Reluctant Bride Read Free

laughed like a hyena when you told me he had offered for you. Remember, when you told me in the carriage on the way home from the concert that he had offered, I laughed till the tears streamed down my face. In the end, I didn’t know whether I was laughing or crying.”
    “You are the slyest woman in the parish, Maisie Belmont! I never had a single suspicion you were sweet on him. I don’t think I approve of your taste, incidentally.”
    “Neither do I,” she answered quickly. “I never did approve of him; I just loved him. I thought he was finally warming up to me that day, you see. He asked a dozen personal questions, but I realized then, when you told me, he was only quizzing to see if I would be staying here, or would expect to go with you to Eastgate. I had a wicked crush on that man twenty years ago, around the time Jeremy was born. Used to ride toward Eastgate, hoping just for a sight of him. He looked like something in those days, Liz, I can tell you.”
    “But he was married at the time!”
    “I know. Then when his wife died ten years later, I had another flare-up of my grand passion. I let it molder on till you told me that day he had offered for you. Laughing and making a joke of it. I wanted to strangle you—or him. Ah, well, it quenched the last of the embers for me. I gave up on him for good then.”
    “Why did you decide to tell me now?” I asked. Her shoulders had slumped forward as she spoke. She looked old, not aging—old. It was about a year ago, when Beattie made me his ridiculous offer, that she had begun to change. If quenching the embers had done this to her, I think she would have done better to go on hoping, however futile the hope.
    “I don’t know why I told you,” she said, crumbling a piece of bread with her fingers, while a faraway look came into her eyes. “You look so handsome tonight, in your diamonds, I just wondered—I mean, it is odd you never bothered to get married. Don’t you ever mean to?”
    “Of course not,” I said gruffly, with a last look at the queen in the mirror. Then my gaze turned back to Maisie, to see her looking just as usual—plain, settled. I found it totally incredible she should have been attracted to an outright rake and philanderer such as Beattie had been in his youth. His son was such another ne’er-do-well; he had never caused me so much as a single moment’s anguish. I despised him very thoroughly. My only emotion when he married a few years ago was pity for his wife.
    The storm broke as we finished our dinner. We had tea in the Rose Saloon, while the rain beat against the windowpanes, and the wind whistled down the flue. The subject of Maisie’s unrequited love did not come up again. I felt she was sorry she had told me, and meant never to say another word on the subject.
    When I went up to my room, I removed the magic necklace, laid it with great ceremony in the green leather box with the green silk lining, bearing the little silver plaque, “with our extreme gratitude for your loving aid.” Was it possible the queen had one of those unrequited passions for my ancestor? If so, the historians over the centuries had missed out on it. It was mentioned in no history book I ever read. I felt cheated, somehow, that I had never had even an unrequited love. A sense of urgency amounting almost to panic consumed me. Had God forgotten all about me?
    When I arose next morning, all such foolish fancies were dissipated, like the storm. I was back to my normal, assertive, sensible self, giving Booty orders how to proceed during my absence, and Berrigan a good tongue-lashing to hold him in line till I returned. I would turn him off after I got back home. A few days was not sufficient time to find a good replacement.
    Three days later I had an answer from Uncle Weston, claiming an interest in the diamond necklace, but stipulating that he was short of funds and could only offer thirty-five hundred. I wrote back asserting I would take four thousand, and