The Constant Companion by M. C. Beaton Read Free Book Online

at the house in Manchester Square had come to respect the quiet and well-bred Constance. And although Constance sometimes felt her life was not her own, being, as she was, at Amelia’s autocratic beck and call from morning till night, her days began to seem easier than they had ever been since the death of her father. Added to that, she was cheered by the continued absence of the Comte Duval.
    And if she occasionally wondered why she felt so breathless and shy in the presence of Lord Philip, she put it down to her own naivity. Lord Philip was, after all, one of the most fashionable leaders of the London scene, and almost rivalled Mr. Brummell in social power.
    Lady Amelia was particularly charming to Constance when Lord Philip was present, and Constance sincerely hoped that Lord Philip would marry Amelia, transferring her own half awakened, first trembling feelings of love for the handsome lord into duty.
    For Constance did not know she had fallen in love with Lord Philip at that first meeting in the library. She only knew it was right and proper and
dutiful
to wish the best for her mistress. And Constance certainly believed Lord Philip to be the best.
    Although no novice when it came to dealing with the fair sex, Lord Philip found himself becoming increasingly enamored of Lady Amelia. She had persuaded him that her “affair” with the Duke of Glendurran had merely been a misguided flirtation, and Society, in its usual wicked way, had believed the worst. He rarely noticed the quiet constant companion whose dark beauty was overshadowed by the more flamboyant coloring, dress and manners of her mistress.
    It was he who had prevailed on the Patronesses to issue the prized vouchers.
    He was preparing for the ball which was to be Lady Amelia’s first Wednesday appearance at Almack’s for some years, when his friend, the Honorable Peter Potter, was announced.
    Peter Potter tried to aspire to the same heights of elegance as his friend, but he was notoriously absentminded, and Lord Philip, looking at his friend as he tied his cravat, was amused to notice that Peter was wearing an impeccable black evening coat and a snowy cravat atop a pair of canary colored Inexpressibles and Hessian boots.
    “You’ll never get past the door of Almack’s in that rig,” said Lord Philip, tying his cravat in an intricate combination of the Irish and the Mathematical—two collateral dents and two horizontal ones.
    “What’s up with it?” said Peter, wandering vaguely around his lordship’s dressing room and nearly tripping over a small table. “I look all the crack. Weston made it.”
    “Your trousers, man,” said Lord Philip patiently. “Even the Prince Regent couldn’t get into Almack’s with trousers on, you know.”
    Peter glanced down at his legs and then stared at his canary yellow trousers as if he could not believe his eyes. He was a tall, thin young man with a shock of fair hair and a weak, pleasant face like that of an amiable sheep. “Gad’s Oonds!” he said, still gazing in horror at his nether limbs. “I don’t know what servants are coming to these days. I told him to lay out my breeches. But he will no doubt be along presently.”
    Peter’s excellent valet was in the habit of following after his master with a valise full of clothes in order to remedy whatever fashionable disaster his absentminded master had thrown on before leaving the house.
    “I hear you’re about to be leg-shackled,” went on Peter, abruptly forgetting about the trousers and collapsing his long, bony length into a chair. “It’s not often I remember gossip, and I don’t remember who told me except that it was several people and I said to myself, I said, ‘Not old Philip,’ I said. ‘Mistress, yes. Wife, no.’ Not that she isn’t beautiful, but then so was that opera dancer you had in keeping. Anyway, that’s what I said. Although she is trying so hard to become respectable—even dragging that poor little companion around with her at