Read Online A Song Twice Over by Brenda Jagger - Free Book Online Page B

no desires beyond his gratification and no opinions beyond those he might choose to give her; to yield sweetly and innocently to his religious beliefs and his sexual whims and fancies; to relinquish everything she owned or might inherit into his grasp, becoming herself his possession entirely. So that he might, with truth, be able to say ‘My wife and I are one. And I am he.’
    As Gemma’s mother – and most happily – had chosen to belong to her father.
    But Tristan Gage was too light in weight and heart and aspirations for that, too much the grasshopper flitting through a lifetime of summer meadows to trouble himself – or her – with such cumbersome thoughts as possession or conjugal authority; and had no particular opinions on anything which mattered to Gemma for her to echo.
    Tristan, then, who would never do anything of note in the world but grace it with his charming presence. But who would allow her space in which to breathe. And grow.
    She was standing in her father’s garden among the late roses, gathering full-blown petals for pot-pourri as the thought struck her. Tristan. Of course. To marry him seemed suddenly not only the best but the obvious solution. And it was as she lay her flat, straw gardening basket down and went into the house to find him and tell him so, that she was waylaid by her mother’s iron-grey housekeeper, Mrs Drubb, with the information that ‘a person’had called, asking to see ‘the ladies’.
    â€˜A person , Mrs Drubb?’ And perhaps it was curiosity alone which led her to the small parlour behind the kitchen where callers who could not be shown into the drawing-room were entertained. For Mrs Drubb made short work, as a rule, of those she judged unworthy of Dallam attention, so that Gemma was interested to find out why this one appeared to have evaded her net.
    â€˜A sewing-woman, Miss Gemma.’
    â€˜Good Heavens – why should I want to see one of those? Is my mother not at home?’
    â€˜She is. But I’d not care to trouble her with a stranger.’
    A difficult stranger, perhaps? Fearsome indeed if she had managed to intimidate Mrs Drubb. Or else exceedingly pitiful if she had succeeded in touching that crabbed old heart. She must take at least a peep.
    â€˜What kind of woman, Mrs Drubb?’
    â€˜Talkative, miss … Very .’
    Had she wheedled her way in, then, past this cynical and unyielding guardian of her mother’s privacy? How very surprising. Clever, too. Yet the first thing she noticed about the ‘person’standing beside a battered carpet-bag and an old wooden hat-box with what looked like French words painted on it, was something which would not have counted with Mrs Drubb at all. Her beauty. Not ‘ladylike’beauty, of course. Not the fine porcelain complexion and soulful eyes, the dainty figure and discreet attractions which Gemma’s mother called ‘fashionable’, but a gipsy boldness of colouring and carriage, a dazzling contrast of ebony hair, amber skin and long, incredibly turquoise eyes. Too much beauty, perhaps – and too obvious – which any woman of breeding would have toned down to a becoming subtlety so as not to make herself too disturbing, too much stared at in the street.
    Or so Gemma knew her mother would have considered. The kind of girl one did not employ as a parlourmaid if one valued the peace of mind of one’s grooms and footmen. Or the virtue of one’s younger sons. But Gemma, who had made up her mind long ago that, having no beauty of her own, she would not be churlish about it, came forward with a brisk but pleasant greeting.
    â€˜I am Miss Dallam. What may I do for you?’
    â€˜My name is Adeane, Miss Dallam – Cara Adeane, Dressmaker and Milliner, newly arrived in this area …’
    â€˜From where? Are you Irish?’ To Gemma’s mother that would not be a recommendation. Nor to Mrs Drubb