A Loyal Companion by Bárbara Metzger Read Free Book Online

the family name, the Harkness name, that is. Grandmama felt the Randolphs could go to hell in a hand basket, and the sooner her granddaughter shed that label, the better. Here she shook her finger under Sonia's nose, saying: "And I won't have you throwing yourself away on any soldiers, scholars, or starving second sons."
    Gamblers and gazetted fortune hunters were also forbidden, as were rakes, widowers, and Americans. Nabobs might be tolerated if they were Oxford-educated, and
émigré French aristocrats, if their property had not been confiscated. Lady Atterbury did not bother to mention the rising London merchant class nor, in a rare moment of noblesse oblige, the gentry. Welcome, of course, were wealthy peers, preferably above the title of baronet. Impoverished noblemen were only slightly less acceptable, since the duchess was not unreasonable and there were more of the latter than the former. Sonia was well dowered enough, if the title was noble enough. After all, that's the way things were done in the belle monde.
    "But don't think I mean to push you into a marriage you cannot like, Sonia. Those gothic forced marriages just create the foundation for scandal. No, I'll make you the same offer I made Catherine. If you cannot find a suitable gentleman to wed, you may stay on here as my companion."
     
     
    "Well, now I know why Catherine married Backhurst." Sonia had conferred with Marston and confirmed appointments with Bigelow. She had taken tea with Lady Atterbury after the dowager's nap—no second servings, fidgeting, or feeding the dog. She had enjoyed a fifteen-minute airing in the park with Fitz—no running, shouting, or talking to strangers—and was finally sitting alone in her bedroom with something on her face that smelled like what the pigs got, if there was nothing better for them. She couldn't even hug her own dog, because he was too clever to get near her. She could talk to him, though, the way she always did.
    "Do you know what I think, Fitz? I think I hate it here. All this effort and extravagance for a ball I didn't want in the first place. And for what?"
    Fitz thumped his tail.
    "To show off an expensive piece of goods to discerning buyers! That's all this is, you know.
Grandmama means me to land a title to make up for Mama's 'lapse.' She thinks my portion is bait enough for a viscount at least, especially when dangled alongside the Harkness connection." She sighed. "She's most likely right."
    Sonia scrubbed the mess off her face as though she could wash away the disquieting thoughts. When she was finished she sat on the floor with her arms around Fitz and watched the fire burn down in the grate.
    "Well, I don't care. I'm not going to let her sell me off to the highest bidder, and I'm not going to stay here as her lackey either! I'll marry the first nice man I meet, see if I don't. I don't want any stiff-rumped nobleman looking down his nose at me and Papa, always expecting me to act the lady. And I don't care if he's poor. In fact, I might like him better if he needs my money, for then he might be more manageable about the settlements."
    A few minutes went by while she thought, then: "He has to be pleasant, of course, and he absolutely must prefer the country. On the other hand, perhaps I could use my money to purchase a country estate—nothing too grand, naturally—and he could use the rest to stay in the City. That might be even better. We could work it out later." She yawned. "He should have a nice smile… and smell good."
     
    So I dragged in the butcher's delivery boy.

Chapter Five
    « ^ »
    W hat is beauty? What is the mystery of one creature's attraction to another?
    Someone likened truth to beauty, but you cannot taste truth, or touch it, or feel it. It won't get your heart thumping, your pulses racing. It won't lick your ear. Besides, what a frog might find fascinating won't hold true for the titmouse. Then again, human persons find beauty in daubs of paint, chunks of marble, and Italian