The Perfect Rake

The Perfect Rake Read Free Page B

Book: The Perfect Rake Read Free
Author: Anne Gracíe
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dotted each i very precisely.
    “Has the doctor gone? What did he say?” Prudence’s sisters entered the room.
    Charity peered over her shoulder. “Who are you writing to? Phillip, again?”
    “No, not Phill—”
    “Oh, who cares about Phillip?” interrupted Hope. “You’re always writing to him. What did Dr. Gibson say about Grandpapa?”
    “The letter is not to Phillip.” Prudence blotted the ink carefully. “It’s to Great-uncle Oswald.”
    “Great-uncle Oswald?” Hope exclaimed in amazement. “Grandpapa’s wicked brother?” She frowned. “Is Grandpapa going to die, after all?”
    “No, he should recover in about six or seven weeks.”
    “Then why are you writing to Great-uncle Oswald?” Charity asked. “He won’t want to comfort Grandpapa on his sickbed. There is no brotherly love between them at all.”
    “I am counting on it,” said Prue. “As for why I am writing to him, I am not. This letter is from Grandpapa.”
    “Whaaat?” came a chorus of voices.
    She read,
    “My Dear Oswald,
    I know we have not always seen eye to eye, as brothers surely should, however I am willing to let Bygones be Bygones for the sake of the Girls.”
    In the stunned silence that followed, she lifted the letter between two fingers, waving it in the air to dry the ink. “In short, Grandpapa is asking his brother to give us a season in London. And find us husbands.” She laid the letter down carefully. “We’re escaping. We’re never coming back to the Court!”
    “Prudence!” Charity exclaimed. “That letter is worse than a fib. It’s forgery!”
    Prudence shrugged. “Yes, but what choice do we have? I am resolved that Grandpapa shall never lay a finger on any of us again.”
    “It’s wicked, Prue,” Faith whispered.
    Prudence tossed her head. “Well, Grandpapa has always said I’m wicked, so at last I shall prove him right! We are all going to London. And we are taking Lily and James with us; Lily because Great-uncle Oswald is a widower and may have no maidservants, and James because Grandpapa will never forgive him his part in this day’s work.”
    Her sisters glanced at each other, stunned by the audacity of the plan. Prudence carefully scribed Great-uncle Oswald’s London address in a crabbed-looking copperplate.
    “Grandpapa will never let us go,” Hope said.
    “He won’t know. He’ll think we’ve moved to the dower house—”
    “That moldy old place! Why would—”
    “Because by the time his headaches have subsided, Grace will have contracted scarlet fever and we shall all be in quarantine. Dr. Gibson is going to aid in the deception. You know what a horror Grandpapa has of infection. He won’t come near us. Mrs. Burton said as housekeeper she could vouch for the cooperation of the other servants, and she and the doctor will give regular, albeit false, reports to Grandpapa of our progress.”
    Her sisters gaped.
    “And in the meantime, we will stay with our great-uncle, see all the grand sights of the capital, go to parties, wear pretty dresses, and go to—oh, I don’t know, Venetian breakfasts and things. Even attend the opera! And with any luck, by the time Grandpapa has recovered, one of us will have found a husband, and I shall have turned one and twenty, and you can all legally live with me.”
    “Parties and pretty dresses!” whispered Charity.
    “What is a Venetian breakfast?” Grace asked.
    “Who cares?” Hope said, shrugging. “It will not be a bowl of oatmeal, that’s certain.”
    Faith sighed rapturously. “Oh how I would love to hear an opera.”
    “But how can we? We have no money, Prue,” Hope, ever the practical one, said. “We have not even enough between us to get one of us to London.”
    “Mama’s jewelery,” Prudence explained. “Her garnet bracelet will fetch us enough to pay for tickets on the stage.” She regarded her sisters a little guiltily. “In fact, I sold it months ago, for just such an eventuality.”
    “So we can go to London,”

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