(Malloren #2) Tempting Fortune by Jo Beverley

Author:Jo Beverley [Beverley, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

If it was a prison, it was a luxurious one. Portia was given a charming bedroom, though in typical cool shades, and a small boudoir. The rooms were scattered with valuable objets d’artes, and the handsome white-draped bed was decorated with knots and bandings of rich silver cord.

Two maids busied themselves in putting away Portia’s clothes and other possessions.

Nerissa, dressed now in her usual public wear of elegant white, came to observe. “I hope you can bear these rooms, Cousin. I’m afraid the whole house is quite plain. I am trying to persuade Trelyn to indulge a little more in color, but thus far I have only been successful with my own rooms.”

“It is very elegant.”

Nerissa pouted. “But so dull.”

Portia wanted to ask her cousin why she had married Lord Trelyn when they had so little in common, but it would be impertinent. Since the aristocracy seemed to marry for advantage, doubtless personal tastes did not enter into it.

“Now,” said Nerissa, “if you are settled, we will go out. I am sure there are any number of items you need, and I have been pining for such a trip. A man is a tedious shopping companion.”

“Lord Trelyn likes to accompany you to the shops?” Portia asked in surprise as she took her light cloak out of an armoire.

“The dear creature will hardly let me out of his sight! But he has agreed that we shall go today without his escort, for he must be at the House. Something very dull to do with the country’s debt.”

“Dear Lord. Is the whole country in debt?”

Nerissa laughed. “Oh, my dear, if you wish to discuss such matters, you must ask Trelyn. But I gather war is expensive. There is something called a sinking fund which sounds most alarming, though I am told it is a good thing. Now, are you ready? Why, what a pretty pelerine. It suits your hair and eyes quite marvelously.”

Portia followed Nerissa down to the coach thinking wistfully that Oliver would have been pleased to hear that.

The shopping trip was unlike anything Portia had experienced in her life. It seemed that Nerissa bought everything that caught her eye and that she must do so frequently, for she was well-known everywhere. She was trailed through a succession of establishments by adoring sales clerks and groveling proprietors.

It was as much a social occasion as a mercantile one. Nerissa was constantly encountering people and stopping to embrace, introduce, and share scraps of gossip—some of it quite scandalous. Portia uneasily remembered her visit to the park, and her sense of corruption in Society. She could not like it, but since most of the people they mingled with now were ladies, at least there was no impropriety.

There were some men around, however.

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