The Second Mrs Darcy by Elizabeth Aston Read Free Book Online

looking her best heightened her courage, so that, with the tinge of colour in her cheeks from the apprehension that she was trying so keenly to quell, she made a striking picture as she entered the room.
    Her brother Arthur rose from his seat. “Well, upon my word,” he exclaimed. “I never saw you in better looks, Octavia. I should have thought—”
    A formal kiss from Augusta. “That’s as may be, Arthur,” she said in her brisk way, “and we must be pleased to see Octavia looking tolerably well, but nothing alters the fact that she is several inches taller than any woman has any right to be, and what is more, several inches taller than any Melbury female has ever been. Of course, she gets her height from her mother.”
    From the contempt in her voice, you would have thought Octavia’s mother had been a giantess; it was a familiar insult, and one that Octavia knew how to ignore. She was, in some obscure way,proud of her height; it was an inheritance from her despised grandfather and as such, she treasured it. If it set her apart from her brothers and sisters, so much the better.
    â€œNow,” said Theodosia. “We have been discussing your situation while we were waiting for you to come down—what an age it took you to dress—and this is what is to be done.”
    Octavia listened with half her mind. Did her sisters and brother imagine she would have nothing to say in the matter? Did they expect her to accept being treated simply as an object to be dealt with as they might a horse or a long-standing servant who had become a problem?
    Their decision was clear cut. Arthur was to approach Warren and represent to him in the most forceful and persuasive terms how very bad it would look for his late cousin’s widow to be seen to be destitute. By this means, it was to be hoped, they might squeeze some money out of him, which would go towards Octavia being able to support herself, if not in comfort, at least not in penury.
    â€œUntil such time as we can find you another husband,” Augusta finished in a definite voice.
    â€œYou weren’t able to when I was last in London, why should it be any different now?” said Octavia.
    â€œWell, upon my word, Octavia,” said Arthur, looking down his long nose at her. “If you are going to take that tone with us, I shall consider you ungrateful. Your sister is only—”
    â€œMeanwhile,” went on Theodosia, as though Octavia hadn’t spoken, an old trick and one that always reduced Octavia to seething if helpless fury, “you will go down to Hertfordshire, where you may stay with our cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Ackworth. I wrote to them first thing this morning, so it is all arranged. We don’t want you drooping about town in your weeds, there is nothing more depressing or off-putting to the male sex than a widow in her weeds. Your year of mourning will shortly be over, fortunately before the end of the season. You are no longer a green girl; we shall see if there is not some older man, a widower who wishes for more sensible company than a debutante would provide. You do not want for sense, when you are not being wilful and obstinate, and some country squire, who is not too nice in his …”
    Octavia considered. Her first reaction was to refuse all their suggestions, to insist that she was going to make her own way in the world and that they need not bother themselves with her at all. On the other hand, almost anything would be preferable to spending these next few weeks in London, in Lothian Street, incarcerated within doors except when her sister condescended to take her out in the carriage, or demanded her company while she took her morning constitutional in the park.
    â€œVery well,” she said. “I shall go to the Ackworths, if they will have me.”
    â€œNo question of that,” said Theodosia.
    â€œNot for a few days, however. I have a few things to attend to,