Amanda Scott Read Free

her surely would lose his temper when she continues to behave as she does.”
    “True romantic heroes,” Miss Pucklington said wistfully, “see no faults in their fair beloveds, or else they love them to distraction in spite of their faults.”
    “Goodness, ma’am, do you read such stuff as this?”
    Miss Pucklington’s guilt was written all over her face as she said, “Not often, I confess. ’Tis difficult to indulge in such common tastes in Cousin Olympia’s presence.”
    “I should think so,” Carolyn said, her imagination boggling at the thought of Miss Pucklington with her long thin nose buried in any Gothic romance, let alone in the presence of the august Olympia, dowager Lady Skipton. But Carolyn’s duty was clear nonetheless. “Look here, ma’am,” she said, getting swiftly to her feet, “the first volume of this tale is on the shelf behind Sydney’s desk—just here.” She reached for the book and took it down. “I daresay he must subscribe for nearly everything that’s printed, because I’m forever finding new ones, and he has said I may choose whatever I like. He would say the same to you, I know. Here, take it. ’Tis a most diverting tale, for all my criticism.” She held out the book, and Miss Pucklington, pink with guilty pleasure, accepted it at once.
    “I am sure I should not,” she said, caressing the cover. “Oh, what will Cousin Olympia say?”
    “Nothing at all if you do not show it to her,” Carolyn said, her eyes dancing with mischief, “and you know perfectly well that Sydney will not care a whit.”
    “No, for he is most generous, is he not? And whatever Cousin Olympia may say about his childhood temper,” she added on a more spirited note, “Cousin Sydney would never wring a young woman’s neck. Nor would it ever enter his head to beat her, no matter what foolish thing she might have done.”
    “No,” Carolyn agreed, laughing as she tried and failed to conjure up a vision of the elegant Sydney Saint-Denis ever exerting himself to such violent action. “He would fear to muss his clothes, would he not? Moreover, I doubt he has any temper, for I have certainly never seen the least hint of one.”
    “No,” Miss Pucklington said gently, “and I am persuaded that in past years some of your pranks must have sorely tried the patience of a lesser gentleman. But no doubt, now that you are so near to coming of age—only a month, after all—you have outgrown your love for practical jokes.”
    “There was not much scope for such nonsense either at Swainswick when last we were there, or since we came to Bathwick Hill House,” Carolyn told her with a grin, “but it does not do to allow oneself to become too sedentary, and ’tis rather a sore point with me that I have never managed really to stir Sydney up. One day I should like very much to astonish him with such a joke as he would find impossible to ignore.”
    “Oh dear,” Miss Pucklington said nervously, “I ought never to have mentioned the subject, but it is not wise to provoke him, my dear, for we are all dependent upon his hospitality. Cousin Olympia assures me that we would not like to live in the Dower House, and I cannot think she would willingly return to Lord and Lady Skipton at Swainswick.”
    “Nor would they willingly receive her,” Carolyn said with a laugh. “Not after she left in such high dudgeon after that awful argument with Matilda just a month after we returned from London. Matilda has invited us to spend Christmas at Swainswick, however, so perhaps they are on speaking terms again. In any event, I have no fear that Sydney will throw us out into the cold.”
    “Our circumstances are scarcely similar, however,” Miss Pucklington said. “I am merely the poor relation, while you are the beloved godchild.”
    “Not Sydney’s godchild,” Carolyn pointed out.
    “No, but his mother’s. And you have your fortune, as well, do you not? My father left me nothing when he died.”
    “These days,”