The Pirate's Widow Read Online Free Page B

Sir Thomas’ silver.”
       Jem laughed and skittered out of her reach
and Callie, feeling somewhat overwhelmed, followed him inside.

 
    *     *     *     *

 
       The door had no more closed on Sir Thomas’
guests when Venetia Louvain marched out of the dining room.  
       “Flora, my room, now!” she ordered as she
passed her daughter who still lingered in her place at the table.
       Upstairs, Venetia dismissed her maid and
arranged herself on her chaise longue before fixing her daughter with a baleful
glare.
       “Could you, for once, try not to look as if
you just lost your closest friend?”
       Flora sighed, gazing out the window.   “I do not have any friends.”
       “Oh my God!”   Venetia restrained the impulse to fling her crystal scent bottle at the
girl’s head.   “How do you expect to tempt
Sir Thomas into matrimony if you go about this way?   No wonder he’s sniffing after the first
pretty woman to cross his path.”
       “Sir Thomas does not care a jot for me,
Mama,” Flora told her mother.  
       “How do you know?   You scarcely address two words in his
direction.   Did you learn nothing from
your sister?   Charlotte knew how to
captivate a man.”
       Flora turned back toward the window.   When her half-sister was alive she’d found
herself constantly compared to her, to her own disadvantage.   Where Charlotte, the late Lady Sedgewyck, had
been darkly beautiful with smoldering eyes and a curvaceous body, Flora was
tall and thin with mousy brown hair and nearly lashes-less pale blue eyes.   While Charlotte had been flirtatious and knew
instinctively how to attract a man, Flora was quiet, withdrawn, with a total
lack of bright conversation.
       “What do you think will happen if Sir Thomas
marries another woman?” Venetia demanded.
       “Like Caroline Jenkins?”
       “Yes, like Caroline Jenkins.   Who will maintain you then, I ask you?   You have had three London seasons, my girl,
and not one nibble.   I can give you no
more.   Let me tell you, Flora, if Sir
Thomas marries anyone but you, you and I will find ourselves on the high road
to ruin.   I do not wish to end my days in
genteel poverty in some shabby boarding house in Brighton with my spinster
daughter and the condescending pity of everyone who knows me.”   She rapped on the little wooden table beside
her chaise longue with her knuckles.   “Flora!   Are you attending?”
       “Yes, Mama.”
       “You had best bait your hook, my dear,
before some other angler reels in this prize trout.”
       Flora bit back a smile at the thought of Sir
Thomas dangling on the end of a fishing line.  
       “Smile if you like,” Venetia snapped, “you
won’t be smiling when Caroline Jenkins and that obnoxious little brat of hers
are ruling this roost.   Now go to your
room and have your maid arrange your hair into something fetching and pinch
your cheeks.   You look like a ghost.”
       Glad to escape her mother’s presence, Flora
left the room.   But she didn’t return to
her own room, nor did she summon her lady’s maid as instructed.   Instead, she pulled on her bonnet and tugged
a shawl around her shoulders.   Making
certain she was not observed; she let herself out of the manor by the garden
door and hurried toward the forest.
      

 
    Chapter Four
      In the days that followed, Gemma proved herself not only able and willing to take on most of the
housekeeping tasks at Hyacinth Cottage, but also an entertaining and
informative companion only too willing to educate Callie on the private lives
of half the village and everyone at the manor.   Callie suspected Sir Thomas had been eager to place the girl in her
employ as a spy, but Gemma showed no evidence of loyalty to her former
employer.
       Callie and Jem sat in the little dining room
of the cottage eating their dinner while Gemma ladled soup into their plates.
       “Sir Thomas said you want to be a