Lady Star by Claudy Conn Read Free Book Online Page A

and sighed. Madison prospered,
while Berkley fell into ruin. The late Lord Berkley wasn’t the sort
to look inward, find the fault and repair. He took his troubles to
the gaming tables, to the races when the tables were cruel, and
finally into investment schemes that quickly ate up what he had
left and then what he had borrowed.
    Now both Thomas Madison and Frances of
Berkley were gone.
    Both had left all that they owned to their
immediate heirs. In Madison’s case, he had only his wife and his
only child, a daughter, Georgina.
    Georgina was not quite a raving beauty, but
she had an air about her that made a man take note. She was of good
height, good figure and her auburn hair was long and luxurious. She
had a lively mind and was quite ahead of her times in her way of
thinking. In fact, it was what had frightened off any would be
suitors to date. She was ever ready to go on about matters that
dealt with women’s rights and she did so with vigor.
    Her closest and dearest friend, Star, was
forever telling her that she was like no other female and was
caught up in quite the wrong times. Georgina refused to use a
ladies’ saddle, not because she was a ‘neck or nothing’ equestrian,
but because she saw no sense in it.
    These thoughts and others crashed in her
active mind as she rode her steed across the fields on her way to
Berkley to visit with Star.
    Wayward locks blew in her face. She grabbed
them and shoved them away from her eyes and thought with a grimace
that she should have braided her hair earlier, for it was getting
windier by the moment.
    Anxious, she hurried her horse onward for
Star had sent round a note asking her to visit her. She wondered
and worried, for Star would not have been so cryptic unless there
was a problem.
    She knew that Vern was ill and hoped he had
not taken a turn for the worse.
    Thinking of Vern made her sigh. Star’s
brother was showing a marked interest in her and it made her feel
quite uncomfortable. She had known him most of her life and had
always thought of him in brotherly terms. She knew he was in
dangerous financial straits. Could it be he was interested in
making a match of it to gain control of her wealth? She hoped
not.
    She understood that this was the way of
aristocratic life. Marriages of convenience were common, even
sought after, but that was not what she wanted.
    She also knew that a union between them was
smiled upon by her sickly mother, for it would serve to have her
only child married to a Lord of the Realm and installed nearby.
Georgie understood a marriage to Vern would help him set Berkley to
rights. She couldn’t marry a man she didn’t love, even to help him
and her dearest friend.
    In spite of her modern, practical and radical
views, which encompassed some very intriguing opinions about
romance and sex, she still withheld the hope that when she married
it would be to someone who loved and respected her.
    Some moments later she had given her horse to
the head (and at the moment only) groom at Berkley, Jeffries. She
marched up to the house where she made her way to the kitchen door
and was met by Dilly, the Berkley’s day servant.
    The woman’s mop cap was askew and Georgina
smiled and set it in place for her saying, “There, Dilly, much
better.”
    Dilly bobbed her head, “Thankee miss.”
    It was then that Georgina realized that Dilly
was covered in flour and laughed, “Look at you, whatever has
happened?”
    “Yikes, miss, Oi went and did it this time,
Oi did. Spilled a tin of flour…and we jest can’t at such a time…
Cook will ‘ave m’head, she will.”
    Georgie laughed, “Never you mind. Cook is all
bark and very little bite. I’ll have my people send over two tins.
How is that?”
    “Why, miss, grand ye are.”
    Georgina smiled, “Where is Miss Star?”
    Dilly perked up proudly, “Entertaining she
is, as she should be. Poor thing, stuck here all the time when she
should be going to balls and sech.” She shook her head, “Ye know
she has