Read Online Enlightening Delilah by MC Beaton - Free Book Online Page B

the drawing room, sir,’ said Delilah, ‘for it is very rude of
you
to remark on my behaviour.’
    ‘If you are come to Town in the hopes of finding a husband, then that hoydenish manner of yours is going to bring you nothing but failure,’ said Sir Charles.
    Delilah suddenly smiled at him. ‘Oh, my poor Sir Charles,’ she said softly. ‘How blind you are. I can be married at any time I like and to anyone who pleases me.’
    ‘Not to me,’ said Sir Charles.
    ‘Of course not,’ said Delilah sweetly. ‘For you do not please me in the slightest!’
    Sir Charles got to his feet. ‘I wish you the joy of Miss Wraxall’s education,’ he said to Effy. ‘You are going to have a great deal of work.’
    ‘How could you be so horrible, Delilah?’ exclaimed Effy when Sir Charles had left.
    ‘Pooh!’ said Delilah and turned about and started battering the piano again.
    Sir Charles did not see his friend until breakfast the following day. ‘How was your dinner party?’ he asked. Lord Andrew rubbed his bloodshot eyes. ‘Famous, what I remember of it,’ he said. ‘I was telling one of my best stories and suddenly I found myself lying under the table with not the slightest idea of how I got there. My head! My days of racketing around are at an end. Time to get married and settle down.’
    ‘And have you anyone in mind?’
    ‘A divine creature from your part of the world. If I tell you her name, will you give me your sincere promise not to try to cut me out?’
    ‘I promise.’
    ‘Miss Delilah Wraxall.’
    ‘I know her well. Her father is the squire of Hoppleton. As a matter of fact, I got the shock of my life when I found her resident with those Tribbles.’
    ‘Because they advertise for difficult girls? That is not the case with Miss Wraxall. The Tribbles are old friends of her father and she is in no need of schooling. Such divine looks, such grace, such charm of manner!’
    ‘You are fortunate. I appear to bring out the beast in Miss Wraxall. She was most rude to me.’
    ‘Good,’ said Lord Andrew heartlessly. ‘High time you had a set-down. You are a sad philanderer.’
    ‘I? My dear Andrew. When did I ever play fast and loose with any woman’s affections?’
    ‘Before Salamanca. That captain’s widow, you know, pretty little thing. Cried her eyes out when you wouldn’t look at her again. Swore you’d made love to her.’
    ‘I may have flirted a little, but she did encourage me, and it was that rare party when we were all having as much fun as we could in case we died the next day.’
    ‘Mrs Agnew, that was her name,’ said Lord Andrew. ‘You were cuddling her. I saw you.’
    ‘You weren’t exactly behaving like a saint yourself, as I recall,’ said Sir Charles.
    ‘Ah, but I was paying assiduous court to that hardened flirt, Jessica Bond-Fallen. No heart to break there, nor reputation to lose, either.’
    ‘Well, I am sorry. I did not expect her to take me seriously.’
    ‘A rich, handsome, marriageable man is always taken seriously.’
    Sir Charles fell silent. He remembered kissing Delilah and how the squire had asked him if he had encouraged her in any way. But Delilah could not, surely, have taken him seriously; or, if by any chance she had, then she was too beautiful a creature to remain pining for any man for long. But why had she never married?
    ‘Is she rich as well as beautiful?’ asked Lord Andrew.
    ‘Yes, Miss Wraxall is very rich. How so? You are not short of a shilling.’
    ‘Been dipping deep,’ said Lord Andrew. ‘Do not follow my example. Keep away from the gaming tables of St James’s.’
    ‘I have no intention of playing,’ said Sir Charles. ‘I have no desire to lose my estates.’
    London was in the grip of ferocious gambling fever. At those famous clubs, White’s, Boodle’s, and Brooks’s in St James’s Street, it was nothing for a gentleman to lose thirty thousand or forty thousand pounds in a single evening. Raggett, the proprietor of White’s, used to