Read Online My Pleasure by Connie Brockway - Free Book Online

it, Vicar?”
    “What?” the vicar asked. “Going to a sporting exhibition?”
    “The salles are schools for young gentlemen, not exhibition halls,” DeMarc said. “Any woman who disports herself there can scarce be called a lady.”
    “Truly, the world is too lax in what it allows, but perhaps more grievous errors than visiting a salle might occupy our prayers and our outrage?” Reverend Tawster suggested mildly.
    Helena smiled encouragingly at the vicar and could have sworn he closed an eye in a wink.
    “Not at all,” Lady Tilpot pronounced.
    “Lady Tilpot, you disagree with your vicar?” Mrs. Winebarger asked.
    “Completely. It is our young people who will inherit society one day, and as such we cannot hope for too much as regards their behavior. We must be constantly vigilant of any indications of vice or moral rot and be swift to excise them.”
    “You are correct, of course,” the vicar demurred, “but I think it important to trust that our young people are proud of their heritage and thus would do nothing to diminish their noble names.”
    “Unless they are the not so very well bred.” Lady Tilpot looked directly at Helena.
    “Certainly you are not referring to Miss Nash?” Reverend Tawster declared, looking aghast. “Though I have known her but a short while, in that time she has never deported herself in any but the most exacting and nicest manner.”
    “Certainly not,” declared Lady Tilpot coldly. “I would not tolerate anything less in my household.” She regarded Helena with a pursed smile. “But,” she continued sententiously, “as nice as her manners might be, blood will tell. Clearly, somewhere in Miss Nash’s background lurks an Unfortunate Connection.”
    Helena felt her mouth stiffen. She must not rise to the provocation. She never rose to the provocation.
    “That is out-and-out rubbish!” Mrs. Winebarger’s amusement had apparently evaporated. She met Lady Tilpot’s apoplectic glower with a cold stare. “Unless I am very much mistaken, her father was Colonel Roderick Nash.”
    Mrs. Winebarger turned to Helena and her gaze softened. “Was he not? A man respected in life and honored in death.”
    “Indeed, yes,” Helena answered softly, gratefully. Yet…why would the Prussian lady know that? True, her father had been a military man of some renown, but not to the degree that his name would be commonly known amongst the ton. “I am surprised you know of him.”
    “My husband follows the wars very closely. He is a great admirer of your father and”—she glanced at DeMarc—“as my husband’s confidante, I have learned a great deal about the gentleman. For instance, I know that while on diplomatic duty in France, he volunteered to trade himself for three Scottish prisoners, young men whom the French suspected were spies and who were slated for execution.”
    Her voice lowered, grew commiserative. “I also know that after the exchange”—her voice dropped sympathetically—“he was executed. He died a hero.”
    Mrs. Winebarger’s words brought it all rushing back to Helena: her initial raw grief, exacerbated by Kate’s anger at her father for sacrificing his life for three strangers; the shock of discovering that their family could no longer reside at the entailed estate; the stunned realization that they must leave York. And into this quagmire of desperation and grief had come the very prisoners Colonel Nash had died rescuing, vowing that they would do whatever their savior’s family asked of them, no matter what that might be. What would these people say if they knew that one of those prisoners had been Ramsey Munro?
    “Her father is certainly to be honored,” Lady Tilpot said after a moment, and then only grudgingly. “But her sisters are another matter. The widowed one has only lately made an infamous match, wedding a common Scottish soldier. Tell them it is true, Miss Nash.”
    “Indeed it is,” Helena acknowledged with a sense of relief. At least here