Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) by Donna Lea Simpson Read Free Book Online Page B

different from when I first met him. You know, he bought his colors so young and is so much older than me that I never met him until last year, though our mothers have been friends this age. Mama and I have visited Lea Park before, but Lord Drake was always away.” She clasped her hands together and looked starry-eyed for a moment. “Oh, True, if you think he is handsome now, you should have seen him in his scarlet regimentals, and without that repulsive cane and limp. Devastating! And not only that, but he was so gallant, and courteous and . . . and I never saw anyone in London I liked half so well. Except maybe Lord Sweetan, but even he . . . well, he just was not like Lord Drake.”
    “And he is different this year?”
    “Very. He is brooding and moody, and that distasteful remark about childbearing! Really, I was shocked to my very core. Shocked and insulted.” Bella’s narrow, pretty face took on the petulant expression that made her look much more like her mother than she normally did.
    “Really, Bella!” True was going to hold her tongue, but could not resist falling into the mother hen role she had played when her cousin was a little girl. “He meant no harm, you know. It was just a casual aside, and intended as a compliment to women’s strength. You had no reason to swoon, and I do not believe you really did. I saw you peeking when Lord Conroy was supporting you into the blue saloon.” True waggled her finger at her cousin, who looked abashed for just a moment.
    But Arabella was not one to remain so for long. Her mother had drilled into her head that as the Honorable Miss Arabella Swinley, she was entitled to the best of treatment, and she would put up with no other. After all, one must never let the gentlemen have the upper hand, or they would take one for granted, her mother had told her.
    “Mother says that a young lady should appear delicate and fragile at all times! What else was I to do at such a remark? Lord Conroy was most gratifyingly attentive, and very angry with his friend. He called him a base brute for frightening me that way.” Her haughtiness dissolved in one of her quicksilver mood changes, and she giggled.
    “I must tell you, True, what you did not see. It was the funniest thing ever! Lord Conroy pressed my hand and said he would call Drake out for the insult. I tell you this with not a word of lying, I had had to do some quick work to avoid being the cause of a rift between lifelong friends.” She bit her lip and frowned. “That was not my intention. I was trying to show Lord Drake how frail and feminine I am. Mama always said that I am too independent. Gentlemen do not like that, you know. I must hide that until after marriage. That will be the time to assume the mantle of marital power.”
    “Oh, Bella . . . you don’t really believe that, do you?”
    She frowned. “But I do! If I am to be Viscountess Drake, I must show that I am worthy: stylish, delicate, a true lady.” She glanced over at True. “You seem to have found some way to get on with him. I was just the teeniest bit jealous, you know, when I saw you and Drake walking in the garden. Of course, I realized it was the merest kindness to walk out with you. Do you not think him all the more perfect for it? He saw how ill you fit into such elegant company and took you away.”
    Truelove could think of no answer for that.
    “What were you and Lord Drake really talking about on the terrace? It was not just about the war, I swan!”
    “He asked me why I was not married, and I told him about Harry.”
    “And about Mr. Bottleby?” Arabella eyed her with a squinted glance, then smoothed her expression. It would not do to get lines.
    “I . . . I do not think I mentioned Mr. Bottleby’s name.”
    “Why not?” Arabella said sharply. “Why would you not come right out and say you are considering an offer of marriage?”
    True heard the sudden sharpness in Bella’s voice. That was the trouble; London had changed her cousin.