The Aristocrat's Lady (Love Inspired Historical) Read Online Free Page B

straight and knew she had to be honest with her worrisome sister. “Darling, when all you desire is a little normalcy and it comes along in such a niceand unexpected fashion, believe me, it is a very special answer.”
    She could not help thinking back on the evening as she continued. “Lord Devlin was exceptionally kind and made me laugh. You know, more often than not I find myself laughing at London gentlemen, not with them.”
    Nicole came out of her reverie and smiled dearly at Chelsea. “That is all there was to it, minx. Now since I told Stella not to wait up for me, would you like to help me change for bed?”
    Nicole discovered she was glad to have the company. She suddenly feared the quiet of the night and the subject her thoughts might continue to dwell upon. She could only pray silently for God’s strength.
     
    While Nicole was regretting her decision to have Chelsea as her abigail, Lord Devlin was sitting alone in his coach, his own thoughts far from restive. He was going to his grandmother’s house only two miles beyond Swathmore Hall.
    His grandmother was the only relative he felt any fondness for. Indeed, she was the only person he truly loved, as much as he could understand love. Knowing he would be so near tonight, he had informed her through the post that he wished to stay the night with her after the Swathmore fete.
    She would want to discuss the ball, but he was not sure he was prepared to talk to anyone about the sudden departure of his usual boredom after meeting LadyNicole Beaumont. She was a very special woman, of that he was certain.
    Discounting his impressions of her physical charms, it was her wit and intelligence, along with her innocence and experience, that made him think of her as more than a beauty. His own mind told him repeatedly that innocence and experience in one package seemed a conundrum, but he felt it nonetheless. Could he believe that such a desirable woman was truly disinterested in marriage or the social whirl?
    But as his coach pulled up to the dower’s house, his thoughts changed direction and settled on the woman who had been mother and father to him for most of his life. His grandmother seemed to get a little frailer each time he saw her now, and he knew she could no longer get out of the Bath chair she had once used only as a convenience. She was more special to him than she would ever know.
    Lady Augusta, the dowager countess, was his fraternal grandmother and had always tried her best to shield him from his father’s harshness. Devlin’s mother had been too weak to stand up to the fifth Earl of DeVale. Even Devlin’s marriage had been loveless. But his grandmother was strong and her protection had often spared him unjust punishment. They soon came to share a love built on respect and caring that he had never felt before or since.
    Indeed, he always looked forward to time with his grandmother. Thinking about it now, he realized he had grown up hearing of his grandmother’s great dependence on God. Lady Nicole also broached that subject.But as Devlin grew and became more and more embittered with his father and society in general, his grandmother’s beliefs seemed incongruous in the world he lived in.
    He supposed his grandmother’s faith in a supreme being had kept him from overt surprise when Lady Nicole had indicated the same. But he believed as a young, beautiful woman in the midst of a London Season, it would be a simple matter to trust in an all-loving God. She had not seen enough of the world to be jaded as he had.
    His grandmother was convinced there was still a woman for him who would unlock his heart, and she often castigated Jared’s father for the tangle he had made of her grandson’s life.
    Devlin looked forward to recounting to Lady Augusta the details of the Swathmore ball, especially an incident with a platter of turbot, but he did not think he would yet mention the mysterious episode on the terrace. He had not convinced himself that it was not all