The Reluctant Widow Read Online Free

said Miss Rochdale weakly. “But why do you wish to see him married?” “If he dies unmarried I must inherit his estate,” he answered.
    She could only stare at him. Happily, since she was for the moment unable to find words to express her bewilderment, the servant came into the room just then, with a tray of tea, bread and butter, and cold meat, which he set down on the table beside her. He looked toward Carlyon, and said in a worried voice, “Mr. Eustace is not come in yet, my lord.” “It is of no moment.”
    “If he is not in some scrape!” the man murmured. “He went off in one of his quirks, my lord.” Carlyon shrugged his disinterest. The servant sighed and withdrew. Miss Rochdale, having drawn up her chair to the table and poured out a cup of tea, addressed herself gratefully to the cold mutton and began to feel more able to grapple with her circumstances. “I should not wish to appear vulgarly inquisitive, my lord,” she said, “but did you say that you would inherit the estate if your cousin were to die unwed?”
    “I did.”
    “But don’t you wish to inherit it?” she demanded. “Not at all.”
    She recruited herself with a sip of tea. “It seems very odd!” was all she could think of to say. He came up to the table and took a chair opposite her. “I dare say it may, but it is the truth. I should explain to you that I was for five unenviable years my cousin’s guardian.” He paused, and she saw his lips tighten. After a moment, he continued in the same level voice: “His career at Eton came to an abrupt end, for which most of his paternal relatives held me to blame.”
    “Why, how could that be?” she asked, surprised.
    “I have no idea. It was commonly said that if his father had not died during his infancy, or if my aunt had appointed one of her brothers-in-law to be his guardian in preference to myself, his disposition would have been wholly different.”
    “Well, to be sure, that seems very hard! But—pardon me!—was it not strange that you should have been chosen to be his guardian? You must have been very young!” “Your own age. I was six and twenty. It was natural enough. My aunt was my mother’s elder sister; she inherited this estate from my grandfather. My own estates lie within seven miles
    of it, and the intercourse between our two families had been constant. I had myself been fatherless for many years, a circumstance that perhaps made me older than my years. I found myself, at the age of eighteen, the head of a family whose youngest members were still in the nursery.”
    “Good heavens, do not tell me you were called upon to take charge of a family at that age!” Miss Rochdale exclaimed.
    He smiled. “No, not quite that. My mother was then living, but she did not enjoy good health, and it was natural that they should look to me.”
    She regarded him wonderingly. “They?” “I have three brothers and three sisters, ma’am.” “All in your charge!”
    “Oh, no! My sisters are now married; one of my brothers is on Sir Rowland Hill’s staff, in the Peninsula; another is secretary to Lord Sidmouth at the Home Office, and in general resides in London. You may say that I have only the youngest on my hands. He is in his first year at Oxford. But at the time of which I speak they were all at home.” The smile again lit his eyes. “Your own experience must tell you, ma’am, that a family of six, ranging in age from infancy to sixteen years, is no light burden to cast upon a delicate female.”
    “No, indeed!” she said feelingly. “But you had tutors—governesses?” “Yes, I lost count of them,” he agreed. “Two of my brothers had the most ingenious ways of getting rid of their preceptors. But I do not know why I am boring on about my affairs, after all! I meant merely to explain how it was that my aunt came to leave her son to my Care. I must confess that I most signally failed either to curb his inclination for all the more disastrous forms of