The Marriage Trap Read Online Free Page A

lived most of her life in the country.
    She decided then that it would be better to reveal her full name first thing in the morning, before her employers found out from someone else.
    She could just see it. Lady Sedgewick would be annoyed at having been kept in the dark, but that wouldn't last. Soon, she'd be crowing to anyone who would listen that Lady Harriet's chaperon was no less a person than Miss Brans-Hill, Lord Cardvale's cousin, and wouldn't that be a feather in her cap?
    Ellie sighed. Lady Cardvale would not be amused. She was highly conscious of her position in society. That she should be related to a mere lady's companion wasn't something she would wish anyone to know.
    Cardvale was quite different from his wife. He was a quiet, well-meaning man who had taken Robbie and her into his own home when their father died. It was a generous act, for they were cousins three or four times removed, and there was no necessity for him to feel responsible for them. But that was his way. Things had changed after he married. Dorothea had made things so unpleasant for them that Ellie had felt compelled to take Robbie and strike out on her own. Dorothea had waved them off with a smile on her face. Cardvale was bewildered and was persuaded to let them go only when Ellie confided that she and Robbie had come into a little money.
    And so they had, in a manner of speaking, enough to provide for Robbie's education and tide her over until she found employment. It was better than being the poor relations who were expected to be grateful for the crumbs off Lady Cardvale's table.
    Not that Lady Sedgewick was much of an improvement. And now that Jack had singled her out, there was no telling what her ladyship's suggestible mind would make of it.
    He wouldn't have asked her to dance if Sir Charles had not practically forced him into it.
    It was the first time she'd danced the waltz with a man. The only other partners she'd had had been her charges, young girls like Harriet who needed the practice before they made their bows to society. Nobody expected a paid companion to take to the dance floor in public.
    And she shouldn't have. It was no good pretending that she didn't have a choice. She was wise to the ways of the world and knew how to decline an invitation without giving offense. The trouble was, Jack had offended
her
and she'd let her hurt pride lead her into an indiscretion.
    When Sir Charles brought Jack over, her heart had flip-flopped against her ribs. Her first thought was that Jack had not forgotten the awkward, adolescent girl who had worshiped him all those years ago. Her hope was dashed by his weary smile and the cynicism in his eyes. But it was his condescension that hurt most. He was no different from all the others. She was a nobody in his eyes, a drab little nursemaid to the rich and famous. He thought he was doing her a favor by asking her to dance. And just as though she were that adolescent girl, she had punished him with her acid tongue.
    She groaned as she remembered how she had upbraided him. Had he been anyone else, she would have kept her tongue between her teeth. That's what she was paid to do. But she was crushed, first because she didn't want him to see how far she had fallen, and then because he had to be prodded into asking her to dance.
    The cynical, arrogant man wasn't the boy she remembered.
    Pictures formed in her mind—Jack, riding hell for leather over the downs as she clung in terror to his back. Jack, drying her tears when old Sal, whom she'd raised from a pup, expired in her arms. Jack, letting her down lightly when she solemnly promised that she would wait for him forever the day he left to go back to Oxford.
    And that was the last she'd seen of him until tonight.
    Laughing, high-spirited, responsive, sensitive—that was the boy she remembered. The man he'd turned into was a sad disappointment.
    Much the same could be said about her. She cringed to think what Papa would say if he could see her