Evelyn Richardson by The Scandalous Widow Read Free Book Online

Granville, and as clutch-fisted as they come, he is, at least where everyone else is concerned. For himself and to further his own ambitions, he spares no expense. It was a sad day for us all when the old lord died, not that he was so old, for a finer gentleman and more generous landlord you never did see. And it was an even sadder day for her, poor thing, packed off to the dower house and forced to take on pupils to earn her keep. I tell you, it does not bear thinking of.” The innkeeper’s wife sighed gustily and shook her head. “And she who was so kind and good to everyone, hurried out of the Park where she had been mistress for all those years before the master was even cold in his grave.”
    “She seems to have succeeded in providing for herself, however. The academy certainly looks as though it is doing well.” But while he was speaking of the present, Lucian was busy thinking over the past, Catherine’s past. The innkeeper’s wife had referred to her husband as “the old lord.” Surely she would not have done so if Lord Granville had not been considerably more advanced in years than his wife. Then it must have been a marriage of convenience rather than a love match.
    Lucian did not want to admit to himself how relieved he felt. Encountering Catherine so unexpectedly after all these years had been unsettling enough already. He did not need to be further unsettled by examining his own reactions more closely than he already had. As it was, he found himself looking forward far too much to seeing her again tomorrow when he would stop at the academy to make final arrangements for enrolling Arabella.
    “She has done an excellent job of running the place. Many of her pupils are from the best families in the county. But it is still a crying shame to see a fine lady like that being forced to work for a living, especially when there is no need for it, if certain folks were not so greedy, that is.”
    Lucian suppressed a start of surprise. He had completely forgotten the existence of the innkeeper’s wife, so absorbed had he been in his own thoughts. “Does she have no other relatives with whom she could live or who could offer her support?” Dredging back into his past, Lucian thought he remembered an elder brother being mentioned, but he could not be sure. He did remember reading in the Times that the Earl of Hunsford had died a matter of months after his wife had.
    “I never heard of any, but even if there were, what woman who has been mistress of an estate like Granville Park wants to become the poor relation in someone else’s establishment?”
    What woman indeed? Certainly not the fiercely independent Catherine who had chafed against the confining expectations of proper behavior for a young miss in her first Season. How much more she would resent living by the rules of someone else’s household, no matter how closely related she was to that person. Far better for someone as energetic as Lady Catherine to be in charge of her own academy, no matter how hard she had to work or how much risk it entailed. At least she was in control of her own destiny as the proprietress of Lady Catherine Granville’s Select Academy.
    Or was she? Even as he was arriving at this conclusion, Lucian remembered his original purpose in coming to Bath, not for the sake of Arabella’s education but because the new Lady Granville wished him to persuade Lady Catherine Granville to give up her establishment and behave with the decorum and propriety expected not only of Lord Granville’s relict but of anyone connected with one of the most respected names in the county.
    Anyone faced by the determination of the socially ambitious Lady Granville as well as the reputed greed of her husband was bound to feel uncertain as to the degree of control she actually did exert over her own life. As someone who had spent much of his own existence rebelling against the expectations of his family in particular and the dictates of society in general,