Miss Armistead Makes Her Choice Read Online Free Page B

boon the ladder-tall, young earl was occupied on the dance floor. Quickly she located her mother and aunt and made her way to their sides.
    “Why, Elizabeth,” her mother said sharply, “I had believed you to be doing the jig.”
    “No, Mama, I was merely amusing myself on my own. I suppose I wandered off a bit.”
    “Well, see that you don’t,” Elizabeth’s Aunt Augusta insisted. “It is not seemly for a young lady to wander off, as you so summarily phrased it.”
    “Elizabeth wouldn’t dream of provoking gossip, would you Elizabeth?” Mrs. Armistead urged as she turned to her daughter, her eyebrows raised high above her spectacles.
    “Of course not,” Elizabeth replied in mild tones she did not feel. She couldn’t say why, exactly, it vexed her so much that her mother was in agreement with her sister-in-law unless it was that it happened so very rarely. “However, it is rather distressing to be chastised for my intrepid nature when it was praised only a few days since. I suppose it was due to the company we were keeping while at the home of Mr. Lloyd-Jones; doubtless you wished to present me in the best light.”
    “But of course I did. You are so much more than your beauty, my dear, and I wish all toperceive it,” her mother soothed.
    Elizabeth felt her mother’s attempts to be of no consequence; Mr. Lloyd-Jones was as incapable of seeing past her outward appearance as every other man she had met, save her father and, of course, her betrothed. At first she had believed Mr. Lloyd-Jones to be different, but then he had looked at her with such naked admiration in his eyes and she knew that he was as caught up in her outward appearance as any other. She felt astonished by the keen sense of disappointment she felt upon the realization of the truth.
    “Elizabeth, see here, the music has stopped and Lord Northrup approaches to ask you to dance after all!” Aunt Augusta enthused. “I cannot imagine why he hasn’t worked up the courage to do so until now. If only you had allowed me to introduce you to him, you might have been dancing all the evening.”
    “Aunt Augusta, I am in your debt, but I do believe you have forgotten that I have come to London to make preparations for a wedding, not to find a husband.”
    “Oh, pshaw!” her aunt insisted with a deft unfurling of her fan.
    Lord Northrup was now upon them and, to Elizabeth’s dismay there was no escaping the following introductions. She assigned herself high marks for her forbearance, as well as a perfectly executed bow, but from the moment he took her in his arms and whirled her away to the strains of a waltz she made no attempt to charm him. She had been admired by more men than she could count, all of whom bore the same stunned expression on his face as the young earl. It was an expression she loathed, just as she loathed the hypocrisy of those who professed to love her, but only wished to possess her beauty.
    In spite of the heat of India, she longed to go home, longed for the safety of a society that considered her no longer on the Marriage Mart. She had been born and raised in Bengal, yet she found her nature was far more inclined towards the atmospheric conditions of England. She had vastly enjoyed spending time in London during the course of her season four years prior and often wonderedif her attraction to her betrothed was as much due to his very Englishness as it was his other qualities. The fact that his home was in Scotland and they would repair to Edinburgh directly after the wedding was an eventuality to which she looked forward with great anticipation. And yet, she longed for what she had left behind.
    Lord Northrup cleared his throat. “What a brown study, Miss Armistead! Of what are you thinking, might I ask?”
    “But, of course you might ask, my lord. However, I fear the answer isn’t terribly diverting.”
    “No doubt one as enchanting as yourself is possessed of nothing but thoughts equally so.”
    “Very well, if you