Free Joan Wolf by His Lordship's Mistress

twice?”
    “Once or twice?” he almost shouted. “You have nagged me mercilessly for the last three years! There isn’t a girl who has crossed the threshold of Almack’s that you haven’t ruthlessly thrust upon me at one time or another. If you keep it up I won’t ever marry, just to spite you.”
    “You’re spoiled rotten, that’s the problem,” snapped his loving sister. “You’ve always been the apple of mother’s eye. And becoming Earl of Linton at age seventeen was bad for your character.”
    “Being born ten years before me was bad for your character,” he answered between his teeth.“It turned you into a bully.”
    She stared at his set face for a moment and then her lips began to quiver. “What a terrible thing to say to me,” she said in a shaking voice. “I am not a bully.”
    Linton could never bear the sight of a woman or a child in tears. “Stop it, Maria,” he said irritably and then, as she began to cry in earnest, he went across the room and put his arm around her. “I am sorry,” he said resignedly, patting her shoulder. “You are not a bully and I will be nice to Lady Caroline.”
    “Th-thank you, Philip,” she said, wiping her beautiful green eyes. “And I promise not to nag you. I—I miss Matt, you see, and that makes me crabby.”
    He looked at his sister’s bulky figure and real contrition smote him. “I’m a brute,” he said. “Invite as many girls as you want if it will amuse you.”
    “It won’t amuse me if you’re not around to see them,” she sniffed.
    He sighed. “Ria, I have every intention of getting married. I know my duty. But give me the freedom to pick my own wife. Please.”
    Quite suddenly she capitulated. “All right. I promise never to mention the word marriage again— provided you are nice to Lady Caroline.”
    “I have said I would be,” he replied patiently.
    “Fair enough.” She grinned at him mischievously. “I won’t have time for you in a year or so anyway. Annabelle will be making her come out and I shall have to be on the watch for a husband for her.”
    “Heaven help London’s bachelors when you descend on them in earnest,” he said comically, and escaped from the room as she picked up a pillow and made as if to throw it at him.
     

Chapter Ten
     
    Brown is my love, but graceful;
    And each renowned whiteness
    Matched with thy lovely brown
    looseth its brightness.
    — ANONYMOUS
     
    Linton met Lady Caroline when he came down for dinner. The company was to assemble in the blue drawing room and Linton was the first one down. He was standing in front of a painting by Angelica Kauffmann when a young girl came in alone. She stopped when she saw him and he smiled reassuringly. “You must be Lady Caroline. I’m Linton, you know. Do come over to the fire where it is warmer.”
    The girl came toward him, a shy smile on her face. “How do you do, my lord. Mama wasn’t ready yet so I came down by myself.”
    “Quite right,” he replied. “I detest waiting around myself. My sister tells me you and Lady Eastdean arrived yesterday. I trust you have been made comfortable?”
    She flushed a little and replied eagerly, anxious to reassure him that they were very well taken care of. Caroline was indeed a beauty. She reminded him of a winter rose, so fair and delicate with her golden curls and pink and white face. The eyes she raised to his were the same color as his mother’s, dark blue, almost violet. At this moment his sister came into the room, followed by his niece Annabelle. “Uncle Philip!” the girl cried delightedly, and ran across to kiss him.
    “Are you indeed grown-up enough to join us, Belle?” he said, smiling down at her.
    She raised her chin. “I am sixteen—almost.”
    He looked struck. “So you are. And getting prettier every day, if I may say so.”
    She sparkled back at him, a younger more radiant version of her mother. “Of course you may say so,” she assured him, and they laughed at each other, the family