Elisabeth Fairchild Read Online Free Page A

had been most curious of all to see again, especially after his name was mentioned by several of their guests, and always in such interesting terms, and always in connection with the name of Sophie Defoe, beautiful, wealthy, well-liked Sophie Defoe.
    Her nemesis. The woman who had stolen her future.
    Dear Richard gazed down at her, rather striking, even a little mysterious in black domino and tall, black beaver hat. His eyes were too dark behind his mask to read, but she heard concern in the question: “Are you melancholy, Patience?”
    “Me? Melancholy? Don’t be silly.” She flapped her hand at him and made every effort not to let her true feelings show in response to such a delving question. Was she still as transparent as a child? How did he read her so accurately, even in the midst of a public display of giddy glee? No one else did. She had become quite artful at hiding her feelings and schooling her features.
    “Now”—she lifted her chin as she drew her domino about her like a satin shield—“however shall we find him in such a crush?”
    Richard’s mouth pulled down a little at the corners as he turned to scan the dinner boxes, dozens of them, one after another, fronted by white columns, the crenellated roofline sweeping ahead of them through a low grove of trees. Each box was painted with allegorical figures or striking scenes from well-known plays, each contained a linen-draped table. Richard’s mouth always quirked in just such a fashion when he was tired or disappointed.
    She wondered if such a look had anything to do with Chase. She had overheard her mother complain to father, “Poor Richard will soon go begging, if that brother of his continues to throw good money after bad.”
    Surely things were not as bad as all that! Richard dressed well, and his brother’s coach, while not of the latest fashion, was richly appointed, and drawn by a fine pair of horses.
    “Never fear,” Richard said, and indeed, Patience could see no sign of fear in her friend’s steady gaze. “I know exactly where Pip will be. But have you no wish to see the beauties of the park first before we chase down the scamp? There is a transparency of a mill, and the tin cascade, and a gilded Aurora, and two Apollos. The light is just right to enjoy all of it.”
    She shook her head and tucked her hand more completely into the crook of his arm, then adjusted her mask that she might see better. “No, no. If you please, dearest Richard, take me straight to our Pip,” she said. “It is too many years since we have said a word to one another, and I would see how he has changed. You did tell him we were in London?”
    “I did.”
    She looked down at her shoes, very special red-heeled shoes. She had chosen them especially to go with the domino. They had been dear, those shoes. She felt very daring in them, like the night, and the chance to see Pip. “I must own I am disappointed that he made no effort to call upon us, as you did.”
    “Yes. Well . . .” Richard never seemed comfortable with compliments. “Social niceties are not Pip’s strong suit. I cannot say when he last saw fit to call upon anyone formally.”
    “Has he become a mannerless brute, then?”
    Richard tugged at his mask. “Not at all. It is only that his company is in such demand. Come. You shall see firsthand.”
    He set off at once, as if he knew the gardens well. It was a pretty walk along the wide promenade toward the curve in the gallery of empty dinner boxes toward something that peeped above the trees, a false sun, and three false stars shining above the aged copper of the roofline, promising greater beauties. Glass-globed lamps strung through the trees underlit the leafy bowers. Music swelled from the trees to their left, strings and horns and reedy flutes.
    “There is a leaden statue of Handel,” Richard said, “in the opposite direction.”
    She was in no mood to turn around, to delay her first sight of Pip.
    She asked him about the empty dinner