Lord Harry's Folly by Catherine Coulter (read this if .txt) 📕

friends and enemies alike upon the death of his wife in childbed. Ah, she’d been so young, so beautiful to die so tragically, so needlessly. He’d not been able to bear it, all the mournful expressions, the endless silences around him because of his sorrow, a sorrow so deep that he simply wouldn’t speak of it or refer in any way to his dead wife. And there’d been Sir William Filey, of course, that damnable bastard, who’d delighted in questioning Elizabeth’s death, raising rumors that had no substance to them. Not that anyone had believed Filey or the rumors, but he’d had to leave else he’d have likely killed Filey. He shook his head, picked up his breeches, and left Melissande in the hands of her maid, Ginny.

He had to see to himself, a small mirror in the adjoining dressing room his only assurance that his appearance wouldn’t shame the exquisite rubies around his mistress’s white neck.

Ginny was carefully tugging a long curl of rich auburn gently into place on Melissande’s shoulder when Lord Oberlon returned to the bedroom. Melissande rose and smiled at him with the confidence of a lady who knows herself to be the elixir of pleasure and beauty. She touched her fingers to the ruby necklace that lay nestled in the hollow of her throat. “You approve, your grace?”

She had pleased him. The darkness deep within him was at bay. She did look as succulent as a prime partridge. “You’ll make all the other ladies present want to go hide themselves in the shrubbery.”

Ginny paused a moment from straightening her mistress’s brushes when she heard Melissande say with great relish to her lover as they left the room, “How I hope that Lady Planchey will be in attendance this evening. Why the effrontery of her ladyship to believe that you could be interested in her spotty-faced daughter.” Although Melissande was very much aware that wives and mistresses were poles apart in a gentleman’s mind, she knew that even the loveliest of young misses would receive no more than a disinterested glance from Lord Oberlon while she was leaning gracefully on his arm.

He smiled down at her, knowing exactly what she was thinking. He appreciated her predictability, was amused by her fascination with herself. She soothed the bleakness, made him forget how bloody serious life could be.

Miss Henrietta Rolland nearly cracked her jaw on a prodigious yawn the next morning. She only opened her eyes when Millie made a loud snorting noise for the third time, this third time, not more than three inches from her ear.

“That’s it, Miss Hetty. Open your eyes. Your father will no doubt miss you if you don’t join him for luncheon.”

“Yes, you’re right about that, Millie.” She stretched and groaned. “Goodness, but I’m tired.”

“You can’t expect much else if you stay out until the chimney sweeps begin their work.”

While Hetty bathed from the porcelain basin atop the marble commode, Millie, with practiced efficiency, told her mistress of the previous evening’s events. “You should know that your father was engaged with Sir Richard Latham, Mr. Alwyn Settlemore, and Sir Lucius Bentham. These gentlemen arrived at about eight o’clock. They drank sherry in the drawing room until half-past eight, discussing politics all the while, then left for Sir Mortimer Melberry’s house. Of course, your father didn’t think to say good night to you, so we had no worry there. Grimpston informed me that Sir Archibald returned just after midnight with two of the gentlemen, drank more sherry, and held more political discussions until just after two in the morning. Sir Archibald rose at his usual time of nine o’clock and repaired to the study after breakfast. And,” Millie finished, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, “If you don’t soon finish pulling up your stockings, miss, you’ll ruin his blessed schedule and then we just might be in a rare mess.”

“A rare mess that could prove fatal. We must never interfere with his schedule. Indeed, I imagine he’s already planning how he will talk God around to his way of thinking once he arrives at the Pearly Gates. It boggles the mind, Millie, it truly does.”

Millie quickly brushed out her mistress’s short blond curls, threaded a white ribbon through the hollows and fastened it at the nape of her neck. “There,” she said, stepping back to survey her handiwork. “No one could accuse you of not looking the perfect young lady of fashion except that your gown is two inches too short, but Sir Archibald wouldn’t notice such a thing, thank the lord. Now, go, Miss Hetty, I just heard the clock chime twelve.”

Hetty ran down the carpeted stairs into the small entrance hall. “Good morning, Grimpston,” she said to the Rolland butler, who’d dandled her on his thin knee and burped her as well.

“Good morning, Miss Hetty. Off with you now, Sir Archibald is already at the table.”

Hetty sped past him down a small corridor that led to the dining room. She turned and waved a friendly hand before disappearing through the open door. She stopped short, took a deep breath, and smiled. Her father, Sir Archibald Rolland, esteemed member of the House of Lords, Tory by birth, economic persuasion, and passionate conviction, sat at the head of the long table, his head buried behind the Gazette.

Mrs. Miller, the Rolland housekeeper, stood at his elbow, a look of patient resignation on her face, waiting to discover his preference of soups. It was a sacred rule among the servants that Sir Archibald was never to be interrupted in his ritual reading of the newspaper. She looked heavenward and Hetty could almost hear her silent sighs.

“Good day, Father,” she sang out, carefree as any nightingale, and walked to her father’s side.

“Father,” she repeated, as his silver head didn’t emerge from his newspaper.

“Damned idiots,” he said to himself. “I ask you, why can’t they understand the simplest economics? Their constant, radical inveigling against the Corn Laws makes me wonder if they share an entire brain