Love for Lucinda Read Online Free Page A

the matters that still had to be settled and accomplished before she could set out for London the following morning. The culmination of a year’s careful planning was almost at hand.
    “Pray have Mr. Latham sent to me in the study,” she said to the footman.
    “Yes, m’lady.”
    Lucinda was still smiling as she entered the study. She sat down at the huge mahogany desk where she had routinely attended to the many demands of the estate. Glancing slowly about the well-appointed room, she sighed softly. It was a pleasure to reflect that this would be the last decision that she would need to make about the workings of Carbarry.
    She was positively looking forward to the formal task of handing over the working of the estate into Mr. Latham’s capable hands for an indefinite time. Once that was done, she would be released from the last obligation that tied her to Carbarry.
     

Chapter Three
     
    The transition to London was accomplished smoothly and without mishap. Those servants who accompanied Lady Mays from Carbarry to the town house settled quickly into their new surroundings. With scarcely an hour lost, the running of the household was established.
    Lucinda had written Miss Blythe some months previously when the lady was to meet her in London and had sent the necessary traveling funds. Within a fortnight of Lucinda’s own arrival, she had been joined by her companion, the estimable Miss Blythe.
    The household took swift measure of her ladyship’s companion and concluded that Miss Blythe was a female of superior qualities. The lady was soft-spoken enough, but there was about her speech a quiet steel that commanded respect.
    Miss Blythe’s appearance added to the impression. She was a lady of spare proportions and was always dressed with propriety. Her dark hair had softened with gray, but it was ruthlessly swept back in a tight coronet. A pair of spectacles perched upon the bridge of her proud, prominent nose, emphasizing her piercing gaze. It was known that Miss Blythe had formerly been a governess, and the general verdict was that no pupil of hers would have dared to take advantage of such a stern individual.
    However, beneath the austere exterior that Miss Blythe presented to the world was a woman of imagination and with a penchant for the romantic. It was perhaps to her benefit that she had never had a great deal of beauty, for then she could not have played the role that she had so successfully managed through her career as the governess par excellence. For a young woman of respectable family who had had no means and no offers, becoming a governess had been the only logical choice.
    Through the years there had been times when Miss Blythe had wondered what turn her life might have taken if circumstances had been different, but on the whole she had no regrets. That had become doubly true since she had agreed to become her dear Lucinda’s companion.
    Miss Tibby Blythe gazed with appreciative eyes around the well-proportioned sitting room. It never failed to please her. With a bony forefinger she touched a delicate figurine that rested on the polished mantel.
    Miss Blythe sighed with contentment. Wherever she looked, in whatever room she found herself, there was great beauty. Magnificent pieces of art and sculpture, priceless vases and gilt mirrors, luxurious oriental carpets and beautifully carven furniture made abiding at Mays House an experience in delicious decadence.
    Miss Blythe still had difficulty in believing the good fortune that had led her former and best-loved pupil to request her companionship and to install her in such wonderfully sybaritic surroundings. It was close to living in a sumptuous palace, she thought.
    “Tibby? Oh, there you are.” Lucinda came into the sitting room, pulling on her pale kid gloves. She glanced around and then looked at her former governess, smiling. “Well, Tibby? Has it come up to your expectations?”
    Miss Blythe had turned. At Lucinda’s inquiry, she clasped her hands