The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) Read Online Free

true?”
    She stared at the floor.
    The mother shrieked with joy.

     
    Chapter 2
     
    “Have you seen this rag?” drawled Sir Julius Fawcett, crossing his booted ankles and resting them against the edge of the table.
    Lord Marcham cast a disapproving glance at his friend and reflected that pristine white table cloths should be absent from the table whenever Sir Julius Fawcett joined him for breakfast. He looked at the paper being waved at him without interest. “No, what is it?” he asked, carving himself another slice of ham.
    “A sermon. At least it might as well be.”
    His lordship reapplied himself to his breakfast. He had come down to London on business to stay at his town house and Sir Julius, on finding that his old friend was back in town, immediately accosted him at a very unfashionable hour. “Are you taking up religion at last, Ju?” his lordship asked.
    Sir Julius shuddered and set the paper down. “Perish the thought.”
    “Then would you like a slice of ham or sirloin instead?”
    His friend waved it away impatiently with a look of distaste. He was an extremely thin man who never seemed to eat, a fact that contrasted strongly with Lord Marcham’s legendary appetite. Sir Julius was a good ten years older than his friend and had spent much of his youth abroad, his family having made their money in sugar in the West Indies some years before. Somewhere along the line, the Fawcetts had earned respectability by marrying into the aristocracy, and Sir Julius, the grandson of the union, was now as much a part of the English nobility as Lord Marcham himself.
    Sir Julius rubbed his spectacularly long nose. “It’s another one of those pamphlets, March. You surely must have he ard about them? Every drawing room has one.”
    “Really? Not mine,” murmured his lordship over the rim of his tankard.
    “You will be pleased to learn that you feature in this one―well, she doesn’t actually mention you by name, but anyone may guess who she means.”
    “She?” repeated the earl. “And who is she?”
    “The author…a Miss Blakelow.”
    “Never heard of her.”
    “Well she has definitely heard of you,” said Sir Julius.
    “ Everyone has heard of me, Ju,” murmured his lordship without a hint of conceit. “My youthful…er…adventures, have made me infamous, you know.”
    “It’s called ‘The inexorable pursuit of earthly pleasures by the moneyed classes and the consequences upon the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.’”
    Lord Marcham raised his eyes from his plate. “Catchy.”
    “Isn’t it, though?” agreed his friend.
    “Are you dining with Hugh this evening?” asked his lordship in a valiant attempt to change the subject. “I thought that I might go to Whites.”
    “She condemns your morals,” said Sir Julius. “She says that a man in your position should know better.”
    “Indeed?” The earl yawned and cut a sliver of ham from the slice on his plate. “And who is Miss Blakelow to question me or anyone else?”
    “’A woman with the highest moral principles,’ or so it says here.”
    “A veritable saint then,” replied his lordship when he had swallowed his mouthful. “But I don’t answer to Miss Blakelow or her following.”
    “And she has a following,” muttered Sir Julius gloomily, turning over the publication in his hands so that he might examine the back of it. “She must be making a pretty penny from all this too.”
    “Good for her.”
    “March, I do not think that you are taking this at all seriously,” complained Sir Julius. “Damn me if you ain’t a little too relaxed about the whole affair.”
    “She is making money from peddling gossip. In my view that makes her no arbiter of moral excellence. I’ll wager she has achieved notoriety by sensationalising the same old stories that have been regurgitated continually since I was eighteen.”
    “Oh, no, she’s done her research. She seems to know an awful lot about you.”
    Lord Marcham fixed his