Free A Reckless Beauty by Kasey Michaels

commandeered to ride along, unfurled Lucie’s and held it over her head. “Are you going to make me order the roof put up? Oh, stars, I hope not. Nobody’s seen my new bonnet as yet, you know.” She frowned. “I don’t know that I should have let you have that one. I do like those cherries. Perhaps even more than my silk roses. I’m just so glad William’s gone six months now and I can wear my lavenders, too. Black is so boring, although I will say I do believe it flatters me.”
    Fanny smiled and nodded, and Lucie kept on talking, when she wasn’t waving at passersby and then making quiet comments to Fanny. “Did you see her cane? My stars, does she think wrapping it in satin ribbon will make anyone forget she’s older than dirt? Oh, look, isn’t that the Marquess of Daventry? Yes, yes, it is! And doesn’t he look marvelous in his uniform? So handsome. Yoo-hoo—Banning!”
    “I don’t think he heard you, Lucie,” Fanny said, biting on the insides of her cheeks, as the man had most definitely heard Lady Whalley, and seen her, but he’d then made a quick business out of stepping into a nearby shop rather than speak to her. She could be wrong in her conclusion, but she was fairly certain that fine London gentlemen did not make it a habit of frequenting corsetiers. Lady Whalley could talk the ears off a donkey, and if she, Fanny, saw a handy corset-makers shop, she might duck into it, too, poor man.
    “Well, that is too bad. He’s single, you know, and quite wealthy. Although cut much in the same pattern as Valentine, so he most probably would feel the need to throttle me within days of the wedding. Oh, well,” Lucie said, sighing, “there are so many other lovely men to choose from. Valentine says I should be on the lookout for a deaf one, but he was just being facetious….”
    Fanny bit the insides of her cheeks once more, nodded, and then pretended a great interest in her surroundings as Lucie prattled on and on about nothing.
    Not that she had to feign interest for long, for Brussels was quite the largest city she’d ever seen, and full of things to look at, admire. Several times she saw scarlet-jacketed soldiers traveling in groups down the flagway, but none of them walked with that certain elegance and grace that came so naturally to Rian.
    It was only when the carriage left the city for a smooth path that ran along through greener-than-green grass that Fanny began to despair of finding her brother, for the fields seemed to have grown full regiments of scarlet-jacketed soldiers. They were everywhere, some marching in close formation, others sitting in groups, cleaning their weapons, others cooking over small fires.
    “Oh, wait,” she said at last. “There, just at the crest of that hill, all those large tents. That must be the Duke’s headquarters, don’t you think?”
    Lucie sat up straight and squinted into the sun. “Yes, I would suppose Wellington could be there. See the flags? Everything looks so…regimental. Do you think your brother is with him? He’d make a lovely excuse to get down and stroll about a bit, don’t you think? Unless you think the sight of a widow in her mourning, even her half-mourning, would perhaps be seen as a bad omen? You know, it would have been ever so much better if William had died in battle rather than by simply falling off his horse and cracking his head in the gutter, because then I’d be welcomed as the widow of a hero. That was so inconsiderate of him. But, then, that was William all over, and never a thought for me.”
    Fanny opened her mouth to say something, but then realized that, as with so many of Lucie’s statements, there was just no proper way to comment, to answer. “There—I see Jupiter. Rian has to be here. Please tell your coachman to stop.”
    “Jupiter? But isn’t that a—Oh, my stars, you don’t mean a planet, do you? And not some ancient God, either, I’d imagine.”
    “Lucie, please? ” Fanny said as the carriage moved on