An Affair of the Heart Read Free

you.”
    “Indeed!”
    “Yessir, or eats flies and midges and such things anyway. A vicious-looking little plant, all spikey around the edges. Showed it to me once. Put a fly in front of it, and it just snaps and eats it up whole. Ain’t that terrible? A curst rum touch, old Adam.”
    “But a breeder of beautiful daughters, as well as flowers?”
    “Four of them, before his good woman finally gave him a son. Must have been a vast relief to them, eh? Just goes to show you—if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. I got the right number of trys in there? Four daughters, then a son comes along. Called him Abel. Papa’s name is Adam, you see, and of course they wouldn’t want to call the boy Cain, because of the mark and all, so they called him Abel. A good chap is Abel, but only seventeen.”
    With singular tenacity, Claymore recalled his friend to the main thread of the conversation. “And this Wanda Wanderley, would she be the dark-haired girl I saw early on in the Season, I wonder?”
    “Very likely. Certainly she’d stand out in any room. Would have given the Rose a run for her money if she’d stuck around.”
    “But what happened to her? I don’t remember seeing her but once or twice.”
    “Yes, I’m coming to that. The pox, was it? No, she’d have got over that in time to come back for the rest of the Season. Ah, I’ve got it now. She broke her leg.”
    His patience rewarded, Clay continued. “Will she be returning in the Little Season, then, in the fall?”
    “Might be, if she ain’t buckled by then.”
    “Ah, already been sold, has she?”
    “Sold? No such a thing! Adam may be a fool, but he don’t sell his girls.”
    “Let’s them do the bargaining, does he? They must be singularly capable, for both Lady Siderow and Lady Tameson have made creditable matches.”
    “Yes, and with no dowry to speak of either, for old Adam squanders every cent he can get his hands on for his flowers. Paid five hundred pounds for a stupid old flower Abel was showing me. From Brazil it was, growing right out of a tree stump. Had the stump and all shipped in from Brazil.”
    “And what bargain has this Wanda struck? She can’t have had had much time to look about her, for she wasn’t at more than two or three balls, I think.”
    “Wouldn’t take her that long. The fact is, though, she was as well as buckled to the squire’s son before ever she came to London, and once she had to go home, he’d be forever hanging around. Crazy about her. The mama had hoped for a title, which is why she presented her.”
    “Only a squire’s son? Come, come. Rex. You must know my title and fortune take precedence over a squire’s son. I shall attach Miss Wanda before the month is out.”
    “Don’t be such a sapskull, Clay. You’re only saying that because you want to put the Rose’s pretty nose out of joint. I know you. Too proud by half. Think she’ll be boasting about her offer from you, and you want to saunter in with a pretty chick on your wing to show her how little you’re suffering.”
    Clay concealed his sheepish smile behind his ale glass, and feigned deafness. “I was extremely taken with the young lady, I promise you,” he replied blandly when he had drained the glass. In point of fact, he would not have recognized Wanda had she walked into the room that minute. He vaguely recalled a pretty dark-haired girl who had been around, then suddenly vanished. But as his obtuse friend had surmised, his reason for interest in Miss Wanda was to put the Rose’s nose out of joint. Make a laughingstock of him, would she? And lead him to declare himself when she was already promised.His pride stung, he was determined to have the last laugh yet. If Miss Wanda was half so pretty as her sisters, she would be just the one to help him. Squire’s son, indeed. He of all people knew the efficacy of a title and fortune!
    “I daresay you were, and it’s a pity she couldn’t have stuck around to give the Rose some