The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy by Elizabeth Aston Read Free Book Online

marrying him. Fanny had acknowledged the charm, but questioned the kindness of his nature. She had seen, as Alethea had been too distraught to do, the rigidity beneath the suave and pleasant surface.
    â€œTake care, Alethea, that you do not throw away your life on a man for whom you have no strong feelings. You may not care much one way or the other just now, however, I beg of you to remember how binding are the marriage vows. Take your time, let us all get to know Mr. Napier better, so that you and we may be sure he is the man you think he is.”
    Fanny had been quite right. Her cousin might seem to be enclosed within serene and happy walls of domesticity, but she was a shrewd judge of a man for all that. And Alethea had a notion that Fanny had a fair idea of what had passed between her and Penrose. A person of strict morals, Fanny could never approve of an illicit liaison of that kind. That was perhaps why Fanny had not been more forceful in her advice not to rush into marriage with Napier; she would think that what Alethea had done once, she might do again, and, in her view, the only safe place for such desire was the marriage bed.
    Alethea blinked away the tears that started to her eyes at the memory of that night of stolen love. Wrong it might have been, misguided it certainly was, yes, and foolish, too, but how very, very different it was from what passed for love-making between her and Norris Napier.
    Well, all that was in the past. Her family would be as shocked as her friends had been to learn of how her husband had treated her. How she wished that Papa and Mama were in England, that she could even now be heading for Pemberley.
    They were not there; once William was completely well again, running around the grounds at Pemberley and making his tutor’s life a misery, Mr. Darcy had responded to a request from the government for him to undertake a second diplomatic mission. His previous time in Constantinople had been highly successful; now he was to make a stay of some months in Vienna, accompanied, as before, by his wife. She no longer had any fears for William, she declared, and besides, Vienna was not Constantinople or China; they could very well keep in touch with their home from Vienna.
    Alethea might have smuggled out a letter to them, once she had made contact with the resourceful Figgins, but she had hesitated. Letters could be delayed, opened, read, fall into the wrong hands. And what she had to say about her marriage was impossible to put down on paper. Then she had realised that she wasn’t even sure she could say the words face-to-face; no one knew better than she how formidable Papa was when angry. Was there not a chance that he might feel she ought to return to the miseries of her marriage, try to make the best of it?
    That was why she was on her way to Venice, not to Vienna.
    Her sister Camilla and her husband were presently in Venice. Camilla, the second oldest of the Darcy daughters, was the one of her sisters that Alethea loved the best; she could trust Camilla with any secret and know that she would not be betrayed. Yes, and Alexander Wytton, too; he had more than once proved to be a man of his word, and possessed of a keen sense of honour. Lucky Camilla, to have married such a man.
    No, she wasn’t going to waste time on such thoughts; that way lay self-pity, and self-pity was despicable. She must count her blessings; at least there was one person in the world she could speak to without reserve. She even felt that she might be able to reveal the worst aspects of her unfortunate marriage to so understanding a man as Wytton. Her sister and brother-in-law would take her in, they would advise how best she should approach her parents.
    As the miles went by, she considered the journey ahead of her. One step at a time, that was what Griffy always said to her. As she plunged into a difficult sonata, or attempted a new dance, or longed to be able to speak a language even before she had opened