Read Online Faro's Daughter by Georgette Heyer - Free Book Online

edgeways-oh, it was for an axle-tree!’
    ‘We had to have that,’ said Lady Bellingham, comforted. ‘But when it comes to eighty pounds for liveries which are the most hideous colour imaginable, and not in the least what I wanted, we have reached the outside of enough!’
    Miss Grantham looked up with an awed expression in her eyes. ‘Aunt, do we really pay four hundred pounds for a box at the opera?’
    ‘I daresay. It is all of a piece! I am sure we have not used it above three times the whole season.’
    ‘We must give it up,’ said Miss Grantham firmly.
    ‘Now, Deb, do pray be sensible! When poor dear Sir Edward was alive, we always had our box at the opera. Everyone did so!’
    ‘But Sir Edward has been dead these dozen years, aunt,’ Miss Grantham pointed out.
    Lady Bellingham dabbed at her eyes with a fragile handkerchief. ‘Alas, I am a defenceless widow, whom everyone delights to impose upon! But I will not give up my box at the opera!’
    There did not seem to be anything more to be said about this. Miss Grantham had made another, and still more shocking discovery. ‘Oh, aunt!’ she said, raising distressed eyes from the sheaf of bills. ‘Ten ells of green Italian taffeta! That was for that dress which I threw, away, because it did not become me!’
    ‘Well, what else is one to do with dresses which don’t become one?’ asked her aunt reasonably.
    ‘I might at least have worn it! Instead of that, we bought all that satin—the Rash Tears one, I mean—and had it made up.’
    ‘You never had a dress that became you better, Deb,’ said her ladyship reminiscently. ‘You were wearing that when Mablethorpe first saw you.’
    There was a short silence. Miss Grantham looked at her aunt in a troubled way, and shuffled the bills in her hand.
    ‘I suppose,’ said Lady Bellingham tentatively, ‘you could not bring yourself-?’
    ‘No,’ said Deborah.
    ‘No,’ agreed Lady Bellingham, with a heavy sigh. ‘Only it would be such a splendid match, and no one would dun me if it were known that you were betrothed to Mablethorpe!’
    ‘He is not yet twenty-one, ma’am.’
    ‘Very true, my dear, but so devoted!’
    ‘I’m his calf-love. He won’t marry a woman out of a gaming-house.’
    Lady Bellingham’s mouth drooped pathetically. ‘I meant it all for the best! Of course, I do see that it puts us in an awkward position, but how in the world was I to manage? And my card-parties were always so well-liked—indeed, I was positively renowned for them!—that it seemed such a sensible thing to do! Only, ever since we bought this house our expenses seem to have mounted so rapidly that I’m sure I don’t know what is to become of us. And here is dearest Kit, too! I forgot to tell you, my love. I have a letter from him somewhere—well, never mind, I must have mislaid it. But the thing is that the dear boy thinks he would be happier in a cavalry regiment, and would like to exchange.’
    ‘Exchange!’ exclaimed Kit’s sister, aghast. ‘Why, I daresay it would cost seven or eight hundred pounds at the least!’
    ‘Very likely,’ said Lady Bellingham in a despondent tone. ‘But there’s no denying he would look very well in Hussar uniform, and I never did like his being in that horrid line regiment. Only where the money is to come from I don’t know!’
    ‘Kit can’t exchange. It would be absurd! You must explain to him that it is impossible.’
    ‘But I promised poor dear Wilfred I would always look after his children!’ said Lady Bellingham tragically.
    ‘So you have, dearest Aunt Lizzie,’ said Deborah warmly. ‘We have never been anything but a shocking charge on you!’
    ‘I am sure no one ever had a better nephew and niece. And if you won’t have Mablethorpe, I dare say someone richer will offer for you.’
    Miss Grantham looked down at her shapely hands. ‘Lord Ormskirk is making very precise offers, aunt.’
    Lady Bellingham picked up the haresfoot, and began to powder her face