Read Online Lakeland Lily by Freda Lightfoot - Free Book Online

right along beside him, with the kind of rapt interested expression upon her lively face as she gazed up at him that was so often recommended in the Woman At Home magazine.
    Mama is perfectly correct, Selene told herself, almost tearful with suppressed rage. The creature is common beyond belief. Without doubt a harlot.
    Seconds later, to her very real horror, Bertie was actually handing Lily into the gig.
    ‘You don’t mind squeezing up, do you, Selene? I’ve asked Lily to come to tea.’

Chapter Four
     
    Lily couldn’t believe her good fortune. Any other day of the week would have found her with her sleeves rolled up, hands all red and swollen and stinking of fish. Today, because of the excitement over the flight of the Water Hen, she had been permitted a half-day holiday. As a result she had met Bertie Clermont-Read.
    She knew exactly what she meant to do. The idea had come to her on the instant Rose had left them, and he’d told her how he dreaded the prospect of afternoon tea with Dora Ferguson-Walsh, a dull, plump girl whose charms were located largely in her father’s pocket book.
    ‘How fortunate to enjoy such treats as cucumber sandwiches and cream sponge,’ Lily had gently chided, though making sure her lips curved into an enticing smile. ‘You wouldn’t find them in our house.’
    He grinned at her, his boyish good looks making him far more approachable than the rest of his family. Frizzy, slightly sandy hair framed a smooth, untroubled forehead, rather like a halo about his head - though not for one moment did Lily take him for the angel a fond mama might wish him to be. The glint in his brown eyes told quite the opposite tale.
    ‘Do you enjoy cream cakes?’
    ‘Adore them.’ Lily had never tasted such a delicacy in her life.
    ‘Well, I dare say I should enjoy them too, if Dora were as jolly as you. She is so worthy, always busy with her Good Works. All she ever talks about is the pleasure she finds in serving others, and how a happy marriage is a man’s salvation, if not that of the whole nation.’
    ‘Poor Dora.’ She slanted a glance up at him through her lashes. ‘She’d make you a good wife, of course. Which I’m sure must be a serious consideration for any young chap.’
    Bertie rolled his eyes in good-humoured disbelief. ‘So Mama constantly reminds me. For my part, I’d rather have a pal for a wife. Someone who knows how to enjoy life, and have a good time.’
    Lily had put back her head and laughed, aware as she did so how his gaze lingered upon her pink mouth, taking in the white evenness of her teeth, and down over her throat to the rise and fall of her breasts, now satisfyingly full.
    ‘I say, why don’t you come too?’ he’d said, a slight breathlessness in his voice. ‘We could have ripping fun. And it would show dear Mama that I won’t be bossed about or dragooned into early matrimony.’
    ‘Does she boss you about?’ Inside, Lily felt a surge of jubilation. The invitation was even more than she had hoped for. She only had to accept and he would take her, one of the faceless poor, right inside his splendid home, to confront the very people who had so heartlessly ruined her life.
    ‘Of course. Adore the old thing, but once she gets a grip on a chap it’s hard to shake her off.’ He beamed at Lily. ‘Do say you’ll come. What a lark!’
    She giggled. ‘Your mother wouldn’t let me through the door. I’d never feature on her list of suitable candidates.’
    This of course had the desired effect of appealing to his sense of chivalry, and Bertie puffed up his chest in indignation. ‘Just let her try and stop you! A chap has some rights, despite all this suffrage business which tries to make us seem like worms.’
    Lily laughed, partly to show she would never treat a man thus, but also because she knew little about suffrage in any case. Besides which, he really was quite amusing. Lily decided she might even come to like him, and for an instant suffered a twinge of