted her chin. “That was only so she would make better ones.”

“And who told Warren last year that Yvette thought his mustache made him look villainous?”

“Well, it did. She was right.”

“Yes, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

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