Friends and Lovers Read Online Free

thinking of their death yet, or planning for it. But there is no one else except Menrod and us. He will not want them.”
    “I’d make him take them if I were you, Miss Harris.”
    “One does not make Lord Menrod do anything he dislikes. He will dislike very much to have the care of two small children. Of course we shall take them.”
    “I don’t know that I fancy...though Oakdene is a great, rambling place. Eighty rooms in all. No, I tell a lie. There are seventy-eight. Still, they would not be underfoot...” he said, in a musing way that showed clearly he had not given up his pursuit of me.
    “I do not plan to billet them on you, Mr. Everett. They will stay with my mother and myself,” I answered sharply, and whirled away. Then I suddenly whirled back. “Please restore that staircase to as close a likeness of its former condition as possible, as soon as possible.”
    “I’ll do better than that. You’ll be proud of the job, Miss Harris,” he answered with a low bow.
    I was too distraught to read the ominous overtones in his speech. To a man who considered Oakdene beautiful, what grotesquerie would constitute a job to be proud of?
    I donned my pelisse and bonnet and went straight up to the Dower House to converse with Lady Menrod, in an effort to discover Menrod’s whereabouts. Old Lord Menrod had married a youngish widow in his dotage, and died within a few years. The heir never liked his stepmother. He had her shipped into the Dower House within six months of his father’s death, where she had remained ever since. The rest of the parish took no exception to the lady. She was now in her fifties, an elegant and rather shy dame, who made no demands whatsoever on her stepson.
    She was entertaining a guest when I arrived in her saloon. Lady Althea Costigan is some kin to the dowager countess, though not a close relative. She lives in London but spends enough time in our neighborhood that she is considered half an inhabitant. She is a little older than myself—thirtyish, to judge by the fine lines etching their way in at the corners of her eyes. She has pretty auburn hair and striking green eyes. It is mainly her figure for which she is remembered. It is of that fullness just a shade short of stout, most often described as voluptuous.
    I explained my business to them and waited eagerly to hear what they could tell me. “I have no idea where he may be,” the Dowager said, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.
    “When I spoke to him last week in London, he said he was off to the selling races at Brighton, to look out for a filly,” Lady Althea told me.
    “Had he heard from Mr. Enberg yet?” I asked, for if he had, he would of course return to London to meet the ship.
    “He did not mention it if he had,” she answered.
    “Then he had not heard. He would have mentioned such an important matter,” I thought aloud.
    Lady Althea and her hostess looked unconvinced. “He might,” the former agreed, “but if I were you, Miss Harris, I would just run along to London to be sure someone is there to receive the children.”
    It sounded so miraculously simple— " just run along to London.” Running off to London I could not do alone, and to move Mama in that direction would take one of Mr. Congreve’s rockets at least. Then too, there was Mr. Everett, ripping the house apart during our absence. I had no accurate idea of when the ship was to arrive.
    Suppose I got there a week early, and had to put up at an expensive hotel during the interim. The alternative was to send Mr. Pudge. I could think of no other. It was not the problem of my hostess, however, so I accepted a cup of tea and made a brief social visit of it.
    “Don’t vex yourself, Miss Harris,” Lady Menrod advised. “My stepson will handle it. If he did not receive the letter himself, his man of business will have done so, and made all the arrangements. Menrod does not leave anything to chance. He is quite a perfectionist.”
    “He will be at the