Read Online Flower for a Bride by Barbara Rowan - Free Book Online Page A

him to fall back upon books as his only real means of diversion.
    Lois felt a little sorry for him, and, greatly though she had taken to Miss Mattie, wished that he had someone younger to be with him most of the time. If he was not to be sent away to school he would miss much, she thought, cooped up in the society of one so old, even although she plainly adored him almost as much as his father did.
    And it was obvious that Miss Mattie realized her own limitations, and her lack of qualifications nowadays for being regarded as a governess at all, for as they talked she introduced the subject herself of Jamie’s somewhat restricted life, and declared that she had more than once tried to persuade Dom
    Julyan to engage someone nearer his age-group and interests to take full charge of him.
    “He’s rather more than I can cope with nowadays,” she admitted. “And although his father knows it, of course, he doesn’t seem to mind. Men—particularly fond parents—are a little blind about their children sometimes, especially motherless children, and they’re afraid of entrusting them to strangers. Dom Julyan knows I’m safe enough, but he doesn’t realize that he’s not being fair to Jamie.”
    “I do see what you mean,” Lois answered, having thought more or less along the same lines since her first visit. “It’s a pity,” she added suddenly, Jamie laving disappeared into the garden while they drank their coffee, “that the child has no mother.”
    Yes,” Miss Mattie agreed, and sighed. “And yet, in some ways, perhaps it isn’t such a pity, for Julyan’s wife, although she was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen—and a lovely Portuguese woman is something, I can tell you! —would never have been very interested in a family. She was artistic, and she was a member of a clever family, and her interests were all far above the heads of small children—even her own children.”
    “But that seems extraordinary,” Lois said, and she meant it. She was suddenly thinking: A collector’s piece.. . But surely Dom Julyan’s marriage—the one that had actually come off—had not been contracted for the reasons his second attempt at marriage had very nearly been contracted? Because a woman was beautiful, and he had the connoisseur’ s desire to treasure her! . . .
    She suddenly heard herself asking, because for some reason she had to know:
    “Was Dom Julyian very much in love with Jamie’s mother?”
    Miss Mattie looked at her rather curiously.
    “My dear, that’s rather an odd question,” she answered, “and extremely difficult to reply to, because in noble Portuguese families like Dom Julyan’s marriages are so seldom contracted for love.
    Love may enter into them later on, but a girl is chosen because of her own family connections, because perhaps she is rich, and her wealth can bolster failing fortunes, or in order to cement a business relationship between the parents. There are all sorts of reasons which we in England would look upon as too materialistic for words, but purely sentimental reasons do not often occur amongst them. However, if you like to come with me to the library—if you feel that it won’t be hurting your ankle to walk that far—I can show you a portrait of Donna Valerira, and perhaps you will be able to judge for yourself the possibilities of a man falling in love with such a face.”
    Lois instantly stood up—actually eager to see the portrait—and then she suddenly remembered that she might run into Dom Julyan.
    “But, what if we—won’t Dom Julyan think it odd
    if he sees us---------?”
    “Dom Julyan has gone out to lunch with friends, and he will not be back until quite late in the afternoon,” Miss Mattie informed her. “There is no danger of him seeing us enter the library.”
    “Oh!... Oh, then, in that case...” But Lois felt curiously disappointed. It wasn’t that she wanted to run into Dom Julyan, but it wasn’t exactly highly flattering to be