Read Online The Bride Hunt by Jane Feather - Free Book Online

delightful, my dear. I look forward to seeing you in your new home. Perhaps you could invite Barclay.”
    Constance’s smile was as flat as the Dead Sea. “Yes, of course. And maybe some of your bridge cronies. We could arrange a rubber after dinner.”
    “Lovely, my dear.” He patted her shoulder and turned to his son-in-law. “So good to have you back in town, Ensor. I look forward to discussing the new Parliament with you.”
    “It will be my pleasure, Lord Duncan,” Max said smoothly, allowing himself to be swept on the tide of his wife and her sisters out into the hall.
    Once there, he said with a peremptory nod at the stairs, “That parlor of yours, I believe.”
    “Now is as good a time as any,” Constance agreed, moving ahead to the stairs. “We need some information, Max.”
    “I doubt that’s all you need,” he muttered, standing aside to allow Prudence and Chastity to precede him.

Chapter 4

    C onstance felt her husband’s hand on the small of her back as she followed her sisters up the stairs. It could have been a gently proprietorial gesture, but she was not fool enough to misinterpret the pressure of the touch. Max was not best pleased.
    Max closed the parlor door behind them. He glanced around and then strode to the secretaire, where lay a copy of the broadsheet. A tense silence hung over the room while he reread the article. “I had the idiotic hope that this was some deranged figment of my imagination,” he muttered when he’d finished reading.
    He rolled the paper tightly and stood flicking it against his thigh as he looked at Constance. “Of course you wrote this.”
    She nodded. “Weeks ago, before we were married.”
    His exasperation got the better of his composure. “For God’s sake, woman, are you completely out of your mind?”
    Constance lost her apologetic demeanor. “Don’t use that tone with me, Max. And I won’t be called
woman
in that patronizing manner.”
    Prudence and Chastity exchanged a glance, then sat side by side on the sofa and regarded the bristling couple with unabashed interest.
    “What do you expect me to say?” Max demanded. “Couldn’t you have warned me you were going after Barclay? This is the most vitriolic attack on a respected—”
    “Wait a minute—” Constance interrupted even as both her sisters jumped to their feet.
    “There’s nothing respected or respectable about Barclay,” Prudence stated, her usually pale complexion flushed, her light green eyes alive with conviction. “Constance interviewed all three women mentioned in the article—”
    “
And
I saw their children and the miserable conditions in which they were living,” Constance declared. “They weren’t lying, Max.”
    “Can you imagine what it would be like to be raped by your employer, then thrown into the street pregnant without a character reference . . . no money, no home?” Chastity weighed in with her twopence worth and Max almost physically backed away from the sisters, who were facing him like lion tamers.
    “I’m not excusing him,” he said. “But this is too much.” He waved the rolled-up broadsheet again. “It’s such a personal attack. A complete character assassination.”
    “It’s his character we were attacking,” Constance stated aridly. “The man’s a philanderer, a rapist, a cheat, an embezzler—”
    “Where’s the evidence for that?” Max asked, a forefinger jabbing the air in front of him.
    Prudence grimaced. “Rumor is all we have.”
    Max spun around to stare at her. “That’s going to be your defense? Rumor? I’d credited
you
with more sense, Prudence.” Constance stared at the carpet, hearing the inference in the emphasis. It was true she was not always as circumspect as her younger sister.
    Prudence, for her part, flushed, but said stolidly, “We agree we’ll have to do better than that. Once we’ve found a lawyer to defend
The Mayfair Lady
.”
    “We think we’ve found one,” Chastity said.
    “Yes, Sir Gideon