Free The Perfect Mistress by Victoria Alexander Page A

ever come up with such a far-fetched idea.”
    “You didn’t.” Hermione huffed. “It’s the truth and something you would have no way of knowing.”
    “That is true, I suppose.” Julia thought for a moment. “However, I have no way of finding out if it’s true, I certainly can’t ask him.”
    “Oh, I don’t think he knows.”
    “Then how am I to know if this is indeed a fact and not something my sleeping mind has concocted?”
    “You are a clever woman, my dear. I’m sure you will think of a way.” Hermione slipped off the bed. “And then you will have to accept that I am precisely what I say I am.”
    Julia sighed. “I suppose I will. Although …” She shook her head. “The dreams of you were bad enough. The very idea that my great-grandmother’s ghost would be here, in the flesh—”
    “Not exactly,” Hermione murmured.
    “—speaking with me as if she were alive, revealing secrets—it’s hard to believe.”
    “No, dear. What is hard to believe is the time Lord Albemarle and Lady Ed—”
    “Enough!” Julia huffed. “I do not want to hear another scandalous story about people who are long dead and best forgotten.”
    “I’ll tell them you said so,” Hermione said in a wry tone.
    Julia groaned.
    “Try to remember, child, that while the dead do not mind being thought of as dead, we do hate to think we’ve been forgotten.”
    “
You
will never be forgotten.”
    “You are a dear girl and most thoughtful.” Hermione cast her a brilliant smile. “Now, go back to sleep or else you shall have nasty bags under your eyes in the morning and will not look anywhere near your best. You should always endeavor to look your best, you know. One never knows who one might run into unexpectedly.”
    “I am asleep,” Julia said firmly.
    “I shall return when you are prepared to accept the reality of my existence.”
    “I can scarcely wait.” Julia sighed and lay back down, pulling her covers up around her. She refused to look to see if Hermione was still standing by the bed. Not that it mattered. Her great-grandmother was not a ghost but simply part of a dream. As for this secret she had revealed about Lord Mountdale, it couldn’t possibly be true and was nothing more than the deepest recesses of Julia’s mind dwelling on what might take his lordship down a peg.
    Still, as she drifted deeper into sleep, the thought lingered that if the secret were true then Hermione was indeed a ghost and Julia’s problems might well be just beginning.
     

    … and needless to say he swore me to secrecy.
    It is always beneficial to know those secrets a gentleman does not want revealed. Not that I would ever encourage use of secrets in an untoward manner. Blackmail and the like are never acceptable unless one has no other recourse and there is something of great importance at stake. But the very fact that a gentleman, or anyone, has trusted you with that which they hold most precious is a gift that should not be valued lightly.
    Now, however, he is long in his grave and I do not consider his secret to be as devastating as it is amusing. Dear Reader, you can well imagine my surprise when he appeared in what can only be called …
    from
The Perfect Mistress,

the Memoirs of Lady Hermione Middlebury

Chapter Five
    Julia loved this time of year. The leaves were beginning to turn and there was the faintest hint in the air of the crisp days to come.
    It was a scant hour and a half by train to the village where Julia’s grandmother resided and no more than a ten-minute walk from the station to her grandmother’s cottage. The village was decidedly picturesque with aged buildings, brick or timbered. She strolled past the parish church and well-tended church graveyard. It was easy to see why her grandmother loved it here. After the busy streets of London, the single road that wound through the village was quiet and tranquil. It was at this point in her walk, where the cottage first came into view, that Julia inevitably