The Wagered Widow by Patricia Veryan

Author:Patricia Veryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250101464
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER

9

In view of the activities planned for the following dawn, Rebecca was sure that Snowden would not be late home. He had said he was occupying her house, and Mrs. Falk confirmed this. The good housekeeper was horrified by Rebecca’s woebegone appearance and when, as the due of an old family retainer, she was told the reason behind her mistress’s headlong journey back to Town, she shed a few tears of her own. Rebecca was fussed over, coddled, and every effort bent towards making her comfortable and lightening her spirits. Having changed gratefully into a nightdress and a pink wrapper that was a cloud of gauze and lace, she went down to the snug parlour, ate a light supper from a tray, and determined to await her brother’s return. When she heard voices in the hall an hour later, she was sure Snowden had arrived, and was surprised when Letitia Boudreaux burst into the room and tripped down the steps, hands outstretched and an expression of stark tragedy on her lovely face.

“Oh, Lud!” moaned Rebecca, standing to greet her. “What now?”

“Treve told me what happened,” Letitia answered, allowing Mrs. Falk to take her cloak and bonnet. And when the door closed behind the housekeeper, she went on, “I wonder you did not strangle the unfeeling brute.”

Rebecca showed her guest to a chair by the fire and sat down again. “I nigh shot him! You will never know how close I came to pulling the trigger! I panted—I positively yearned to pull it!”

“I am only astounded you did not,” said Letitia, betraying no least concern at these murderous inclinations towards a cousin of whom she was deeply fond. “To laugh in your face—I heard him!—when you must have been nigh distracted with anxiety!”

“He said,” Rebecca uttered broodingly, “that it was deliciously melodramatic! And that Will Shakespeare would have loved it!”

“The beast! Whatever did you say?”

“I told him he was vile, and—and heaven knows what else.”

“Very right! Did he cower?”

“Cower! He roared! He laughed so much he could scarce stand.”

“Monster!”

Rebecca nodded, but a dimple peeped beside her red mouth, and she said with what Snowden called her pixie look, “It was rather delicious, now that I come to think on it. Especially when I offered myself to him if he would only spare my brother.”

Her eyes as big as saucers, Letitia gasped, “You—oh! You never did!”

“Yes. That is when he seized me and crushed me to his breast. And—” She frowned suddenly. “And I thought he was going to smother me with burning kisses.”

“D-didn’t he?” breathed Letitia, awed.

“No. That’s when he sort of—snorted, and began to laugh, the wretch!”

“There is but one answer—he must be demented. But, what shall you do now?”

“I mean to try and reason with my brother, and if—”

The door burst open, and Snowden came into the room, still clad in his ball dress, and with a look of anxious anticipation on his handsome features. He checked when he saw Miss Boudreaux and his sister, and his expression changed to one of rather comical dismay.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.