When Twilight Burns by Colleen Gleason Read Free Book Online

King’s coronation will be even more of an event. I’ve heard he’s spending upward of forty-four thousand pounds…on his robe alone!”
    â€œI never had the chance to give you my condolences personally, Lady Rockley,” said Mrs. Winkledon, wedging herself between Ladies Melly and Nilly on the sofa. “About the loss of your dear Rockley. A love match it was, was it not?” Her sharp eyes matched her sharp nose, which nearly quivered with curiosity, as if she expected Victoria to admit she hadn’t actually loved Phillip. Not that it should matter, for few ton marriages were love matches. In fact, it was almost considered passé to love one’s spouse.
    â€œThank you, Mrs. Winkledon,” Victoria replied. “I do miss Phillip terribly.” That was at least the truth.
    â€œAn accident on a ship?” asked Lady Breadlington, leaning in with a smile. Her teeth, flat instead of curved across the front of her mouth, looked as though they’d been kicked in by a horse. “How terrible that he perished in the cold sea, on his way to—where was it? Spain? His body was never found, was it?”
    â€œNo, indeed,” Victoria replied. Unless you counted the pile of ash that had poofed all over her bedchamber. She kept a bit of it in a small container on her dressing table. “But we had a burial service anyway…and, forgive me, but I cannot recall if you were in attendance?”
    â€œOh, no, I’m so sorry, my dear lady, but we had already repaired to the Country by then. Grouse season.” Lady Breadlington had the grace to look abashed, which had exactly been Victoria’s intention.
    Most of the twenty or so women who crowded the Grantworth parlor were not close friends of Victoria’s mother. They were here because they couldn’t stand not to be the first to see the infamous Lady Rockley, who’d married, shockingly, for love, and whose husband had died tragically little more than a month after their wedding. And who hadn’t been seen in Society since, even after her year of mourning.
    â€œOdd,” grumbled elderly Lady Thurling, her shiny, knobby fingers closed over the top of her walking stick, “last time I saw Lord Rockley, he claimed he would attend my granddaughter’s wedding in four days, and yet two days later”—she paused to catch a wheezing breath— “sets off on a voyage without his new wife. And never comes back.” She glared at Victoria with watery blue eyes gleaming with satisfaction.
    She’d said exactly what had been on everyone’s mind.
    Victoria made what she hoped was a sad smile. “Yes, indeed, it was tragic. He was called away and hardly had the time to say good-bye, and I…well—”
    â€œWe thought at the time Victoria was in no condition ,”Lady Melly interrupted with a properly sad smile of her own, “to go with him.”
    There was a small chorus of sympathetic gasps, and then eyes became rounder and hands began to grasp at and pat Victoria’s, and even a nose or two—the pointiest ones—tinged a bit red on the tips.
    Nothing could have been further from the truth, except that it had been Lady Melly’s baseless hope, but Victoria was delighted to have the conversation rerouted. She glanced surreptitiously at the watch pinned to Lady Thurlington’s dress. It was the only one large enough to read from across the tea table, but it was fastened upside down so the elderly lady could look down and easily read it.
    Half past three. She’d been here only an hour.
    Victoria endured another twenty minutes of sly queries and sympathy coated more thickly than the iced basil cakes before the opportunity for escape presented itself.
    â€œA turn around the park?” she said. “Why, Mr. and Miss Needleton, I should greatly enjoy that.” She was up and out of her seat before her mother could protest.
    Mr. and Miss