Read Online The Babe and the Baron by Carola Dunn - Free Book Online Page B

my own. The next year I was brought out with my sister Cecilia, beautiful, compliant Cecilia. I might as well have been a doorpost for all the attention anyone paid me.”
    “The situation is not unfamiliar to me,” said Miss Burleigh, and there was pain in her voice.
    Her attention momentarily distracted from her story, Laura wondered if she, too, had been the despised, neglected sister of a Beauty. She had never married, devoting her life to that sister's children, but once she had been a young girl, with all the hopes and fears Laura remembered only too clearly.
    And gradually the hopes had died. “Ceci caught a duke's heir. Once they were betrothed, Mama made no more pretence of trying to find me a husband. My so-called friends commiserated with me on having a younger sister wed first. Freddie Chamberlain was the only gentleman who still bothered to stand up with me at balls.”
    “Had you no fortune to attract suitors?”
    “Nothing of significance. I had five sisters and four brothers to be provided for. Freddie was no fortune-hunter, though his pockets were generally to let. He was always kind, you know, when it cost him no effort and did not interfere with his pleasures. He was handsome, and amusing, and he danced with me. I thought myself in love.”
    “Inevitably,” muttered Miss Burleigh.
    “I persuaded him to marry me. Papa would never have considered his suit, for he already had a reputation as a gamester and a wastrel, so we arranged to elope. I sold my pearls to pay for the journey to Gretna Green. I was so sure I could reform him once I was his wife.”
    “Whoever first said that rakes reformed make the best husbands is responsible for a great deal of unhappiness. I suppose he changed his mind about marriage once you were on the road, my dear?”
    “No, you must not think so very ill of him,” Laura cried. She pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, as if to blot out what came next. “We stopped at an inn for the night. He met some friends there, and the temptation to increase my small store of money was too much for him. He won a little at cards, lost a little, won again.” She had to force her voice through her tight throat. “For near a fortnight we stayed there while he played and drank, drank and played. He never touched me. The cards and the brandy were more attractive.”
    “Oh, my dear, how very dreadful! How utterly mortifying. Do not cry, pray do not cry.” Miss Burleigh jumped up and thrust a handkerchief into her hand, patted her shoulder. “It was then that Lord Medway found you?”
    “Papa would not listen to a word I said.” Bitterness combatted misery. “He had brought a special license and we were married that day. Though Papa did not believe it, Freddie was perfectly willing. He was sorry for me, and after all, he had no intention of allowing the acquisition of a wife to make the least difference to his life.”
    “Of course your elopement could not be hushed up, but only the families heard that you had not been married within a very few days. They were given to understand that you had voluntarily lived with Frederick as man and wife for two weeks.”
    “You are not related, ma'am. Since you know, everyone must.”
    “Your mama-in-law happens to be a friend of mine, as well as being my late sister's husband's cousin. We correspond frequently. Naturally she was deeply distressed by what the earl told her husband and she poured out her troubled mind in a letter, knowing I should repeat nothing. I despise gossip. Your story is safe with me.”
    “Thank you, ma'am.” Laura was beginning to feel relief at having disburdened herself to a surprisingly sympathetic ear. “Not that it really matters, as I have no aspirations to reenter Society.”
    “I fear your father's utterly casting you off aroused suspicions that it was not a simple elopement. Indeed,” she went on with a return to her usual austere manner, “I received an unpleasant letter the other day from