The Stanforth Secrets Read Free Page B

existence anyway. It would be just the sort of thing Stephen would have done.”
    “Not if organized properly. I don’t know what maggot you’ve got in your head to keep trying to tell the world you’re a starchy one, Chloe. You’re too much like me.”
    Chloe did not meet the shrewd gaze of the Duchess. “I’m delighted to be like you, Grandmama, and I do not wish to seem starchy, exactly. Surely, though, it does me no discredit to be seen as mature and responsible.”
    “None at all,” said the old lady with a grin, “as long as you do not give up climbing trees.”
    Chloe turned red and looked at her grandmother in astonishment. “I . . . I . . .”
    “That eyeglass you gave me has a sight more uses than looking at the hills and watching shrimp boats. I saw you up that apple tree not many weeks past.”
    Chloe struggled for words. Eventually, she said, “It was a great piece of foolishness. I caused a bad tear in my fawn muslin.”
    “It’s foolishness to be trying to make yourself into what you’re not. Still worried about what the world says of you?”
    Chloe looked down at the letter in her hands. “I have grown accustomed. I will always be the scandalous Chloe Ashby, won’t I? It does seem unfair, though, to have to live my life with a youthful indiscretion around my neck.”
    “But you have the notion,” suggested the Duchess shrewdly, “that a respectable husband will wipe out the memory of your elopement?”
    Chloe refused to admit it, at least openly. “Oh, no. That is not my intent. I have learned to live with my mistakes. But, despite any natural tendencies you perceive in me, Grandmama, I have a positive thirst for dependability in a spouse. I will settle for nothing less.”
    “Just as long as you don’t confuse tedium with reliability, gel. Tell you one thing about dependable husbands, they tend to be around a lot. You wouldn’t know what that was like—I doubt Stephen was by the fireside one night in a hundred—but if you have some earnest Ernest prosing on at you night after night, year after year, you’ll soon find fecklessness an appealing quality.” The old lady noted her words had gone home. “Perhaps you’d better wait until you meet the new Lord Stanforth again before you make any plans,” she added slyly.
    “Justin?” queried Chloe blankly. “Why? Grandmama!” she said in amazement. “Marry another Dashing Delamere? Justin and Stephen were like two peas in a pod. I’ll have you know Justin was the mastermind behind my elopement. The things he and Stephen used to get up to . . . Oh no. Another Delamere is not my idea of a comfortable husband at all.”

2

    T HE DRIZZLING DAMP OF LONDON in October suited his mood exactly, thought Justin Delamere as he hurried to his appointment. It wasn’t only the damp, which crept into his bones after years on the Peninsula, but there’d been a chill in his heart for the last year. He’d thought it was the war, and that selling out would ease the depression. He’d looked forward to picking up old friendships and rediscovering the joie de vivre of the old days. But laughing and joking, and bearing his end of a witty conversation, was more of a strain than he would ever have believed possible.
    Of course it might have been different if Stephen had been here to greet him, instead of cold in his grave for over a year. How strange that after years of blood and death in one battle after another, it was Stephen’s death back here in England, a simple carriage accident, which had struck the hardest.
    He realized he had passed the Grosvenor Square mansion which was his destination and retraced his steps. As he did so, he assumed the lighthearted manner that was his cloak, his disguise. Everyone loved a soldier, but no one wanted a sad one. After all, he was a Dashing Delamere, wasn’t he? He and his cousin Stephen had earned the nickname back in ’04. Well-heeled and unrestrained, they had set Society on its ear, culminating in that