To Dream of Love Read Online Free Page B

West End of London.
    “What are you thinking?” asked Harriet.
    “I am thinking,” said Aunt Rebecca slowly, “that we have a great deal to do before we go to London.”
    Harriet gave her a quick hug. “So we
are
going! What
will
Cordelia say, I wonder?”
    “She cannot turn us away,” said Aunt Rebecca stoutly.
    Cordelia Bentley had a strong and healthy constitution, which was just as well since the latest fashions were causing the fair sex to drop like flies from pneumonia and influenza.
    Despite the chill spring, Cordelia was dressed to receive visitors in a gown of thinnest pink India muslin, long pink gloves, heel less slippers, a white slip, and nothing else.
    Her golden hair was cut fashionably short and formed a tight cap of curls on her small head.
    She had wide blue eyes, a neat, straight nose, and a small, full-lipped, pouting mouth. By keeping to a rigorous diet prescribed by that leader of fashion Beau Brummell—vinegar and boiled potatoes—she had managed to combat a tendency to run to fat.
    She had shrewdly invested the money she had gained from the sale of the Bentley estates in the Funds and was therefore able to keep a smart house on Hill Street in Mayfair, and a staff of well-trained servants and to look about for a new husband at her leisure.
    She had had two discreet affairs since the death of her husband, both of which had augmented her bank balance. But fear of losing respectability and therefore spoiling her chances of a successful marriage had rendered her celibate. She was determined to become the Marchioness of Arden, although she feared Lord Arden did not have marriage in mind. Still, she was confident of bringing him to heel and dragging him to the altar. The power of her beauty had grown, and at twenty-five, she knew she outshone any of the new and younger beauties on the London scene.
    Her house was furnished in the latest fashion. Everything was in gold and red stripes. In her drawing room was a very fine portrait of herself and Harriet when they were children, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence. She had told Aunt Rebecca and Harriet that she had sold it, but, in fact, she had decided to keep it to provide herself with evidence of an aristocratic background.
    Guests admired it greatly and listened with rapt attention when she told the sad story of her baby sister, Harriet, who had died in her arms on the riverbank after she, Cordelia, had bravely tried to rescue her from drowning. Cordelia had told the story so many times she had quite come to believe it herself.
    She was sure it had impressed the Marquess of Arden. Certainly, his surly cousin, Mr. Hudson, had looked upon her with rare enthusiasm and, the last time he had called, had asked her to repeat the story.
    Cordelia was expecting the marquess to call. She hoped he would come alone instead of bringing that awful cousin with him as he usually did.
    She rang the bell and told the butler to tell Mrs. Hurlingham to present herself in the drawing room.
    Cordelia did not like Mrs. Hurlingham, but she paid her nonetheless for her services as a companion.
    She had found that a young widow needed the company of a respectable female to give her ton. She had placed a discreet advertisement in the
Morning Post
and had hired a hotel room for the day in which to interview the applicants, not wishing to cope with a line of dull females in her own home.
    Agnes Hurlingham proved to be exactly the sort of female Cordelia felt she required. Mrs. Hurlingham had never been married but had simply adopted the title of a married woman when she had reached the great age of thirty. She was now thirty-one. She was a short, heavy-set woman with a heavy, sallow face from which two small bright blue eyes burned with the grim light of sexual frustration, combined with all the other frustrations imposed on a highly intelligent, passionate woman of insufficient education who had been confined in a narrow cell of country life and genteel poverty.
    She was a