Lord Perfect by Loretta Chase Read Free Book Online

me one of Them.

    The letter was ghastly, even for a girl. She'd
overembellished the script with curls and corkscrews. The wretched
excess of capital letters and thick underlines indicated
sentimentality, an overly romantic turn of mind, and an emotional
temperament.
    Peregrine's parents were all these things; his paternal
grandparents were more so. The Dalmays were always breaking out into
dramatic scenes, and he was always being made to feel guilty without
ever having the least idea what he was guilty of. But then, logic
seemed to have no place in his relatives' thinking processes—if
they had processes, which Peregrine sometimes doubted.
    This was one of the many reasons he preferred his
uncle's house and his uncle's company. Lord Rathbourne was calm. His
household was calm. When he was vexed, he did not fly into a passion.
He did not storm about and spout long, vehement speeches that made no
sense. He never lost his temper, although once in a while he might
become annoyed. Then his drawl might grow a trifle more pronounced
and his countenance so calm that it might have been made of marble.
But he never made a to-do. Ever. About anything.
    With his uncle, Peregrine did not spend his time tensed,
waiting for the next storm to break. With his uncle, Peregrine always
knew exactly where he stood and precisely what was expected of him.
    Until Wednesday evening, that is.
    Before going to his room to dress to go out, Lord
Rath-bourne stopped by the study where Peregrine was writing out a
Greek exercise. After making two corrections, his lordship told
Peregrine that Mrs. Wingate "would not suit" as a drawing
master.
    Surprised and puzzled, Peregrine could not help trying
to ascertain the logic of this decision.
    "I do not understand, sir," he said. "What
was unsuitable about her? Didn't you say that her watercolor was
brilliant? You seemed to admire it very much. You seemed to find her
agreeable. Of course, it is difficult to tell when you are polite
because you want to be and polite because it is a gentleman's duty.
When I do it, the difference is so obvious. But she was not boring or
silly at all. Quite the opposite. Did she not strike you as unusually
intelligent for a female?"
    Lord Rathbourne did not answer any of these questions.
Instead, his face acquired a marble calm. When he spoke, his drawl
was quite pronounced. "I said she was not suitable, Lisle. That
is the end of it."
    "But, sir—"
    "I can think of few exercises more tiresome than
being catechized by a thirteen-year-old boy," Lord Rathbourne
said.
    Peregrine recognized the exceedingly bored tone. It
meant the subject was closed.
    This was a shock. Usually his lordship was the most
logical and reasonable of adults.
    If Peregrine had not been so completely flummoxed, he
wouldn't have stared so hard. Then he would not have seen it. But he
did stare and he did see it: a muscle twitch. Only the once, and very
quick and slight, at the far corner of his uncle's right cheekbone.
    Then Peregrine knew there was a Serious Problem (as
Olivia would have written) regarding Mrs. Wingate.
    If Lord Rathbourne would not tell him what it was, it
must be very serious indeed.
    If he would not speak of it to Peregrine, no other adult
would. If Peregrine was so foolish as to ask someone else, he or she
would say, "If it was proper for you to know, Lord Rathbourne
would have told you."
    Peregrine tried through all of Friday and Saturday to
put the letter out of his head. The girl was silly—ye gods, she
wanted to be a knight!—and since he'd never see her again, her
family secrets didn't matter.
    The trouble was, his chosen vocation was the finding out
of secrets. He'd recently returned to his Greek and Latin studies
with a zeal he'd previously been unable to muster. This was because
he'd found out they were crucial to unlocking the secrets of the
ancient Egyptians. Aunt Daphne—she wasn't really his aunt, but
all of Lord Rath-bourne's family had adopted him—had promised
to teach