Indiscreet Read Free Page A

the baggage, quite pointedly and exclusively for him.
    Well, he was not averse to a little discreet dalliance if it should happen by some miracle that there was no husband to find them in compromising circumstances, as poor Eden had been found. Certainly he was not interested in either of the two unattached ladies who were part of Claude’s house party, one of them Clarissa’s sister. Or in any other matrimonial prospect. If Clarissa only had a brain in her head, she would realize that it was more in her interest to keep him single than to foist her sister on him. Claude was, after all, his heir, and after Claude, Clarissa’s own son.
    But perhaps she feared that he would allow himself to act on some whim and take on a leg shackle with some other female while she was not present to keep a proprietary eye on him.
    She need not entertain any such fear. His one close brush with matrimony had been quite enough to last him a lifetime as well as all the raw and painful emotions that had been part of the experience. Miss Horatia Eckert might go hang for all he carednow, though he had cared a great deal once upon a time. And she had made overtures recently—another reason why he was quite content to come to Bodley with his brother and his friends rather than go to town for the Season. His jaw hardened for a moment.
    â€œRawleigh.” His sister-in-law rested a hand on the sleeve of his greatcoat after he had handed her down from her carriage. She always addressed him by his title, although he had invited her to use his given name. He believed it gave her a greater feeling of consequence to be closely related to a title. “Welcome to Bodley. Do escort Ellen inside. She is very fatigued. She is of such a delicate constitution, you know. Mrs. Croft will be waiting to show you to your rooms.”
    Clarissa appeared to be of the firm opinion that the more delicate the female, the more attractive she must be as a prospective bride. Certainly she had spent the last couple of weeks, ever since Miss Hudson joined her at Stratton at his suggestion, describing her sister thus to him.
    â€œIt will be my pleasure, Clarissa,” he said, turning to offer his arm to the younger sister. “Miss Hudson?”
    Miss Ellen Hudson was afraid of him, the viscount thought with some irritation. Or in awe of him, which was more or less the same thing and quite as annoying. Yet Clarissa seemed to believe that the two of them would enjoy being irritated and awed together for a lifetime.
    Was
she married? he wondered, his thoughts straying from the young lady on his arm.
    And how soon could he decently find out?
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    MRS. Clarissa Adams’s cup of joy was running over. There were guests at Bodley for an indeterminate length of time—eleven in all, and there were no fewer than three titles among them, four if she considered her sister-in-law Daphne, whose husband, Sir Clayton Baird, had made her into Lady Baird.
    There were Rawleigh and his two friends; his and Claude’s sister and her husband; Ellen; Clarissa’s dear friend, Hannah Lipton, with Mr. Lipton, their daughter, Miss Veronica Lipton, who was one year longer in the tooth than Ellen and not nearly as pretty or of as delicate a constitution, and their son, Mr. Arthur Lipton and his betrothed, Miss Theresa Hulme. Miss Hulme was only eighteen, a dangerous age, but she was unfortunately quite insipid with her pale auburn hair and pale green eyes. But then, she was safely betrothed to the younger Mr. Lipton, and one did not wish to be unkind.
    There was only one fact to mar Mrs. Adams’s joy. They were an uneven number. All her hints to Mr. Gascoigne, Rawleigh’s
untitled
friend, had gone for naught and he had accepted the invitation she had felt compelled to extend to him as well as to Baron Pelham. And her attempt to persuade a young widowed friend to be taken up in their carriage as they returned to Bodley had