Amy Lake Read Online Free Page A

accustomed to town ways.  He’d left London for those two years in Cornwall as carefree as any young gentleman of means; he’d returned in a more thoughtful frame of mind, and had subsequently been heard to question the system in which a large number of poor individuals lived in service to the relatively few rich.  The system that supported them all.  His friends had been willing to listen, for a time, but not every night.
    Tal, gods, we know ’tis unconscionably unfair.  Now be a chap and pour us a brandy—
    Lord Davies sighed, thinking that he could hardly blame Lucien and Lord Peter.  He’d turned into a crusty old bore, and sometimes he wished he could forget about all of it himself.  This month was supposed to mark his return to society.  He had thought to look forward to the event.
    “Woolgathering again,” said a voice.
    “Tal.  Wake up, old man.”
    Lord Davies’s attention was dragged back to his present surroundings by Lord Peter, who suggested that they visit the home of his lady love, Miss Alice Montvale, and serenade her à laRomeo.
    “Lud, no,” said Lucien, sparing Talfryn the trouble of quashing the idea himself.  “Do you remember what happened last time?”
    The viscount certainly did.  Miss Montvale’s father had discharged a flintlock in the general direction of the singers, and it was purest luck that no-one had been injured.
    Lord Peter was not so easily put off.  “Freddie says—”
    “Freddie?” 
    “The Earl of Aveline’s son, you know him—”
    “Freddie Knowles?”
    “The very one.  He says—”
    “If you are truly taking advice from Wilfred Knowles,” said Cranfield,  “you are hopeless beyond rescue.  The man is a birdwit.”
    He and Lord Peter entered into a brief discussion of whether a gentleman, as opposed to a lady, could truly be called a birdwit, with Lucien offering sufficient examples of Knowles’ lack of basic sense to eventually win the day.  Lord Davies found himself listening attentively.  The name seemed familiar, and with a small shock—the memory of an episode so stirring that he had pushed it to the back of his mind—he thought of the young woman with whom he had shared a waltz.
    The Lincolnshire’s ball, now nearly a sennight past.  Her name was Regina Knowles, was it not?  She was the only young woman of his recent acquaintance that he could not imagine mistaking for any other.
    Vivid green eyes, hair of a rich auburn that the viscount could remember wishing to touch, and he felt again the smooth touch of silk under his fingers.  She was beautiful.  Talfryn wondered what else his friends knew about the family.
    But the conversation between Lucien and Lord Peter had already veered onto a different path, as they debated the merits of a high-perch phaeton for an amicable drive in Green Park, Wilmott complaining that young women were too nervous on such a contraption, but Cranfield maintaining that this was precisely the point.
    “Take a corner at some speed,” he told Peter, “and you will find them nearly in your lap.”
    Talfryn could not think of way to ask about Lady Regina without tipping his friend’s interest.  And he was far from ready for that.
     

Chapter 4:  Two Musicales and a Fete
     
    The next time I saw the Viscount Cardingham was at a musicale given by Lady Edwina Bosville.
    Such events are, as a rule, not my favorite entertainment, which one might not expect, since I adore music of every kind.  But the society musicale has been very popular during the past few seasons, with the result that the number given seems to have outrun the number of talented performers available.  One would not think that possible in London, but there it is.  Screeching sopranos and badly played piano—or heaven forefend, violin—is the order of the day.
    Miss Barre had accompanied me.  She usually does not, as she can hardly tell a soprano from a tenor without help of the dress, and complains that I am never satisfied with what