Read Online Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 08] - Sanguinet's Crown by Patricia Veryan - Free Book Online Page A

fashions, or
babies, and she is in real danger of being set down as 'clever.' A
state no male can endure in a woman." She parried Redmond's frigid
glare with a glittering smile and swept on, knowing she was being
outrageous. "It is all based on fear, though few would acknowledge it.
The gentlemen
deplore
silly, empty-headed
females—and invariably marry them, if only to assure themselves of how
superior they are. And also," she appended loftily,"so that they may
continue their various indiscretions under the very noses of their
wooden-headed wives."
    "Which would account, no doubt," he sneered, "for the untold
numbers of poor hapless males who are trapped 'neath the cat's foot."
    "If a male is poor and hapless, Mr. Redmond, he will sooner or
later wind up under
somebody's
foot, whether it
be that of his parent, spouse, or superior officer. The point is that a
gentleman has so vast a scope compared to a lady. And when one sees
what most men make of their lives…" She paused, eyeing him with faint
reproach.
    So now he had been judged a failure in life! Furious, he
donned the mantle of polite boredom that had daunted several managing
mamas. "I have not the slightest doubt, ma'am, but that you, for
example, would have taken the opportunities I have so shamefully
squandered and turned them to good account. Had I but a
soupçon
of your ambition I might very well be Prime Minister by now!"
    Markedly undaunted, Charity opened her eyes at him and
enquired, "Is
that
what you aspire to, Mr.
Redmond? My, but I should never have guessed you to have a turn for
politics."
    "Very astute of you, Miss Strand," he snapped, forgetting to
be condescending. "For I find politicians to be a set of pompous bores
with whom I mingle as little as possible."
    "Really? I expect your vast experience in such matters should
influence me to change my own opinion. I cannot help but wonder at Lord
Palmerston, you know. Such a charming gentleman, and I have never found
him a bore. I must ask him how he came to be so taken in."
    Redmond, who admired Palmerston, concentrated upon where he
might bury this revolting woman, after suitably strangling her, and how
Brutus might be dissuaded from digging her up again.
    Charity said with kind encouragement,"Now, surely there must
be
something
to which you aspire, sir? Besides
being Prime Minister, which might be rather difficult, do you not like
to be a politician first?"
    He replied with a teeth-bared smile, "Oh, there was, my dear
lady. I like to think I have achieved it."
    "A—
duellist?''
she cried, her eyes
becoming so round that his fingers fairly itched for her throat.
    For a moment he did not trust himself to speak. Then, a pulse
twitching beside his jaw, he ground out, "There are occasions, Miss
Strand, when even murder is… well justified!"
     
    "Who are you? And what are you doing to Little Patches?"
    The clear, girlish voice caused Mitchell Redmond to drop the
willow branch he had been trailing to amuse eight ounces of incredible
ferocity, and he spun around guiltily.
    A scrawny, untidy damsel of some ten or eleven summers stood
watching him. Her dark hair was a dishevelled, frizzy mass with an
occasional lurking curl that looked surprisingly glossy, perhaps
because it was unexpected. There was a streak of mud along one side of
her pointed plain little face, and more mud on the white muslin dress,
and she clutched a rather wilted bouquet of wildflowers in a slim,
muddy hand.
    "I am Mr. Redmond," he said. Alert brown eyes scanned him with
an eager expectancy, as though he must have something very pleasant to
tell her, and his slow smile dawned. "And who are you, Mrs., er…?"
    She giggled. "Storm. Josie Storm. And I'm not a missus yet,
'cos I'm only twelve. We think. Here—" She thrust her bouquet at him.
"Hold these, if you please."
    He accepted the charge, betraying no dismay that his hand
thereby became muddied also, and curious because her careful but
slightly less than cultured speech did not quite