Read Online My Sweet Folly by Laura Kinsale - Free Book Online Page A

Yearned to write to him, to read his letters again. She had long ago learned not to permit that feeling any room in her heart, or she would lie awake at night and weep for hours.
    But it had a foothold now. She had allowed herself to dream of those days when he had been real and hers. She frowned hard at the crest on the paper.
    Perhaps a pretend letter would put it to rest again. Just a mock letter, a little fantasy of her own.
     
    I confess I am somewhat intimidated by the dignity of your stationary, she wrote beneath the embossed crest. To be quite candid, I am intimidated by you! I do not believe this dark fiendish gentleman who claims your name can possibly be the Robert Cambourne who purchased an elephant for its homing instinct. So I shall simply put him out of my mind and write to my own true Robert, my dearest Robert—oh my friend, you cannot know how I have missed you and missed you. I know that you were right to cease writing to me; how foolish we were, and yet I never found it in my heart to regret. Not truly. I have always cherished you as my own somehow. It is as if I took a wrong turn somewhere, some random day when I might have walked on the left side of the street and run into you, but instead I turned right, or dallied too long over breakfast, or stayed to hem a skirt. And so I missed you forever.
    How am I to convince this stranger, this sham Robert, that he must let us go to London directly, and finance our sojourn there at that?
    I must say that this empty mansion seems a prodigious waste of money that might be put to excellent use in firing off Melinda in style. No doubt a servant or two would hardly be missed if we should take them with us, and the cost of the candles alone must pay for that town house in Hans Crescent. I should be so pleased to see her suitably engaged—there is nothing more in life I wish for. Perhaps I seem quite the pushing Mama, but this is so very anxious a time—her whole life’s happiness depends upon her choice now. How well I know that! I do not think I was very wise in these matters; perhaps I have not told you how it came about that I married Mr. Hamilton. I cannot say that I was forced by any wicked stepmother, although it is true that I had no mama to advise me, or perhaps I might have waited a little longer. My mother died before I had any memory of her, and my father when I was seven, and so I was brought up as a young lady by a pair of rather jolly uncles and a good strict governess; I loved them very dearly but they were so old and life in Toot seemed so flat, and no one ever dreamed of a London season—or perhaps they were just too kind to mention that without beauty or funds or a noble lineage I could hardly expect to take there.  
    And in truth I should not claim that some unfortunate fate led my feet wrong and caused me to miss you, sweet knight, for no young gentlemen ever do come to Toot to be run into, whether one walks on the left or the right or parades down the very middle of the only street in town. So I was nearly seventeen and very anxious that I would become an old maid like the Misses Nunney, when Mr. Hamilton happened to mention that I was quite passable when I smiled—and there you have it.
    I am determined that Melinda shall not make the same—I will not be so harsh as to call it a mistake—but that she shall not suffer a day’s qualm over her choice. She simply must have a London season.
     
    A deep booming sound made Folie look up. She and Melinda glanced at one another.
    “Oh...it was only that a door slammed,” Melinda said, as a faint wash of air ruffled their papers.
    Before Folie could answer, angry shouts echoed from the great hall. The words were indistinct, impossible to comprehend amid the sounds of a rough scuffle. Melinda jumped to her feet. “Whatever could it—”
    “Wait!” Folie cried, lifting the desk cover and tossing her letter inside as Melinda ran out the door. “Melinda, you come back!”
    She caught up with her