Indiscreet Read Free Page B

failed when an answer to her letter had brought the news that the friend was newly betrothed and was to be married within the month.
    And so Mrs. Adams felt all the embarrassment of being a hostess who had so mismanaged matters that she had an uneven number of ladies and gentlemen. It was most mortifying. She racked her brains for some suitable female not too far distant from Bodley to be summoned as a houseguest for a few weeks, but therewas no one. And so she had to fall back upon the expedient of issuing frequent invitations to some unattached local female who could not reasonably be asked to stay. There was no point in considering with any care who that might be. There was really only one possibility.
    Mrs. Catherine Winters.
    Mrs. Adams did not like Mrs. Winters. She put on too many airs, considering the fact that she lived in genteel poverty in a small cottage and had a wardrobe of extremely limited size. And no one seemed to know quite where she had come from five years ago or who her husband had been. Or her father, for that matter. But she assumed an air of quiet refinement and her conversation was equally refined and sensible.
    It annoyed Mrs. Adams that everyone should assume the woman was a lady merely because she behaved like one. And it irritated her to have to invite Mrs. Winters to dine or to make up a table of cards occasionally when she was the children’s music teacher. Not that she would accept any remuneration for that task, it was true, but even so it was lowering to have to consort socially with someone who was almost, if not quite, a servant.
    If Mrs. Winters did not dress so unfashionably and style her hair so plainly, she might almost be called handsome. Not as handsome as Ellen, of course. But there were those airs she put on. And Rawleigh’s mind must not be distracted from Ellen. He had shown some well-bred interest in the girl during the last two weeks, she was sure.
    Interestingly enough, she was never too worried about Claude’s eyes straying. Claude was devoted to her. She had had somemisgivings about marrying such a handsome and charming young man nine years before, being a girl with some sense as well as a measure of vanity. She did not believe she was the type to smile and affect ignorance while her husband took his pleasure with whores and mistresses. And yet it was such an advantageous match for her—he was after all heir to a viscount. And she liked his looks. And so she had decided to marry him and to hold him too. She had deliberately become both his wife and his mistress, encouraging him to do with her in the privacy of her bedchamber what would have caused most wives of tender sensibilities to die of shock. And she had shocked herself—she liked what he did.
    No, Mrs. Adams was not afraid of losing her husband to the likes of Mrs. Winters, even though she did not encourage the woman to get too close. But she would have liked a female who was somewhat—plainer to invite to make up numbers with her guests.
    Unfortunately there was no one else.
    â€œI shall send for Mrs. Winters to come to dinner tonight,” she told Mr. Adams the morning after their return home. “She will be grateful enough to elevate herself in society for an evening, I daresay. And she can be depended upon not to disgrace the company.”
    â€œAh, Mrs. Winters,” her husband said with a warm smile. “She is always agreeable company, my love. Did I keep you awake too late last night after such a long journey? My apologies.”
    He knew that none were necessary. She crossed his study to his side of the desk and bent her head for his kiss.
    â€œI shall seat her beside Mr. Gascoigne,” she said. “They canentertain each other. I do think it provoking of him not to have returned to London after imposing on Rawleigh’s hospitality for all of three weeks.”
    â€œI think it’s a splendid idea to seat them together, my love,” he said. There was