Improper Ladies Read Free

widow.
    She quickly took her leave of Mr. Burne-Jones and hurried inside the tall, narrow house, clutching the parcel. She sped past the closed door of Mrs. Brown’s sitting room and up the stairs, praying that she could avoid another confrontation about late rent payments for just a little longer. Just long enough so that she could think in peace.
    Once inside the small suite of two rooms, Caroline shut and locked the door behind her and leaned back wearily against the flimsy wood. It was not even noon yet, but, lud, it felt like this horrible day would go on forever!
    She took off her black bonnet and tossed it and her gloves onto the table. Then she sat down on the unmade bed and removed the paper wrappings from the parcel.
    It was a box, a small tin box with a little key in the lock. Caroline ran her hand over the cool metal lid and shook the box slightly, listening to the metallic echo.
    “Please, let there be enough here to pay the rent,” she whispered. Then she turned the key, lifted the lid—and gasped.
    Inside there were indeed some coins, along with a few banknotes. Quite enough to keep Mrs. Brown happy for a while longer. There was also a neatly folded piece of paper. Caroline pushed aside the money and took it out to read.
    It was a deed. To a gaming establishment called the Golden Feather. It was signed over to Lawrence by the owner, a Mr. Samuels, won the very night Lawrence died. Tucked inside the paper was a heavy key.
    How ironic. Poor Lawrence. He had possessed one of his few winning hands that night, but had not lived long enough to enjoy it.
    Caroline lifted her gaze from the deed and looked over at where Lawrence’s miniature portrait was propped on the narrow fireplace mantel.
    The picture had been painted some years before, and the image that looked back at her was not that of her weary, red-eyed husband. It was her young bridegroom, with his clear green eyes full of idealism and honesty.
    What hopes they’d had on their wedding day! How impatient they had been, how impulsive and in love. But they had been too young, only seventeen. And their love had not been able to survive their families’ obligations and the poverty that had overtaken them. Both the Aldritches and the Lanes had been good families of faded fortunes; they had hoped their children would marry well—not elope with someone equally faded.
    Caroline and Lawrence had loved each other once, or they thought they did. But not enough to sustain them through all their new and unexpected difficulties. Caroline had tried to make a home for them, but Lawrence had lost himself in the lures of gaming and drink. He had been convinced that if only his luck would turn, just once, if only he could win the next hand, he would be able to take care of them.
    Caroline looked down at the deed in her hand. Maybe now, in a strange way, he was taking care of her, at long last.
    But only if she had the courage to go out there and take care of herself.
     
     
    Caroline looked at the paper she was holding and then back up at the building. Yes, this was it. The Golden Feather. Lawrence’s legacy.
    She would never have known it was a gaming establishment from the exterior. It looked like any other nondescript, respectable town house in a row of town houses. Someone had been looking after it; the front steps were swept, the brass door knocker polished, and the heavy curtains were drawn across the windows. The only indication of its true purpose was a small plate affixed beneath the knocker that read THE GOLDEN FEATHER—MEMBERS ONLY.
    Caroline took a deep breath, turned the key in the lock, and went inside.
    She had to pass through a small foyer, bare but for a desk and chair, to get to the main salon. She pulled back the window draperies of green velvet and looked about in surprised satisfaction. It was very grand indeed, with velvet and gilt chairs clustered about the card tables and the roulette wheel. Fine paintings hung on the silk-papered walls, and a