The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount by Julia London Read Free Book Online

personal and physical relations with a man. Even Ava, who had never been shy about her body, blushed and stammered when she hinted about her physical relationship with her husband.
    Not Frieda—the girl talked as if she had known a variety of men in the biblical way.
    Fortunately, Mrs. Turner returned the second day to lend a hand with the cleaning—which prompted Frieda to be a bit more helpful and less talkative. Mrs. Turner, however, chatted freely about the happenings at the hall. Phoebe liked the rotund Mrs. Turner very much. She had a cheerful spirit and kind manner about her, and from her Phoebe learned that Summerfield had been gone from home for more than six years in pursuit of a variety of daring activities.
    “What sort?” Phoebe asked.
    “Oh, to hear Mr. Addison tell it, all that a body might do,” Mrs. Turner said. “Climbing the Himlains, for one.”
    “The Himlains…do you mean the Himalayan mountains?”
    “Aye, that’s it. And he sailed around the Mediterranean on a merchant ship, just like my grandfather done. The ship wrecked, too, you know. He almost drowned. But his lordship saved a dozen sailors if he saved one. Addison told me all about it.”
    Phoebe gaped at Mrs. Turner.
    “Oh! And the dromedaries!” Mrs. Turner continued. “They rode dromedaries through the Egyptian desert with all the heathens there, all just to see some ancient ruins or some such.” She snorted. “As if we’ve not enough ruins here to gaze at. But it was in India that he received the mark of the beast.”
    “The what?” Phoebe asked, spellbound.
    Mrs. Turner glanced at her. “Haven’t seen it, eh?” She pointed to her wrist. “It’s just here. Addison says it is a marking from India. It was an awful thing to have done, if you ask me. Seems almost sacrilegious.”
    “Goodness and mercy,” Frieda exclaimed.
    It didn’t seem sacrilegious to Phoebe. It seemed beautiful. She stared at Mrs. Turner as her mind’s eye filled with images of Summerfield hanging from a mountaintop, or at the helm of a ship, sailing through dangerous seas while monstrous waves and howling winds tossed and turned the ship about and then pulling sailors from the water.
    “His lordship has a devilish curiosity,” Mrs. Turner said. “He would have gone to China next had the old earl not taken a bad turn when he did.”
    “You’ve been at Wentworth for a time, eh?” Frieda asked.
    “More years than I’d like to admit,” Mrs. Turner said jovially. “Save the year there were no servants. I came back just as soon as his lordship asked, though, for I was brought on as a chambermaid, just like you, Frieda.” She paused in the scrubbing of the window sash. “That was such a lovely time, when his lordship was a boy and his mother was alive. But when he grew older, he became quite restless, as young men are wont to do. The old earl sent him on his way, told him to have done with it, and come home when he had.” She stared wistfully out the window. “He came home, all right—a changed man, to my way of thinking. He’s not like us now.”
    “How do you mean?” Phoebe asked. “Like who?”
    “Like country people,” Mrs. Turner said. “But I mean nothing by it. Just that he has different sensibilities, that’s all. He holes up in his room with his things from his travels, and he wears that awful necklace beneath his neckcloth.”
    “Perhaps he still has a bit of wanderlust in him,” Frieda said. “But what a handsome man Lord Summerfield grew to be, eh? Handsome as the devil.”
    “Handsome and possessing a fortune that makes him the most desired bachelor this county has seen in a century,” Mrs. Turner said, to which she and Frieda laughed. “On my honor, I’ve not seen so many callers in all my years at Wentworth Hall as I’ve seen since Summerfield’s return. I cannot imagine there are so many unmarried young ladies in all of England as there are in Bedfordshire at present. And they seem not to care a lick that