Love for Lucinda Read Free Page A

the days. It is no wonder at all that you should want a change. I do not begrudge you that, my dear!”
    “Papa, you speak as though I had been shut up these past three years,” said Lucinda with a laugh.
    “And so you have! How could you have remained in London when Lord Mays disgraced you so? He did not even have the decency to provide a separate household for you somewhere else, such as in Bath, where you could have still enjoyed society! Instead, he buried you alive at Carbarry!” said Sir Thomas with unwonted forcefulness.
    As his daughter stared, he managed to bring his deep-held emotion under control. He reached over to pat her hand in a reassuring fashion. “It will do you good to buy yourself a few fripperies and call upon your old acquaintances. You have lived too quietly by half. Indeed, I even begin to approve of this scheme of yours if you do mean to have Miss Blythe to you, and so I shall tell your mother. Mind, I still do not care for the notion of your spending the whole Season in London. But I shall say no more against it.”
    Lucinda looked at her father a little curiously. “You do not think that Mama would approve even when I have retained Miss Blythe as my companion?”
    Sir Thomas shrugged with exaggerated indifference, but his eyes were suddenly sharp on his daughter’s face. “Lord Potherby, you know.”
    “Oh, I see,” said Lucinda, and she did.
    Lord Potherby was the owner of a property adjoining Carbarry and had thus been her closest neighbor since she had taken up residence three years previously. The gentleman had met her parents on the occasions of their rare visits, and he had impressed both of them with his undeniable worthiness.
    Lord Potherby was wealthy and of extremely good birth. He had always quite openly admired his beauteous neighbor, Lady Mays. If he had been of a different kidney, he might have tried to figure in her affections despite her marital status. But Lord Potherby was a true gentleman.
    Over the years Lord Potherby had become disgusted by Lord Mays’s well-known progress as a womanizer and a ruthless collector of objets d’art. When Lord Potherby met Lady Mays, and learned through the grapevine both the circumstances of her marriage and the cause of her sudden appearance at Carbarry, he had at once set out to establish himself as her supporter and admirer.
    Since Lord Mays’s untimely death, Lord Potherby had gone a step further. He openly engaged himself to become indispensable to the beautiful unbereaved widow. Lady Mays’s correct observance of a period of mourning was all that had hindered Lord Potherby from making a formal declaration for her hand. He deemed that it would not have been in good taste to urge the widow to remarry before her mourning was completed.
    There was nothing in Lady Mays’s demeanor that had ever encouraged his lordship to believe that she looked with favor upon his suit. However, Lord Potherby was confident that once the onerous social obligation of her mourning was met and Lady Mays was free to express herself at last, then she would gratefully accept his courtship.
    Sir Thomas and his good wife approved of Lord Potherby’s obvious suit for their daughter’s hand. They encouraged his lordship’s pursuit whenever they were at Carbarry, inevitably requesting that Lord Potherby be included in all their amusements.
    Lucinda could only be glad that her parents did not live close enough to really promote the match through social gatherings. She esteemed Lord Potherby as a neighbor, certainly. But that did not mean that one wished to marry the gentleman. She and Lord Potherby were completely unsuited to one another, if for no other reason than that she was several years his junior. She had just emerged from a disastrous marriage with an older gentleman, and she had no desire to enter into another such unbalanced union.
    However, even Lucinda had to admit that Lord Potherby appeared to be a veritable cherub after her late husband, Lord