The Earl's Mistress by Liz Carlyle Read Free Book Online Page B

think best, my dear.”
    “Oh, thank you, Tony!” Lady Keaton stepped back, her face brightening. “Aren’t you just the best thing!” she added, dashing a fist beneath her eyes. “Don’t I always say so? And oh, what a watering pot I am. Look, why don’t you get dressed and walk me down to the arcade? You can buy me a new pair of gloves.”
    Hepplewood glanced at the longcase clock and sighed.
    Then, resigned to his fate, he yanked the bell and sent Fording off in search of his valet.

 
    CHAPTER 4
    T he morning light cut across the wintry fields of Fulham, casting a faint sheen upon Georgina’s hair as Isabella swiftly braided. Above the glare on the window, she could see a rime of frost melting inside the glass, dripping inexorably into the cracked caulk and rotting wood.
    Isabella looked away. She could not afford to have the glazier in, and with the rent barely out of arrears, her landlord would be less than sympathetic to complaints.
    An old wool blanket tossed round her shoulders, Jemima sat perched on the end of the girls’ bed, her face a little anxious. Isabella knew too well the look, and it troubled her.
    “Jemma, darling, what’s wrong?”
    “Must you go so quickly, Bella?” she asked. “Lady Petershaw’s friend must be in a frightful rush.”
    Forcing a smile, Isabella picked up Georgina’s hair ribbon and tied off the blonde plait. “Wealthy gentlemen are always in a rush,” she said, her motions deft. “Mr. Mowbrey’s library is vast, I’m told, and will take weeks to catalog.”
    Georgina twisted around on her dressing stool. “And there won’t be any little boys at this house?” she said again, her little brow furrowing. “Or any little girls? At all ?”
    “No, my only little girl is right here.” Isabella crooked her head to set her lips to Georgina’s temple. “And I will long for her madly—and for my big girl, too. Still, I did enjoy telling you funny stories about Lord Petershaw and his brother.”
    “They were so wicked, ” Georgina giggled. “Remember, Bella, when they put the mouse in the chalk tin?” The child flashed a grin that showed the gap where her bottom front teeth should have been.
    The impossibly tiny teeth had been the first to appear, Isabella remembered wistfully, and now the first to go. Where would she be, Isabella wondered, when the rest of Georgina’s teeth came out?
    Most likely in the mysterious Mr. Mowbrey’s bed, she thought bitterly, at least for the next two incisors. Beyond that, she might not hold his attention.
    Still, that was how one remembered one’s life, she supposed, when a child was the center of one’s universe. Such memories became the milestones by which one measured happiness. The small triumphs and tragedies—like Jemima’s first fall from her pony in the ring at Thornhill. Or the time Jemima cut off all Georgina’s hair with the gardener’s shears. Or the day she’d taught both girls to skip rope in Green Park.
    Dear heaven, how she would miss them! For an instant, she shut her eyes, already struggling against the yearning.
    When her father and stepmother still lived, Isabella had spent her holidays and every other Sunday at Thornhill. After their deaths, Lady Petershaw’s mansion had been but a six-mile walk from this little cottage. Buckinghamshire seemed, by contrast, the backside of the moon. And yet she was fortunate, she knew, to be going no further; lucky, really, that she wasn’t stuck halfway to the Highlands with the wicked Earl of Hepplewood chasing her round the schoolroom trying to toss up her skirts.
    Isabella drew the comb through the other side of Georgina’s hair. “No, I shall have no little imps to manage this time,” she said pensively. “Just books, mostly.”
    “And bones,” added Jemima sullenly. “And dead bugs and stuffed birds and even dried lizard bits, I daresay.”
    Isabella glanced at the clock, hating the fib she’d told. “A natural philosopher might have any of those