The Bridal Season by Connie Brockway Read Free Book Online

Cabot.”
    “Cabot?”
    “The butler. Miss Eglantyne imported him from London as soon
as Miss Angela got herself engaged last year. Give the family panache, she said.”
    “Oh. How nice.”
    “Some say,” the housekeeper returned primly. “But I thinks a
true gentleman don’t need panache. Like Sir Elliot. You won’t see him bringing
in some hoity-toity butler to tell him how to dress or what wine to drink.”
    Letty, in the act of wandering about the room tallying the net
worth of various bits of expensive bric-a-brac, stopped like a hound on point.
“Sir Elliot.”
    Grace nodded. “A true gentleman.”
    “Indeed.” She affected nonchalance, sauntering over to the bed
and picking up her hat. She fussed with a spray of lilacs. It only made sense
to learn what she could about the local magistrate. “Sir Elliot does, indeed,
seem most agreeable.”
    “Oh, he is that,” Grace answered enthusiastically. “Lest you
stand before him in court. I hear he can flay a man to honesty using just his
words and his wit.”
    And where had he sharpened those wits? Letty thought
sardonically. By trading barbs with the local poacher? “He’s most agreeable to
look at, too.”
    “Oh, my, yes! And even more so now than when he was young.”
Grace leaned forward and whispered, “He’s grown into it.”
    “Into it?”
    “The nose.”
    “Ah! I see. Yes, I suspect so grand a feature would overwhelm
a young, callow face, though Sir Elliot hardly seems the sort to have ever been
callow.” She let her words trail off into a question.
    “Never,” Grace said. “Always been the first to answer duty’s
call. Never seen him shirk a responsibility, nor shun an issue what needs
addressing.”
    “Damn.”
    “Mum?”
    “Damp.” Letty said, lifting up one of Fagin’s limp forelegs.
“His paws are damp. I’m afraid he’s marked up the coverlet. Now what were we
talking about? Ah, yes. Sir Elliot March. I confess,” her eyes grew innocently
round, “I find it amazing that such a paragon has escaped the matrimonial nets
that must be cast his way.”
    “That’s a fact. The ladies do go on somethin’ about Sir
Elliot. Not that any stands a chance of, er, nettin’ him.”
    “No?”
    Grace pulled a long face and shook her head.
    “And why is that?”
    “It’s his heart, mum,” the housekeeper sighed. “It’s been
broken lo these many years and ain’t no one been able to mend it.”
    “Who broke it?” Letty asked.
    “Catherine Bunting.”
    “That charming blond bloke’s pasty-skinned wife?”
    Grace choked and Letty clapped her on the back. After a minute
she regained her breath and continued. “That’s the one, mum. Before Sir Elliot
went off to foreign parts to fight fer Her Majesty, he and Mrs. Bunting, what
was then Miss Catherine Meadows, had a sort of understanding.”
    “They were engaged?”
    Grace shifted uneasily on her feet. “Well, practically. At
least everyone expected them to get married, but then Sir Elliot come back from
those heathen climes as thin as a reed and white as chalk. That’s where his
limp comes from, you know. War wound.”
    What limp?
    “But then, afore we know it, Catherine Meadows is engaged to
Sir Elliot’s best friend, Lord Paul, and Sir Elliot is standing up for him at
the wedding. But he’d changed, you see. He went off a lighthearted rascal and
come back a harder man.” She sniffed, glanced sidelong at Letty, and said, “Not
to say a word against Catherine Bunting.”
    Letty could have found plenty to say, but managed to hold her
tongue. Poor Sir Elliot. How must he have felt, a war hero returned to find his
sweetheart had left him for his best friend? Though how any woman could prefer
Paul Bunting to Sir Elliot March was a mystery.
    “A regular saint, she is,” Grace’s voice cut across Letty’s
thoughts. “Tends to the poor, visits the sick, organizes the annual church
bazaar, and provides the altar flowers. If only she’d see straight on women’s
suffrage ...” Grace shrugged.
    “Hm,” Letty said noncommittally.
    A few minutes later Grace left and Letty,