Beguiling the Beauty Read Online Free Page B

been intended for him since birth.
     
    Millie smoothed the folds of Fitz’s letter, her eyes worried. “Come to think of it, I have not seen the Andrew Martins together in a while. Mr. Martin came by himself to three parties. And at each house, he requested an out-of-the-way room, citing his need for peace and quiet in order to work on his next book.”
     
    All the more convenient for conducting an illicit affair. “Does Fitz suspect anyone else?” Venetia asked without much hope.
     
    “Not among those at Huntington.”
     
    If Helena’s lover was indeed Mr. Martin, this would not end well. Were they to be discovered, the Fitzhugh family wouldn’t even be able to pressure him to do the honorable thing by Helena—for Mr. Martin remained very much married, his wife as robust as a vintage claret.
     
    Venetia rubbed her temples. “What does Fitz think we should do?”
     
    “Fitz is going to exercise restraint—for now. He is worried that he might do Helena more harm than good by confronting Mr. Martin. What if Mr. Martin is not the one? Then word might leak that Helena was out and about when she ought not to be.”
     
    A woman’s reputation was as fragile as a dragonfly’s wings. “Thank goodness Fitz is levelheaded.”
     
    “Yes, he is very good in a crisis,” said Millie, slipping the letter into her pocket. “Do you think it will help to introduce the duke to Helena?”
     
    “No, but we still must try.”
     
    “Let us hope the duke does not fall for the wrong sister,” said Millie with a small smile.
     
    “Pah,” said Venetia. “I am nearly middle-aged and almost certainly older than he is.”
     
    “I’m sure His Grace will be more than willing to overlook a very minor age difference.”
     
    “I’ve had more than my share of husbands and plan to be happily unmarried for the rest of my—”
     
    Footsteps. Helena’s.
     
    “Of course I shan’t bestow my hand freely,” Venetia said, raising her voice. “But if the duke woos me with a monster of a fossil, who knows how I might reward him.”
     
    H elena listened carefully. Venetia was in her bath. Millie had gone to change out of her walking gown. She should be safe enough.
    She pulled aside the curtain and opened the window of the parlor. The boy she’d employed to take her letters toAndrew directly to the post office was there, waiting. The boy had his hand extended. She set a letter and two shining copper pennies in his palm and quickly closed the window again.
     
    Now on to the letters that had arrived for her in the afternoon. She looked for any that had come in Fitzhugh & Co.’s own envelopes. Before she’d left England, she’d given a supply of those to Andrew with the instruction to have her American address typed on the front once he had it. Then he was to draw a small asterisk under the postage stamp, so that she might know it was from him and not her secretary.
     
    Except on this particular letter, he did not put an asterisk, but a tiny heart beneath the queen’s likeness. She shook her head fondly. Oh, her sweet Andrew.
     
    My Dearest,
    What joy! What bliss! When I called at the poste restante office in St. Martin’s le Grand this morning, there were not one, not two, but three letters from you. My pleasure is all the greater for the disappointment of the past two days, when my trips into London bore no fruits at the post office.
    And as for your question, the work on volume three of
A History of East Anglia
comes along slowly. King Æthelberht is about to be killed and Offa of Mercia soon to subjugate the kingdom. For some reason I rather dread this part of the history, but I believe my pace should pick up again when I reach the rebellion thirty years later that would restore independence to the Kingdom of the East Angles.
     
    I’d like to write more. But I must be on my way home—I am due to call on my mother at Lawton Priory and you know how much she deplores unpunctuality, especially mine.
     
    So I will end