Read Online Daphne by MC Beaton - Free Book Online

enduring an evening at Lady Godolphin’s. There was no real reason to believe that Daphne Armitage would be in town. But he had expressed an interest in furthering his acquaintance with her and that should be enough to spur on any parent, particularly one as avaricious as he had sensed the vicar to be. Mr Garfield had been hunted down by ambitious parents from the day he had come into his inheritance. He had summed up the reverend as being an extremely mercenary man. Poor Daphne was probably hustled off to London the day after his departure.
    Daphne, who would by now have been made aware of his power and fortune, would no longer fascinate him by pretending to be mad but would simper and giggle and flirt like all the other girls who had bored him so much in the past.
    Everything in London seemed to be exhausted by the long drought of summer. He could not even remember when it had last rained. The grass was parched and dusty and the leaves of the trees rustled metallically in the dry breeze. There was to be a Grand Review of Volunteers in Hyde Park on the morrow. Perhaps he might invite Miss Armitage, if Miss Armitage did not prove as tedious as he was sure she would turn out to be.
    At last he rose and collected his charges and made his leisurely way home with the happy dogs, full of food, stumbling at his heels.
    He would have banished them to the kitchens butthey looked so cowed and terrified that he impatiently ordered his servants to let them stay.
    At last he stepped out into the hot, still evening, dressed in his best. He wore a severely cut black dress coat with silver buttons over a white piqué waistcoat. His pantaloons of fawn stockinette fitted his legs like a second skin.
    His copper hair was cut à la Titus and he wore his cravat in the Osbaldiston. Although he was often pointed out as a notable Corinthian because of his expertise at all sorts of sport, Mr Garfield did not affect the Tom and Jerry fashions of the other Corinthians who seemed determined to look as if they had just left the stables.
    He stood calmly waiting for his carriage and trying to ignore the howls of canine anguish which were filling the house behind him.
    He was not a hunting man and began to worry whether foxhounds were more sensitive than other breeds. He wondered insanely whether they might go into a decline.
    What if Miss Armitage should prove that wonderful being for whom he had searched so long – a woman who would not bore him after ten minutes? And what if she asked after those wretched beasts and he had to confess they had died of broken hearts?
    His carriage arrived and two of his footmen marched forwards to let down the steps and open the door.
    ‘James,’ said Mr Garfield, drawing on his gloves,‘pray go into the house and fetch the dogs. I am taking them with me.’
    James cast an eloquent look at the carriage, which was an open barouche.
    ‘Very good, sir,’ he said woodenly.
    Mr Garfield settled himself in the carriage and sighed.
    The door of the house opened and Thunderer and Bellsire streaked out, tugging the helpless footman after them.
    ‘Sit!’ commanded Mr Garfield awfully. The dogs climbed up on the seat next to him and sat up very straight, looking around them eagerly, their pink tongues lolling out.
    ‘I say,’ said Lord Hazleton anxiously to his friend the Honourable John Jakes. ‘Ain’t that Garfield, and ain’t he got two foxhounds?’
    Mr Jakes tried not to stare. ‘Pon rep,’ he giggled. ‘You are not up to the mark. Foxhounds is In. Everybody takes a couple around.’
    Each man strolled on, privately wondering how soon they could find a couple to rival Mr Garfield.
     
    The Reverend Charles Armitage was a most discontented man. He had brought Daphne to London shortly after Mr Garfield’s visit with all the speed of a man long-accustomed to rushing his daughters up and down to town in pursuit of various marriageable beaux. He had been astounded by the fact that Mrs Armitage had briefly emerged