Read Online The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy by Elizabeth Aston - Free Book Online

exchanged vows, you have been married so brief a time, just a few months. You have hardly had time to get to know one another.”
    â€œIt took one night for me to get to know what Napier is like.”
    â€œWell, I do not want to hear another word about it. Is it to tell me all this that you have come to see me?”
    It was a good question, and one that Alethea was asking herself. She knew why she was in Paris: it was a matter of convenience, a natural stopping place on her way to Italy, the city from which all kinds of conveyances were available to carry her and Figgins across the Alps and on to Venice.
    As to why she had decided to call on Georgina, that was a more complex matter. It had to do with childhood alliances and sisterly solidarity, when they had tumbled in and out of trouble, she and Georgie and Belle. The twins were closest to her in age, and their heedless, careless approach to life had appealed to Alethea, with her innate appreciation of freedom.
    Only now Belle was wrapped in the feminine happiness of approaching motherhood; she was a softened, more peaceful creature and Alethea would not have dreamed of approaching her for support or advice, not when she was so near her time.
    Strait-laced Letty had behaved just as anyone could have predicted she would; there had been no point in expecting anything else from Letty. Wild, convention-flouting Georgie was another case—or so Alethea had thought.
    Now, as she looked at her sister’s beautiful, wary face, she knew she had made a mistake. There was no comfort or understanding or support to be had from her. She was happy in her marriage, secure in her position, not given to quick understanding of human relationships other than her own, reluctant, certainly, to take any steps of which her husband might disapprove.
    As though she could read Alethea’s mind, Georgina said, “Sir Joshua does not consider you a good influence. Indeed, he says that the very idea of five sisters distresses him. He wishes to have my full confidence; he would be very angry if he discovered I was going behind his back in any dealings I might have with you or Belle or Letty or Camilla.”
    In other words, Georgina would tell her husband that she had seen her sister, even if Alethea begged her not to. She was a Mordaunt now, through and through, not a Darcy.
    She rose to go.
    â€œCome back with me,” Georgina was urging. “To take some refreshment, at least, and then we can talk further. You cannot stay alone in Paris.”
    â€œI don’t intend to.”
    â€œWhatever do you mean? Oh, you are going back to England?”
    â€œI am not,” Alethea said quickly, and added, “I shall go to Austria.”
    â€œYou do not mean to go to Vienna! Only consider how angry Papa will be.”
    It had been a mistake to have this meeting with her sister. She would run back to her husband with the shocking news; Sir Joshua would send word at once to Napier, and he would come after her, she was sure of it.
    Let him, then, and let him go to Vienna. Once he was there, and finding no trace of her, she doubted if he would approach her father. He might be able to deceive Letty, who was a fool in such matters as these; he could hardly hope to hoodwink Mr. Darcy.
    She moved swiftly away, brushing aside Georgina’s restraining hand, and walked quickly away from the park. Georgie might follow her, but she wouldn’t get far, not in those shoes, and not alone. Alethea could vanish, in her dowdy gown, long before her sister could catch up with her.
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    â€œAnd I could have told you that, and would you listen? No, and now it’s hurry, hurry, pack up and go.” Figgins’s voice was shrill and scolding. “Without alerting the landlord that we’re off at first light like a pair of scalded cats, if you please. An orderly journey, you said, that was what we were undertaking, an orderly journey. Well, so it could have been if you