The Odious Duke by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788673136
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks ltd
Published: 2020-03-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Verena was very downcast for the first ten miles of the journey to London that she could hardly bring herself to reply to Miss Richardson’s conversation and, when spoke of the General, she began to weep.

Almost at once she made an effort to regain her self-control, but the atmosphere inside the landau was lugubrious in the extreme until Miss Richardson in her calm, matter-of-fact voice remarked,

“I never thought, Verena, to find you so poor-spirited!”

“I have no wish to go to London.”

“Then indeed I wash my hands of you,” Miss Richardson declared. “You used to have a good sense of adventure and to be prepared to meet difficulties with a smile and make an effort to overcome obstacles. You are certainly not the same girl who had three falls in trying to leap a five-barred gate but succeeded in the end.”

Verena managed a smile.

“I would not like to believe that you are ‒ ashamed of me.”

“Well, I am,” Miss Richardson replied frankly. “And I can only be thankful that the General cannot see you now. If there was one thing he had a great distaste for it was a wet pea-goose in a fit of the dismals!”

This remark made Verena laugh and after they had enjoyed an early luncheon at Baldock her spirits noticeably revived.

They reached the outskirts of London around about five o’clock and the landau, wending its way through narrow roads congested with drays, coaches, carriages and smart phaetons eventually reached Lady Bingley’s residence in Manchester Square.

It was a tall, narrow and unpretentious house with, however, large windows looking onto the garden in the centre of the square and a private garden of its own at the back.

As the coachman drew the horses to a standstill, Verena wondered a little anxiously whether her Godmother would be pleased to welcome her arriving unexpectedly and without an invitation.

But she need have had no fears on that score. Lady Bingley, after a first exclamation of sheer astonishment at the sight of her Goddaughter, held out her arms warmly and there was no mistaking the sincerity of her welcome.

Her Ladyship had been widowed in the previous year and, after a lifetime of attending to the needs and whims of a somewhat demanding husband, she was finding time heavy on her hands. She could have asked for nothing more enlivening than the company of her Goddaughter.

On their way to London Verena and Miss Richardson had decided that they would inform Lady Bingley that the General had sent them to London because he was convinced that Verena needed a rest after having nursed him so devotedly and for so long.

“A rest?” Lady Bingley queried. “What you need, my dear, is some gaiety. I have often thought of you mouldering away in that flat damp insalubrious part of the country without, I am convinced, a sign of a beau or even the chance of a flirtation!”

“I have been very happy ‒ with Grandpapa,” Verena said with just the faintest tremor in her voice.

“I am very

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.