The Ideal Wife Read Free Page A

cringe and demean myself,” Abigail said. “I shall die of mortification anyway.”
    “No, not that,” her friend said. “You must be . . .”She waved a hand in the air. “Oh . . .”
    “Demure,” Abigail said. “Very well, then. It shall be done. Tell me how to do it. There has never been anyone more meek and mild than I will be.”
    Less than half an hour later the governess had left for her morning duties in the schoolroom and Abigail was left alone to get herself ready for the visit to the Earl of Severn’s house on Grosvenor Square.
    She really ought not to be doing this, she thought as she set out on her way. It was quite outside her nature to grovel, and that was what she would be doing, however carefully she followed Laura’s instructions. She was going to ask a stranger to help her find another position, on the very slim grounds that he was her kinsman.
    They were very slim grounds. Papa had had no dealings with the earl or his close family.
    And if the earl knew anything about her family, the chances were that she would find herself outside his door on her ear with great haste. It was not a reputable family. Papa had not been reputable, and there were other facts and events that would make any self-respecting nobleman’s hair stand on end.
    She would just have to hope that he did not know anything about the Gardiners. Or that age had tampered with his memory. If she was fortunate, he would have snowy white hair and bushy white eyebrows and a kindly smile and all she would have to do would be to say what she had rehearsed with Laura and look meek and demure and helpless. She just hoped that he would not be so doddering with age that he would be incapable of listening to her with any intelligence at all. She hoped she would not have to deal with a young and sharp-brained secretary.
    She would not think of it, she thought as she approached Grosvenor Square and tried not to notice quite how grand the houses surrounding it looked. She walked resolutely up the steps to the earl’s house and lifted the brass knocker. She remembered just before the door opened to pull in her chin and soften her expression.
    And, oh, Lord, she thought a few minutes later when she had forgotten herself enough to stand up to his lordship’s starchy butler and inform him in so many words that she did not for a moment believe that the earl was from home, it was a grand house. The salon was clearly used only for the reception of visitors. The chairs were not arranged about the room in any pleasing or cozy design. They were set about the walls. She did not seat herself on any of them.
    The wait was interminable. She wandered about the room, looking at all the paintings, afraid to sit down lest she be caught at a disadvantage if the door should open without warning. Perhaps she should have asked the butler if his lordship was expected home within the week. She began to fear that she had been forgotten about and would be remembered when a parlor maid came in to dust the next morning or the morning after that.
    But finally the double doors opened and the butler, who stood between them for a moment, stepped aside to admit a tall young man. Abigail’s heart slipped all the way down inside her half-boots. She was not to be admitted to his lordship’s presence after all. She was going to have to deal with a secretary, who looked as stiff and frosty as any duke one would care to imagine and who had the effrontery to lift a quizzing glass to his eye and survey her through it.
    Through a superhuman effort she retained the stance that Laura had approved of. If she could not impress the secretary, there were only two other possibilities—Vicar Grimes or the London job that was not being an actress.
    She was forced to waste the curtsy she had practiced with such care on a man who was as much a servant as she was.
    She stood quietly and looked calmly at him. And she was very aware suddenly of her lone state, a gentlewoman in the receiving salon