Free The Waltzing Widow/Smith by Joan Smith Page A

that had been heaped on her head but did not like to disturb her. The man was a monster! To put her in the same class as Ronald Pewter—a fortune hunter. And to think she would have that silly twit of a Bigelow, whom she could hardly endure the sight of! To insult her under her own roof, to call her thirty years old, and to laugh so slyly when she let slip she wasn’t married. To put her in a class with Mrs. Lacey, whoever that was! It was infamous.
    She was of half a mind to marry Tony to show Avedon a lesson. And she would go to his sister’s blasted garden party. What a temptation to put on an apron and go as a servant, still hanging on Tony’s arm. It would serve him well. But she would not wear anything so unappealing. Her best garden bonnet, which framed her youthful face to a nicety, was what she would wear, and a flowing gown and a parasol. If the other local ladies were as unattractive as Lady Sara, she would put them all in the shade.
    She had a strong desire to show Lord Avedon it was not only his nephew who found her attractive.
    * * * *
    Lord Avedon had already made the discovery for himself. Mrs. Percy was younger than he thought. Twenty-two she claimed, and there was no point thinking she had lowered her age more than a year, if at all. She was also much too attractive for him to think he could control Tony if it came to a contest between them. A beauty was what the girl was. If he were not aware of her designs, he could fall in love with her himself. Not that he would ever marry such a creature. A strumpet, posing as a widow to curry pity from schoolboys. It was disgusting.
    The war was a boon to her sort. They could claim alliance with some respectable person, dead and unable to defend himself. He’d look into this business of a Captain Percy. Ciudad Rodrigo Sal had mentioned as the place where the husband was supposed to have died. Perhaps if he confronted Tony with proof of her lies, he would see the light. He wondered if she would really attend Sal’s garden party. He certainly did not put it a pace past her. To go setting up a farm on his doorstep to enable herself to remain, after all his work and expense to be rid of her. He had met a manager precariously close to being his own equal, but she wouldn’t get her talons into Bigelow.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    “Lady Sara has got beautiful weather for her garden party,” Lucy said the next morning to her aunt. Lucy stuck by her intention to attend the party but felt her aunt would not go with her if she knew Lord Avedon’s threat. It struck Lucy as better in every way that her aunt not attend, in case of unpleasantness.
    “I forgot all about it!” Mrs. Percy exclaimed in consternation. “Tony has promised to send the Craw-ley boys to me this afternoon to weed out the back garden. I cannot leave them unattended after the shambles they made of the roses.”
    “We dare not leave them alone,” Lucy agreed.
    After a great deal of discussion, her aunt decided she must miss the party. “Be sure to make my excuses to Lady Sara,” she said. “She will understand. It is so difficult to hire anyone, since Lord Avedon has employed every odd-job lad in the neighborhood. I expect he added them to the Canterbury crew to hasten the work,” she said, trying to make sense of it. “I daresay Tony will be happy to escort you, so you need not go alone.”
    Her niece said not a word to enlighten her. Tony used the loan of the Crawley brothers as an excuse to call in person at Rose Cottage that morning. He was delighted to escort Lucy, and after a hint or two from her, he suggested that his mama and Cousin Morton might as well go with them—a family party. No word was mentioned of Lord Avedon’s visit the evening before.
    Avedon was less circumspect in broadcasting his visit to Rose Cottage. He told Lady Sara the whole of it over breakfast. “The brazen hussy refuses to budge an inch. She has got a cow and a batch of hens from the idiot, and says she will see