To Wed a Rake Read Free

was too castaway to remember my own opinion.”
    Kerr snorted. “Meet me at Miss Bridget’s tonight?”
    Miss Bridget was a Frenchwoman who ran a house that was not precisely one of ill repute but damn near close, to Lockwood’s mind. “I see that your taste for Frenchwomen is much like the English taste for food: predicated on quantity rather than quality,” he remarked.
    Kerr smiled faintly. “I thought it would amuse the
ton
tosee me with a woman other than Madeline. We’ll take one of Miss Bridget’s young friends to the opera.”
    Lockwood laughed. “That’ll put the cat amongst the pigeons. plthe pig”
    Kerr turned back to his papers.“Quite.”

 



Chapter Three

     
    March 22, 1817
     
    Mrs. Broughton to The Hon. Emma Loudan, St. Albans, Hertfordshire
     
    Dear Miss Loudan,
    Thank you so much for your gracious response to my letter; to be sure, I trembled before I took pen in hand. I should most dislike to be thought a gossipmonger, or some such, and yet I have every sympathy with your difficult position. I consider it my honor—if not my pleasure—to offer you such tidbits of news as might interest you. I hasten, then, to reassure you that it is no longer believed that the Earl of Kerr intends to marry Mademoiselle Benoit. Last night he and some friends made an appearance at the Royal Opera House accompanied by a group of young Frenchwomen. Everyone noted that Kerr paid particular attention to one of them, and since she cannot be considered a possibilityfor matrimony, the consensus is that your fiancé has a propensity for women of Gallic origin. This is a most unseemly topic, and I feel reprehensible for even bringing it to the attention of an unmarried lady. But my loyalty to Miss Proudfoot’s School rises above manners.
    Yours with all esteem,
    Mrs. Broughton
    Emma Loudan, daughter of Viscount Howitt, was painstakingly painting bees, one after another.
Bees
, she thought to herself,
are profoundly uninspiring insects: after one has painted one round yellow body and then another, one has learned all there is to know about bee painting.
But there was no relief in sight: Titania and Bottom both mentioned bees in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, and Mr. Tey had decided that bees must swarm over every backdrop, and never mind that the audience would think the insects were flying marigolds. Emma sighed and dipped her brush into yellow paint.
    She was just putting a finishing touch on one of three beehives when the door opened.
    “Lady Flaskell,” announced the butler, Wilson.
    Emma put down her brush just in time as Bethany hurdled herself across the room and threw her arms around Emma. “Careful!” she said, laughing. “You’ll get painted.”
    “It’s quite all right. I’m wearing nothing but rags for the trip.”
    Emma put her little sister at arm’s length and glanced from the saffron-colored flying ribbons on her glorious little bonnet to the tips of her silk slippers. “Rags are looking better every moment,” she observed, untying her voluminous apron.
    Bethany’s eyes narrowed at the sight. “Your gown
must
have been created by Madame Maisonnat!” she cried. “TheDuchess of Silverton was wearing just the same costume in sage green, only last week. Everyone was talking about it. How on earth did you obtain that gown here, in the depths of the country, and without coming to town?”
    “I have my means,” Emma said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
    “What means are those?” Bethany demanded. “I could beg, plead, and cry at Madame’s door, and I’m quite certain that she would fulfill her other orders before mine.”
    Emma glanced down at her morning gown. It was designed
à la militaire
, in amber-colored poplin with garnet buttons marching down the bodice. in It followed her curves to a T and made her feel like an extremely feminine brigadier general. She smiled at her little sister. “It’s not a dark secret. Madame knows my measurements, and she simply sends