Dangerous to Love by Rexanne Becnel Read Free Book Online

But she didn’t care. She was going to London again! She would be in the company of great wits and even greater minds.
    And she would be able to attend Sir Mawbey’s lectures!
    If she’d ever doubted the power of prayer, she vowed never to do so again, for her every prayer had been answered in the form of Lady Antonia Thornton, Dowager Countess of Westcott!
    Lady Westcott rose to her feet. “Very good. Let us repair to the parlor and inform your family. I should like to depart for London day after tomorrow. Is that agreeable to you?”
    As it happened, Lucy’s only disappointment was that it took four days, not two, before they finally departed. Two of those days Hortense spent in bed with a sick headache, devastated that “her darling Lucy” was leaving. Lucy had never realized how deep her sister-in-law’s affection for her ran—though she suspected it was less affection and more neediness. Still, she knew the children ran roughshod over their mother without Lucy there to stop them.
    Fortunately, her own mother was almost as excited about Lucy’s new position as was Lucy herself, although for entirely different reasons. Irene Drysdale had never completely resigned herself to her daughter’s unmarried state. She bemoaned the lack of eligible gentlemen in the Somerset countryside—or rather, the lack of eligible gentlemen that Lucy could abide. London, however, was full of eligible gentlemen.
    Lucy had no intention of informing her mother that the only man she had a remote interest in was an intellectual who taught for a living and possessed only an honorary title. As to whether Sir James was a bachelor, she could not say. Just because he hadn’t mentioned a wife in his correspondence did not mean there wasn’t one. Still, she’d rather believe that there was not.
    Lady Westcott’s carriage came for her just past dawn. London was a long day’s journey and the dowager countess was determined to sleep in Westcott House that night, she told Lucy. Lady Valerie Stanwich would join them within a few days.
    That would give Lucy time to find out the particulars about Sir James’s lecture series. She might be forced to bring Lady Valerie with her, she realized, but that was all right. As long as she was able to hear him in person, to bask in the light of his prodigious intellect, and try to soak up some portion of the essence of his knowledge she would be content. She heaved a happy sigh to even contemplate such possibilities.
    “I take it you are content to be leaving the country.”
    Lucy smiled at her benefactress. “It’s not so much that I wish to leave Somerset, as that I am thrilled to be returning to town. I feel …” She paused, searching for the words that would make her feelings clear without casting her family in a bad light. “I am somewhat stifled in the country.”
    In the close confines of the carriage Lucy felt keenly the weight of the dowager countess’s regard. “You are bored to tears, you mean. I assure you, Miss Drysdale, that you will not be bored in London. In fact, I would hazard a guess that you will have your hands quite filled with Valerie.”
    “Is she strong-willed?”
    Lady Westcott snorted. “Strong-willed? Hardly. Rather, she is quiet as a mouse and just as easily startled. She will do anything to please a person.” She paused and sniffed. “Except, that is, to put herself forward.”
    Lucy nodded. “She sounds like a middle child.”
    “Actually, I believe she is. Yes. She’s the fourth of a brood of seven. Seven children. No wonder her mother suffers from a nervous disposition.”
    Lucy smiled, pleased that she’d been right. “I’ve noticed that a middle daughter is often the most complacent of children, trying always to please and, in the process, losing her own self.”
    “Losing her own self?” Lady Westcott gave her a sharp look. “Whatever is that supposed to mean?”
    “It’s part of a theory about children that I am developing,” Lucy admitted,