Read Online June Calvin by The Jilting of Baron Pelham - Free Book Online

choose a husband this year. Oh, my dear, Mr. Curzon was very warm in his attentions to you this afternoon, wasn’t he?”
    “Yes, he was,” Davida replied. She was not truly a shy person, but with her high coloring she blushed easily, and Harrison Curzon had put her to the blush more than once this afternoon with his fulsome compliments and admiring looks. She guessed he took a mischievous pleasure in her embarrassment.
    “A handsome young man, as you said,” her father drawled.
    “Yes, but I cannot like him.”
    “Mama!” Davida turned, astonished, to see her mother looking unusually stern.
    “I can’t help it. I don’t know why, but I cannot. There is something so bold about his manner. Almost insolent. I do not think he would make a comfortable husband.”
    “Codswallop!” Her father was aghast. “An eligible
parti
, and clearly interested. Woman, what kind of a start is this?”
    Her mother rose and walked agitatedly around the room. “He is not at all as kind as Lord Pelham, I am sure.”
    “Your daughter has seen fit to throw Pelham away, so . . .”
    “Papa! He was never mine to . . .”
    “Let us not quarrel.” Her mother turned to face them. “Davida is right. Pelham was in alt when Lady Elspeth took him up again. However we might prefer him as a son-in-law, he is out of reach. All I am asking is that we keep our wits about us. You wouldn’t want Davida to choose unwisely and be unhappy.”
    Her father went to his wife and pulled her into his arms. “Of course not, my dear. Be assured I will look over any potential husbands very carefully.”
    Davida felt a little teary, watching them. In spite of her father’s ambitions, they really did have her best interests at heart. She joined them, hugging them both. “You are surely the best parents a girl could have.”
    But as she mounted the stairs to change into a carriage dress for the ride in the park she had promised Sir Ralph Moreston, Davida felt weighed down with the pressure of the necessity to make such a lifelong commitment in a few short weeks. Her own inclination was to relax and let matters turn out as they might. Surely eighteen was too young to worry about being on the shelf? But she must please not only herself but her dear parents as well, so she firmly took herself in hand and prepared to continue her search.
    She donned her plainest carriage dress, a dark blue bombazine trimmed with white Spanish puffs at the hem and along the sleeves. She did not really like Sir Ralph very much and had no wish to entice him with one of her more fetching costumes.
    Unfortunately Sir Ralph was a favorite of her father, who had met him at the Stanhope ball. “Sir Ralph Moreston, eh! Good man, good man,” he boomed approvingly when he heard who her escort was. “Waterloo hero, very sound Tory. A very solid man indeed, Davida.”
    It was an unfortunate choice of words. Davida giggled behind her fingers. “Very solid indeed, Papa. He must weigh above twenty stone!”
    “Now, not all men can look like your blond Adonis. He’d make you a fine husband. You’d be a lady . . .”
    “Yes, Papa,” she sighed, turning to pat her curls into place beneath her untrimmed bonnet as Perry admitted the portly baronet. He greeted her father effusively, then eyed Davida with delight.
    “Lovely, lovely! Not all decked out with frills and furbelows like so many flighty misses. Plain and sensible.”
    Their drive was not a success from Davida’s standpoint. After seating her in his rather ancient barouche, Sir Ralph spent all of his time disparaging the expense and frivolity around him. “Spending all they have to cut a dash. Fribbles!” He saw Davida eyeing a handsome team of grays that flashed past them. “And those mettlesome animals they dash about town with—dangerous business. You never need worry that my team will bolt with us, Miss Gresham.”
    Davida bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Except for their docked tails and braided