Free Slightly Wicked by Mary Balogh

Rannulf said, “wives are not supposed to question how their husbands spend their money, are they?”
    “Not so long as it is spent on them.” The woman laughed heartily and disappeared with the dishes.
    “I cannot let you—” Claire began.
    He leaned across the table and set a hand over hers. “It is altogether possible,” he said, “that every hat in the shop is an abomination. But we will go and see. I want to buy you a gift. There is no question of your having earned it. A gift is simply a gift.”
    “But I do not have enough money with me to buy you one,” she said.
    He raised one eyebrow and got to his feet. She was a proud woman indeed. She would drive a large number of potential protectors to madness if she were ever to descend upon any of the green rooms in London.
             
    A ll of the bonnets on display at the milliner’s shop were indeed abominations. But any hope Judith had entertained about avoiding the embarrassment of having a gift bought for her was dashed when Miss Norton disappeared into the back of the shop and came out with another bonnet lifted on the back of her hand.
    “This,” she said with an assessing glance at Ralph, “I have been keeping for a special customer.”
    Judith fell in love with it on sight. It was a straw bonnet with a small brim and russet ribbons. About the upper side of the brim, where it joined the rest of the bonnet, was a band of silk flowers in the rich colors of autumn. It was not a fussy bonnet, nevertheless. Its simplicity was its main appeal.
    “It suits madam’s coloring,” Miss Norton observed.
    “Try it on,” Ralph said.
    “Oh, but—”
    “Try it on.”
    She did so, helped by the fluttering hands of Miss Norton, who tied the wide ribbons for her to the left side of her chin and then produced a hand mirror so that Judith could see herself.
    Ah, it was so very pretty. She could see her hair beneath it, both at the front and at the back. Every bonnet she had ever owned had been deliberately chosen by Mama—though with her full acquiescence—to hide as much of her carroty hair as possible.
    “We will take it,” Ralph said.
    “Oh, but—” She whirled around to face him.
    “You will not regret it, sir,” Miss Norton said. “It complements madam’s beauty to perfection.”
    “It does,” he agreed, taking a fat-looking purse out of a pocket inside his cloak. “We will take it. She will wear it.”
    Judith swallowed awkwardly. A lady was simply not permitted to accept a gift from a gentleman who was not her betrothed. And even then . . .
    How absurd! How utterly absurd after last night to be thinking of what a lady would do. And the bonnet was prettier than anything she had owned before in her life.
    “Thank you,” she said and then noticed just how many bills he was handing to Miss Norton. Judith closed her eyes, appalled, and then felt all the contradictory pleasure of being the owner of something new and expensive and lovely.
    “Thank you,” she said again as they left the shop and he hoisted over their heads the large, ancient black umbrella the landlord had insisted upon lending them for their sortie across the rather boggy green between the inn and the shops. “It is terribly pretty.”
    “Though quite overshadowed by its wearer,” he said. “Shall we see what the general shop has to offer?”
    It had a little bit of almost everything to offer, most of the wares cheap and garish and in execrable taste. But they looked at everything, their heads bent together, stifling their laughter at a few of the more hideous items. Then the shopkeeper engaged Rannulf in a discussion of the weather, which was beginning to clear up at last. The sun would be shining by the morning, the shopkeeper predicted.
    Judith took her purse out of her reticule and hastily counted up her coins. Yes, there was just enough. She would have to hope that the stagecoach tomorrow would get her to her aunt’s without any more delays, for there would be