Duty Before Desire Read Online Free Page B

and balding trees? For this, the landscape equivalent of dirty dishwater, Arcadia had left India?
    “Put your arms down, child,” fussed her aunt, Lady Delafield. “Clutching yourself so will make everyone think you’re ill.” Her ladyship’s pinch-mouthed disapproval was echoed by the black, beady-eyed stare of the stuffed partridge perched in her turban.
    “I
am
ill,” Arcadia protested, “and cold.”
    She didn’t add it to her litany of complaints, but she was also dreadfully uncomfortable in her new, ill-fitting clothes. Papa never would have forced her into this suffocating costume. Back on the station in the
mofussil
, she’d worn saris suited to the Indian climate—unless they were visited by other members of the Raj, of course, in which case Arcadia had donned something approximating English dress. Now, however, she was encased in numerous layers of undergarments and even a corset. Before this morning, she had never even seen a corset. She’d thought Poorvaja, her
ayah
, was playing a trick on her when she showed Arcadia the contraption and said Lady Delafield expected her to wear it beneath her clothes. Arcadia had peered incredulously at the woman, but Poorvaja had simply shrugged.
    Her aunt sniffed. “Nonsense. You’re simply suffering seasickness-in-reverse from being on land for the first time in months. It will pass in a day or two. September is our warmest time of year! You couldn’t possibly be cold.”
    Behind her, Arcadia heard an indelicate snort. She didn’t turn around, but could very well picture the look on the face of Poorvaja, who was riding beside a groom on the hard bench behind them. Arcadia might well attribute her chill to her persistent ailment, except Poorvaja had likewise relentlessly cursed the temperature—and she was as healthy as an ox.
    Their open carriage stopped while Lady Delafield exchanged greetings with a gentleman on horseback.
    “Niece, you are in luck!” Lady Delafield exclaimed. “Here is Sir Godwin Prickering, one of our foremost literary talents. Sir Godwin, allow me to present my niece, Miss Parks, lately of Hyderabad, India.”
    The thin man wore a scarlet neckcloth. Against his snowy shirt, it looked like a gash across his throat. Arcadia fought to repress a shudder. From his saddle, the man made a slight bow. “Your servant, Miss Parks,” he said in a lazy drawl.
    “Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” she replied.
    “How cheering it is to have an English rose returned to her native soil—although you have certainly flourished in the …” His compliment trailed away as he finally took a good look at her, undoubtedly seeing her pale, sickly cast, perhaps even wondering at how she looked like an uncooked goat sausage.
    When the landau lurched into motion again, Arcadia’s stomach clenched alarmingly. She closed her eyes; watching the scenery just exacerbated her nausea.
    As they rolled on, Lady Delafield leaned over. “On no account should you have anything to do with that scribbler. Pity you did not come six months ago,” her ladyship tutted. “Had you been here during the Season, we might have—no, we mightn’t have,” she interrupted herself, pulling upright and sighing. “No good ever came of false regrets.” Arcadia cracked an eye to see her aunt glowering into the middle distance, her scythe of a nose looming over hollow cheeks. “Your father should have sent you to us when you were much younger, as dear Lucretia wished to do. You’d have been properly educated and groomed to catch a fine husband. With your dowry and connections, you could have had a lord. Now, we must set our sights much lower. Although not as low as a poet, I daresay.”
    Lady Delafield had taken it into her head that her niece had come to London for the purpose of finding an English husband. Arcadia needn’t have left India to accomplish that feat. The Raj teemed with eligible men in want of wives. Despite the remoteness of her father’s post,