Frederica by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page B

seemed to me—and when he recovered he wasn’t the same. In fact, he became quite a stranger, because he was hardly ever at home. He couldn’t bear it, without Mama. I daresay we shouldn’t have liked it at the time, but I have frequently thought that it would have been a very good thing if he had married again. I know it is improper in me to say so, but he was sadly unsteady, you know.”
    “Well, yes,” admitted Alverstoke. “I do know. But did he leave you to fend for yourselves? I find that hard to believe!”
    “No, no, of course he didn’t! My Aunt Seraphina came to live with us—she is Mama’s unmarried sister—and she has been with us ever since Mama died!”
    “And is she still with you?”
    “Indeed she is! Good gracious, how could we have come to London without her to lend us countenance?”
    “You must forgive me: not having seen—or, until this moment, heard—anything of your aunt, I had formed the impression that you had decided to dispense with a chaperon.”
    “I’m not so ramshackle! Why should you suppose—Oh! Your propriety is offended by my receiving you without a chaperon! My Aunt Scrabster warned me how it would be, but I’m not a girl just escaped from the schoolroom, you know. What’s more, although we are quite accustomed to her ways, I cannot believe that you would like my aunt! For one thing she’s extremely deaf; and for another, she—she is a trifle eccentric! Ifshe comes in, pray don’t get into a quarrel with her!”
    “I can safely promise you I won’t!” he said. “Is she so quarrelsome?”
    “No but she hates men,” explained Frederica. “We fancy she must have suffered a disappointment in youth, or some such thing. I daresay she will go away immediately, if she finds you here.”
    “Scarcely an ideal chaperon!” he observed.
    “No, and, what is worse, she is beginning not to like Harry as much as she was used to. She positively hated Papa—but that was understandable, because, besides being uncivil to her, he behaved very badly, and wasted the estate quite shockingly. Fortunately, before he had contrived to bring us all to pieces, he had a stroke.”
    “That was fortunate,” he agreed, preserving his gravity.
    “Yes, wasn’t it? For, although he recovered, in a great measure, the use of his limbs, his brain was a little impaired. I don’t mean to say that he lost his reason, but he became forgetful, and—and different !He wasn’t wild, or resty any more, and not in the least unhappy. Indeed, I never liked him half as well before! He let me manage the estate, and all his affairs, so I was able, with a great deal of help from Mr Salcombe, who is our lawyer, to stop everything going to rack and ruin. That was five years ago, and I do think that if Harry will only hold household for a few years he will find himself quite comfortably circumstanced, and even able to provide for Jessamy and Felix, which he is determined to do, thinking it so unjust that everything should come to him, through Papa’s not having made a Will.”
    “Good God! Then what becomes of you and your sister?”
    “Oh, we are perfectly well to pass!” she assured him. “Mama’s fortune was settled on her daughters, you see, so we have £.5,000 each. I expect that doesn’t seem to you very much, but it does make us independent, and it means that Charis won’t be a penniless bride.”
    “Ah! She is engaged, then?”
    “No, not yet. That is why I was determined, when Papa died, just over a year ago, to bring her to London. You see, at Graynard she had as well be buried alive! There isn’t even a watering-place within our reach, so how can she form an eligible connection? She—she is quite wasted, Lord Alverstoke! You will understand, when you see her, why I felt it to be my duty to bring her out in London! She is the loveliest girl! She has the sweetest disposition imaginable, too, never cross or crotchety, and she deserves to make a splendid marriage!”
    “I have it on the