Dair Devil Read Online Free
Author: Lucinda Brant
curiously.
“From my observation of him, Lord Fitzstuart does not seem the sort of gentleman given to flippant marriage proposals.”
Lady Grasby turned from addressing the butler and frowned in puzzlement at her sister-in-law.
“Miss Strang is a great heiress, is she not? Worth twenty thousand pounds or more. Her fortune has merchant roots to be sure, but William says Fitzstuart cannot afford to be selective in his choice of bride—the ancestral home is a crumbling pile of ruins and the fortune all but dwindled to dust by the absent Earl…”
When Rory turned inquiring eyes of surprise on Mr. Watkins, that he would know such intimate details regarding the Fitzstuart finances, and pass them on to his sister, he smiled his embarrassment that his sibling would air in public what he had told her in confidence.
“Not ruins, my dear,” he diffidently corrected his sister. “The estate in Buckinghamshire is not what it could be. The house is eighty years old and yet it stands incomplete. Understandable, as it has barely been lived in. And as the Earl remains resident on a sugar plantation in the Caribbean…” He sniffed. “There isn’t much the son and heir can do about it while his father is alive and remains an absentee landlord. Yet, I doubt Fitzstuart would, if he could. His peccadilloes mirror those of his father, and thus require what meager resources he has at his disposal.”
Rory cocked her head in thought. “By which you mean Lord Fitzstuart prefers to direct his munificence on a mistress and his children by her, than on the estate he will one day inherit?”
Rory’s direct approach never ceased to put William Watkins on the back foot. He gave a halfhearted laugh, blushed and looked to his sister to rescue him, which she promptly did by saying bluntly,
“Then he certainly needs a fortune! I may not approve of Fitzstuart, but under such circumstances it is understandable why he proposed to this Miss Strang. But why she would reject him is beyond my powers of reasoning.”
“Perhaps Miss Strang did not wish to marry a man who keeps a mistress and children?” Rory offered. “Regardless that he comes with the guarantee of a title one day, some females are not persuaded that is enough to accept a proposal of marriage.”
“Far be it from me to continue such a conversation in a painter’s hallway, but Miss Strang’s rejection of Lord Fitzstuart’s offer shows a good deal of sense on her part,” Mr. Watkins replied. He inclined his bewigged head to Rory. “I agree with you, Miss Talbot. His lordship is a reprobate and a womanizing scoundrel. No female in her right mind would accept such a man for a husband.”
Rory managed to suppress a smile. Leaning lightly on her ivory-handled walking stick, she said steadily, “I have not heard it said Miss Strang is anything but in her right mind. But perhaps that is debatable. She rejected the heir and ran off with the spare, if Lady Cavendish is to be believed.”
“She has eloped with Fitzstuart’s brother ?” Lady Grasby was so astounded she shooed quiet the butler who was giving her the good news Mr. Romney was free to receive her. “Say it is not so! A girl who has the odor of the Covent Garden market about her person has the barefaced cheek to reject the heir to an earldom, in preference for a younger son who has no prospects and even less fortune? The girl must indeed be mad!”
“Or in love…?”
“Rot, Aurora!” Lady Grasby stated dismissively. “The children of merchants are raised to believe first and foremost in the value of a thing . Love is an ideal, an emotion of the highest order. As such it cannot be measured, so can hold little or no value for such practical people.”
Rory wondered if her sister-in-law was speaking from the experience of having a grandfather whose vast wealth had been accumulated over a lifetime as a Billingsgate fishmonger. But as she had used the third person, Rory could only hope, for her brother’s
“From my observation of him, Lord Fitzstuart does not seem the sort of gentleman given to flippant marriage proposals.”
Lady Grasby turned from addressing the butler and frowned in puzzlement at her sister-in-law.
“Miss Strang is a great heiress, is she not? Worth twenty thousand pounds or more. Her fortune has merchant roots to be sure, but William says Fitzstuart cannot afford to be selective in his choice of bride—the ancestral home is a crumbling pile of ruins and the fortune all but dwindled to dust by the absent Earl…”
When Rory turned inquiring eyes of surprise on Mr. Watkins, that he would know such intimate details regarding the Fitzstuart finances, and pass them on to his sister, he smiled his embarrassment that his sibling would air in public what he had told her in confidence.
“Not ruins, my dear,” he diffidently corrected his sister. “The estate in Buckinghamshire is not what it could be. The house is eighty years old and yet it stands incomplete. Understandable, as it has barely been lived in. And as the Earl remains resident on a sugar plantation in the Caribbean…” He sniffed. “There isn’t much the son and heir can do about it while his father is alive and remains an absentee landlord. Yet, I doubt Fitzstuart would, if he could. His peccadilloes mirror those of his father, and thus require what meager resources he has at his disposal.”
Rory cocked her head in thought. “By which you mean Lord Fitzstuart prefers to direct his munificence on a mistress and his children by her, than on the estate he will one day inherit?”
Rory’s direct approach never ceased to put William Watkins on the back foot. He gave a halfhearted laugh, blushed and looked to his sister to rescue him, which she promptly did by saying bluntly,
“Then he certainly needs a fortune! I may not approve of Fitzstuart, but under such circumstances it is understandable why he proposed to this Miss Strang. But why she would reject him is beyond my powers of reasoning.”
“Perhaps Miss Strang did not wish to marry a man who keeps a mistress and children?” Rory offered. “Regardless that he comes with the guarantee of a title one day, some females are not persuaded that is enough to accept a proposal of marriage.”
“Far be it from me to continue such a conversation in a painter’s hallway, but Miss Strang’s rejection of Lord Fitzstuart’s offer shows a good deal of sense on her part,” Mr. Watkins replied. He inclined his bewigged head to Rory. “I agree with you, Miss Talbot. His lordship is a reprobate and a womanizing scoundrel. No female in her right mind would accept such a man for a husband.”
Rory managed to suppress a smile. Leaning lightly on her ivory-handled walking stick, she said steadily, “I have not heard it said Miss Strang is anything but in her right mind. But perhaps that is debatable. She rejected the heir and ran off with the spare, if Lady Cavendish is to be believed.”
“She has eloped with Fitzstuart’s brother ?” Lady Grasby was so astounded she shooed quiet the butler who was giving her the good news Mr. Romney was free to receive her. “Say it is not so! A girl who has the odor of the Covent Garden market about her person has the barefaced cheek to reject the heir to an earldom, in preference for a younger son who has no prospects and even less fortune? The girl must indeed be mad!”
“Or in love…?”
“Rot, Aurora!” Lady Grasby stated dismissively. “The children of merchants are raised to believe first and foremost in the value of a thing . Love is an ideal, an emotion of the highest order. As such it cannot be measured, so can hold little or no value for such practical people.”
Rory wondered if her sister-in-law was speaking from the experience of having a grandfather whose vast wealth had been accumulated over a lifetime as a Billingsgate fishmonger. But as she had used the third person, Rory could only hope, for her brother’s
Readers choose
Barbara Dee
A. L. Barker
S. Nelson
Calista Fox
B W Powe
Max Egremont
Yolanda Olson
Melvyn Bragg
Gretta Curran Browne
Rebecca Lisle