The Lady Julia Grey Bundle Read Online Free

furious. Edward had never been niggardly with money. Each quarter he had given me a sum that I had viewed as rather generous.Generous until I realized he could have easily given me ten times as much and never missed it.
    Father’s hand stilled on Crab’s head. “Do you mean to say that he kept you short? Why did you not come to me?”
    His voice was neutral, but I knew he was angry. He was famous for his modern views about women. He favored suffrage, and had even given a rather stirring speech on the subject in the Lords. He made a point of giving each of his daughters an allowance completely independent of his sons-in-law to offer at least a measure of financial emancipation. The very idea that one of his daughters might have been kept on a short lead would gall him.
    I shook my head. “No, not really. My pin money was rather a lot, in fact. But there were times, when I wanted to travel or buy something expensive, that I had to ask Edward for the money. I always felt rather like Marie Antoinette in front of the mob when I did, all frivolity and extravagance in the face of sober responsibility. It’s just lowering to know that he could have thrown that much to a beggar in the street and never missed it.”
    Father’s hand began to move on Crab’s ears once more. She snuffled at his knee, drooling a little. Bellmont stirred beside me.
    “Mines in Cornwall. Surely those have played out by now,” he said to Teasdale.
    Mr. Teasdale smiled. “They are still profitable, I assure you, my lord. Sir Edward would not have kept them were they not. He was entirely unsentimental about investments. He kept nothing that did not keep itself.” He turned to me, his manner brisk. I swear he could smell the money in the air. “Now, if your ladyship would care to leave the management of the estate in capable hands, I am sure that their lordships would be only too happy to make the necessary decisions.”
    “I do not think so,” I said slowly.
    Beside me, Bellmont stiffened like an offended pointer. “Don’t be daft, of course you do. You do not know the first thing about managing an estate of this size. You will want advice.”
    Father said nothing, but I knew he agreed with me. He would not say so, not now, because he wanted to see if I would stand my ground with Bellmont. Few people ever did. As the eldest son and heir, Bellmont had been entitled since birth, in every sense of the word. Mother had not died until he was almost grown, so he had felt the full force of her far more conventional ideals. It was not until her death, when the raising of the younger children had been left to Father and Aunt Hermia, that the experiments had begun. Bellmont had been sent to Eton and Cambridge. The rest of us had been educated at home by a succession of Radical tutors with highly unorthodox philosophies. Bellmont had never gotten accustomed to thinking of his sisters or his younger brothers as his equals, and of course he had the whole of the English legal, judicial and social systems to back him. He paid lip service to Father’s Radical leanings, but when the time came for him to run for Parliament, he had done so as a Tory. Father had refused to speak to him for nearly four years after that, and their relationship still bumped along rockily.
    I swallowed hard. “Of course I shall want advice, Bellmont, and I know that you are quite well-informed in such matters,” I began carefully. “But I am an independent lady now. I should like very much to make my own decisions.”
    Bellmont muttered something under his breath. I could not hear it, but I had a strong suspicion Aunt Hermia would not have approved. In spite of Bellmont’s elegant demeanor, he was always the one who had contributed the most to the family swear box. The box had been established by Aunt Hermia shortly after she came to live with us. We had fallen into the habit of cursing after a visit by Father’s youngest brother, ouruncle Troilus, a naval man with a particularly