The Chaperone by Sophia Holloway

Author:Sophia Holloway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allison and Busby
Published: 2023-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Susan was a young woman who blew hot and cold because it was more exciting, and she liked to see men suffer. She was not altogether sure that Lord Pinkney would go so far as suffering, but she thought she might yet slip a barb beneath his armour if she showed herself very keen upon her uniformed admirer. Lord Edward Wittenham was as putty in her little hands, even though he sometimes dreamt she was squeezing his heart until it burst, not in the sense of loving but so that it might not follow its own inclination.

When he saw Lady Harriet that heart gave a little skip. Had it not been for the malign presence of Miss Tyneham, he would be determinedly fixing his interest with that damsel. He knew he was not the greatest catch, but he could keep a wife in comfort, assure her of moving in the highest circles and had a snug little estate from an uncle where he might settle once he sold out, and the army was far less interesting now there was peace in Europe. Not that having Polish Lancers attempting to skewer one counted as merely interesting, and there were odd nights when in his dreams he still parried the blow from a French cuirassier that thus did not slice off his arm but merely slid down his own lunging blade and neatly removed the tip from his right ring finger. He could hold his head up as not just a fancy soldier for London parades, and if you were going to have been present at any battles, Vitoria and Waterloo were undoubtedly the ones which would be remembered by everyone. He was twenty-six, and had no need to settle as yet, and no pressure from having to secure a succession, yet thoughts of a cosy home life did now intrude. He imagined that comfortable life with Lady Harriet, not Miss Tyneham, about whom his unconscious thoughts were more frequent, but located only in a bedroom.

Lord Rothley, who did not blame Wittenham for his infatuation, but pitied the man, wisely refrained from giving him the hint to stand down. He thought the fellow would see sense soon enough and would be left with nothing worse than an embarrassing memory.

Sophy, despite the added stresses, had always enjoyed the ball her mama held in the Hill Street house, even the awful year of her own debut. She wondered whether it was because it was one time when nobody announced her name. If it had not been for the tangle in which she found herself with Susan, and her worry over Harriet, she would still have enjoyed it this year, once she had got past the ‘day-before panic’. Bembridge was a fount of good sense and respectfully avuncular calm, whose veneer only cracked when Sophy took his hand and averred that without him she would have taken to her bed and hidden beneath the bedclothes, quaking in horror, until the event was cancelled. This reduced him to a blushing mumble for a full three minutes.

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.