A Wicked Gentleman Read Free Page A

experienced the family curb bit himself often enough to understand how Cornelia felt.
    â€œIt’s just for a month,” she stated with some vehemence. “For God’s sake, I wasn’t suggesting I take him to Outer Mongolia.”
    â€œNo,” he agreed with the same sympathy. “I’d offer to intercede for you, but I’m not exactly in the earl’s good books at present.”
    â€œOutrun the carpenter again, Nigel?” she inquired, noticing that his eyes were somewhat shadowed, his expression a little drawn. Her cousin-in-law was always in debt, and she guessed that his general tendency to extravagance was exacerbated by running with an expensive crowd at Oxford, one a lot plumper in the pocket than he was. And one with a deal more interest in cards and horses than the pursuit of elusive Greek and Latin texts.
    â€œCreditors are a little pressing,” he conceded. “In fact…in fact a few weeks of rustication was…uh…suggested.” He flipped open a snuffbox and took a leisurely pinch with an air of sophistication that somehow didn’t convince Cornelia.
    â€œSo this rustication was not exactly of your own choice?” she said. “You were sent down by the college?”
    He shrugged ruefully. “You have it, coz…and for the rest of the year too. But the earl doesn’t know that little detail. He thinks I’m in debt only until next quarter day and that I decided for myself that I needed to be away from the fleshpots of the dreaming spires for a couple of weeks. So mum’s the word.”
    â€œOf course.” Cornelia shook her head in mock reproof. “You can butter him up, though, Nigel. You know you can. Just play the prodigal nephew as well as you always do and the earl will come round.”
    â€œFunnily enough that’s exactly why I’m here. I’m escorting the old misery everywhere he goes,” Nigel said with another irreverent grin. “Offering my services as his aide-de-camp, if you like.” He adjusted the highly starched folds of his cravat, winked at her, and turned to enter the library where his elderly relatives were still congregated.
    Cornelia dismissed Nigel’s concerns as her own loomed large again. She crossed the stone-flagged hallway to the great front door of the earl of Markby’s ancestral home. A leather-aproned servant set down the coal scuttle he was carrying and hurried to open the front door for her.
    â€œCold out there, m’lady,” he observed.
    Cornelia gave him a nod of acknowledgment as she walked out, drawing a deep breath, shaking her head vigorously as if to rid herself of something distasteful. She barely noticed the sharp February air, bare tree branches bending under the gusty wind as she marched across the graveled sweep in front of the house and headed out across the frost-crisp lawn.
    She paused at a once ornamental fishpond, now looking neglected and uninviting beneath the leaden skies, and bent to pick up a sizable twig blown down from one of the tall beach trees that lined the driveway. Her defiant declaration of intent had been just words. Without funds, she could not possibly leave Dagenham Manor, with or without her children.
    Making no attempt this time to moderate her voice, Cornelia swore a barnyard oath and hurled the stick into the green, stagnant waters of the pond. It relieved her feelings somewhat, at the same time making her realize how cold she was in her flimsy muslin and thin sandals. The cloak she’d arrived in was still in Markby Hall, but she couldn’t face going back for it…not until that smug, patronizing quorum of trustees had broken up. She’d borrow a pelisse from Ellie for her two-mile walk home, back to Dagenham Manor.
    She strode around the pond towards a break in the privet hedge that separated the formal gardens from the home farm. Beyond the fields of the farm stretched the gorse-strewn heath of the New