A Rival Heir Read Online Free Page B

Parade Gardens.
    “Perhaps we should find a sedan chair for you, Aunt Longstreet,” Nell suggested diffidently. “We’ve come rather far afield.”
    “Nonsense. I’m perfectly capable of walking a few blocks. Does my constitution good.”
    But in fact Nell could see that her aunt was flagging. “Very well, but I should like to sit here on the bench for a moment to survey the Gardens.”
    Her aunt did not object to being seated on the slatted wooden bench, but her gaze fell on the houses nearby rather than on the gardens. “I suppose one would have to be pretty well to grass to afford one of those places,” she said dismissively. “Can’t think why anyone would want to live in Bath the year round. It’s well enough for a month’s visit, I suppose, but who could bear to hear the rattling of all those carriages and carts day after day?”
    “One may become accustomed to them,” Nell suggested. “And they are lovely houses. I find the golden stone so very warm and attractive. My guidebook says that one of these houses belongs to the Earl of Kentforth.”
    “Humph!” Aunt Longstreet grumbled, but her gaze sharpened as the door of a nearby house opened and an elegant man strode forth. “No doubt that is he right now,” she mocked.
    “I shouldn’t think so,” Nell replied in her prosaic way. “That man is as young as your godson, and the earl is reputed to be elderly. Sixty if he is a day.”
    “I’m sixty, and I do not consider myself elderly, young lady.”
    “No, well, women age so much more gracefully than men, don’t you think?”
    “No, I do not,” her aunt snapped. She rose from the bench and headed for the Grand Parade. “Come along. I have a great desire to peek in the windows of Bath society—as I’m sure one of your guidebooks would suggest.”
    Nell didn’t argue with her aunt, but hastened to catch up with the determined spinster. She was not, in fact, averse to seeing what curtains and furniture she could spy through the charmingly glazed windows of the houses, though she knew that her aunt was merely ridiculing her curiosity. Since most of the draperies were closed, even on such a glorious spring day, there was little to see after all—except for her aunt’s surprisingly intense perusal of one of the nearer houses along the sweep of road.
    “Does someone you know live here?” Nell asked, puzzled.
    “I know almost no one in Bath,” her aunt responded, glaring.
    “And yet we have already met your godson,” Nell pointed out. “What a strange coincidence that was, to encounter him in the lending library. Such a pleasant young man.”
    “Much you know,” Aunt Longstreet grumbled. “He’s like all men, untrustworthy, self-absorbed and ramshackle.”
    Nell laughed. “Oh, I hardly think that can be true, ma’am. He was most accommodating, I thought. And only consider your own papa, so far as castigating all men goes—he was not the least untrustworthy or self-absorbed. And to think him ramshackle would be most impertinent.”
    “Yes, yes, my father was indeed a worthy gentleman. But probably only because his generation had some respect for their consequence and responsibilities.” She waved an all-encompassing hand to indicate the male population of Bath. “Fellows today don’t show the least dependability. Life is one long round of pleasure-seeking for the lot of them.”
    There was movement at the door of the house her aunt had been observing, and Aunt Longstreet immediately turned aside and started to thump off down the pavement. They heard brisk steps behind them after a few moments, and an older gentleman tipped his hat and said a pleasant “Good morning!” to them as he passed by. Aunt Longstreet had turned her head away, but Nell returned the greeting with a smile.
    “You see,” she said to her aunt when the walker was beyond hearing, “another gracious gentleman.”
    “Hah!” Her aunt squinted after the man, her hand gripped tight around the head of her cane.