Jane Feather Read Free

will be for him to make the formal announcement from our end.”
    Imogen grimaced. Duncan was their baby brother, only just down from an undistinguished career at Oxford and now playing vigorously on the social scene. It was hard for his elder sisters to take him seriously as Viscount Beaufort. He’d inherited the title the previous year on the death of their father but had shown little aptitude thus far for the responsibilities of head of the family. Until this moment his sisters hadn’t thought twice about it, but now he would have to play the role with a vengeance.
    “Do we know where he is?”
    “Sharpton might.” Esther rose to her feet. “And if he doesn’t, Robbie probably will. Duncan treats him more like a close confidant than a valet. I’ll go down and ask Sharpton to find out where he is and send him a message.”
    “Thank you, love.” Imogen gave her sister a wan smile. “I’m so sorry, this is going to cause so much trouble, and we’ll have to leave town for the rest of the Season—or at least I will. A long period of rustication is the only way to get through this.”
    “I’ll come with you to Beaufort Hall,” Esther said. “I like the country in the winter and there’s nothing really to keep me here. I’m tired of the endless round of parties and balls, and all the eligible bachelors are utter ninnies as far as I can see.”
    Even through her distress, Imogen couldn’t help a weak smile. Esther was notoriously difficult to please when it came to the young men who courted her, but she still felt guilty condemning her sister to a winter of exile confined to country pursuits and county society—a society as narrow-minded and almost as judgmental as London’s ton. But unlike the denizens of London society, they wouldn’t actually ostracize the Misses Carstairs, who were too socially prominent to ignore. But the sisters would still have to endure the inevitable whispers and pointed comments.
    When the door closed behind Esther, Imogen leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Was she overreacting? But she knew she wasn’t. She couldn’t live with a man whom she couldn’t trust. A man who actually couldn’t see why she was so angry and upset about something he considered perfectly normal and acceptable behavior . . . for a man .
    For a moment she fantasized about Charles’s reaction if the situation were reversed and he had discovered that she had been carrying on a liaison with another man during the months of their betrothal. He would see a very different picture then.

Chapter 2
    “Lor’, what a t’do upstairs then? ’Is lordship looks like he’s goin’ to ’ave a apoplexy,” the underparlormaid declared coming into the kitchen with a tray of dirty teacups. “And ’im so young too. What’s it all about, then?”
    “None o’ your business, young Dottie,” Mrs. Windsor declared from the range, where she was tending bubbling pots. “What Miss Imogen does is her business, isn’t that so, Mrs. Dalton?”
    The housekeeper nodded, but she exchanged a significant glance with Mr. Sharpton, who had appeared from the butler’s pantry. “That’s right, Mrs. Dalton. We’ll just get on with our own affairs and leave upstairs to theirs,” he pronounced in a tone that brooked no argument. “I’ll take a cup of tea with you, Mrs. Dalton, if you’ve the time.”
    “Indeed, I have, Mr. Sharpton. I was just about to put the kettle on.” The housekeeper bustled out of the kitchen to her own parlor, the butler on her heels. Once in the sanctuary of the small parlor, where a trivet sat over a bright fire, Mrs. Dalton invited her guest to take a chair as she set a copper kettle on the trivet. She wasted no time getting to the subject in hand.
    “Well, I don’t know, Albert, really I don’t. Miss Imogen was always a bit impulsive like, but calling off the wedding three days before—it’s more than I’d have believed possible.” The intimacy of her private parlor warranted