Silken Secrets Read Online Free Page A

Silken Secrets
Book: Silken Secrets Read Online Free
Author: Joan Smith
Tags: Regency Romance
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mounted higher. Even a length of material hardly required a private conference. Then she smiled ruefully. Of course, Uncle wouldn’t know that. She waited for the door to open and an impatient manager to show Uncle Edwin out. For ten minutes she waited, and when finally he emerged, the manager was smiling broadly. How very curious!
    More curious still, Uncle didn’t carry any parcel from the shop, but went across the road and repeated his performance in two other shops. It was the noon hour by the time they had canvassed all of the drapery stores, and they went back to the leas, still without a parcel, to have luncheon at Bates Hotel.
    Lord Edwin was in fine fettle, praising the good merchants of Folkestone and their wares, laughing, and insisting she have a second glass of wine, but what he didn’t mention was her gift. After luncheon he was still chirping merry and asked Mary Anne what she would like to do. Bereft of inspiration, she suggested they take a walk along the shrub-grown and sheltered paths between the leas and the Lower Sandgate Road.
    Knowing her uncle’s aversion to churches, she only glanced at the Church of Saints Mary and Eanswith from outside, then returned to the carriage, and eventually they drove to Dymchurch, with pauses at Sandgate and Hythe to look in at a few more drapery shops. Lord Edwin’s indifferent team was in no hurry to get home.
     

Chapter Three
     
    It was just coming on evening when they entered Dymchurch. “We’ll top off our outing with dinner at the inn,” Lord Edwin announced. His pockets were to let by this time, but he had settled up at the inn last quarter day, and his credit was good there.
    “I expect Mrs. Plummer has dinner waiting, Uncle,” Mary Anne pointed out. It went against the grain to do it. Dinner at the inn was a rare treat, and on May Day there was bound to be a good crowd. The old traditional May Day celebrations had diminished, but the season still put folks in a holiday mood.
    “Let it wait. We’ll have it for a midnight snack,” he said grandly, and pulled the check string.
    He held the door, and Mary Anne went into the quaint little inn, which was bustling with unusual activity. “A private parlor, if you please,” Lord Edwin ordered.
    There was, of course, none to be found on this busy day. In fact, there was a small crowd waiting for a parlor. The talk was all about the grounded smuggling vessel. Word had gotten about that the cargo was silk, not brandy. Lord Edwin was impatient for his mutton and began to make a commotion with the inn servants. His annoyance rose to indignation when a parlor was freed and a Mr. Robertson was called to take possession of it.
    “Now, see here!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting the better part of an hour.”
    Mary Anne pulled at his elbow. “Only five minutes, Uncle,” she whispered.
    Lord Edwin knew Mr. Robertson was no inhabitant of Dymchurch and forged on to strengthen his spurious claim to the private parlor. “If you want to turn off a regular patron for a stranger, so be it,” he said grandly. But to ensure that this inequity didn’t occur, he added, “And call the proprietor while you’re about it, my lad.”
    Meanwhile, Mr. Robertson had stepped out from the crowd and turned a disgruntled gaze on Lord Edwin. Mary Anne saw him, realized he was the challenger for the parlor, and felt a deep stab of regret that her uncle should be making a cake of himself in front of such an out-and-outer. Her breath stopped in her throat as she gazed. She had never seen such an attractive man in Dymchurch before. He might have stepped straight off a London stage. He had that dramatic, larger-than-life quality.
    Yet, as she measured him, she decided he wasn’t actually taller than six feet. Joseph was six feet two, but Joseph shrunk to insignificance beside this gentleman. Everything about the stranger was top of the trees. His dark hair, not quite black—it had coppery lights under the lamps—was
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