Lucky Logan Finds Love Read Free Page A

and kissed her cheek.
    “You are a good girl,” he said. “Once you are out of mourning and don’t have to look like a dismal crow, I will see that you are asked to all the smartest balls and that all my friends in London give dinner parties for you.”
    Belinda knew that the friends to whom he referred were the women he had spent his time with before he had fallen in love with her mother.
    Once or twice Virginia had mentioned it to her daughter.
    “All your stepfather’s lady friends are jealous of me,” she had sighed, “and I find it very flattering that he should have left them for me.”
    “He loves you, Mama!” Belinda said softly.
    “Yes, I know,” her mother answered, “and I am very happy. At the same time, darling, you must understand that I miss your father and I loved him too. He was a very wonderful man.”
    She did not say the actual words – that he was really too old for her.
    However, Belinda knew perceptively that she was thinking it.
    She had been interested in the women her stepfather had known previously.
    Her mother had showed her sketches of them in
The Ladies’ Journal
and she described to Belinda how lovely they were. One had dark hair, one red, but the majority of them were fair.
    “Your stepfather loves fair-haired women,” her mother had added.
    As she spoke, she looked at herself in the mirror and Belinda also learnt that the beauties accepted very expensive presents.
    Only gloves or fans were conventionally accepted gifts, but she had the feeling these women usually expected something far more extravagant.
    Now, for whatever reason, the money that had been in the bank had gone and she had no idea how they could possibly manage without it.
    Captain D’Arcy did not return the following week as he had promised.
    In fact, several weeks went by, and Belinda was becoming frantic.
    She knew the name of his Club and she contemplated writing to him there, but then she was afraid he would think it insulting if she suggested that he should return home.
    But the servants were complaining that they had received no wages and the shops in the village and the nearest town were asking for their bills to be paid.
    ‘I shall have to write to him – I shall
have
to!’ Belinda thought, as she came round the side of the house.
    Then with a leap of her heart she saw in the distance coming up the drive there was a chaise drawn by two horses.
    She recognised the horses.
    They were the pair her stepfather had taken when he had first left for London after her mother’s death and they were undoubtedly the best horses in the stable.
    Now they were bringing her stepfather home. That was what she wanted more than anything else.
    She hurried round to the front of the house and onto the steps.
    As the chaise drew up outside, she was waiting to greet him.
    The groom jumped down from the box to open the door and her stepfather, looking very smart and exceedingly handsome, climbed out.
    Belinda ran down the steps and kissed him on the cheek.
    As she did so, she knew before he could say anything and before he had even entered the house, that everything was wrong.
    She felt her heart sink.
    “How are you, my dear?” he asked. “I am sorry that I could not come any earlier, but I was prevented by a great number of different problems.”
    “You are here now, Step-Papa, and that is all that matters,” Belinda replied. “I was hoping and praying you would come soon.”
    She spoke urgently.
    She saw by the expression in his eyes and the tightening of his lips that it was something he did not want to hear.
    He walked into the hall and put his hat down. When Bates, the butler, appeared to welcome him home, he merely said sharply,
    “Bring me a bottle of champagne to the drawing room!”
    Bates hurried to obey his order.
    D’Arcy Rowland walked into the drawing room, and Belinda followed him.
    He walked to the window to stand with his back to her.
    She knew that what he was about to tell her was something