Free The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy by Elizabeth Aston

cousin. Why did women think they had the right to say whatever they liked on such matters? “You do not know what you are talking of,” he said coldly.
    â€œBut indeed I do, and it is what everyone is talking of, and so you owe it to your family to hold your temper and show the world that you do not give a button for Emily, and that you have other amorous interests to amuse you.”
    â€œYour levity and impertinence grow every time I see you,” he said crossly.
    Eliza’s withers were quite unwrung. “How ungallant of you to make such a remark; why, you are a perfect bear. Come to my party tonight, I can promise you a bevy of pretty girls and beautiful women.”
    He had gone, and had found she had spoken the truth. Pretty they were, indeed, and with some beauties among them, but they left him cold. He hadn’t loved Emily for her beauty, although she had always been a well-looking and elegant woman, but for her humour and warmth and kindness.
    The gaiety of the scene, the sparkling eyes and deliciously displayed bosoms, the inviting glances, the ripples of laughter, the perfumes lingering on the air—all this served only to enhance his mood of bleakness. The close presence of so many desirable women aroused his ardour, but the sensations brought him no sense of power or happiness. He could spend a night with any one of them and forget her the next morning. The emptiness in his life was for a different kind of woman, one who filled more than a hollow in the bed and an itch in the loins.
    He made his excuses and left early. It was a warm evening, he would walk back to the Rue du Pélican, where Bootle would be waiting up to whisk away his evening clothes. He was in no hurry to get back to that nagging voice, and he wandered to and fro across the bridges of Paris, looking now into the murky depths of the swiftly flowing Seine, now across to the twinkling lights on each bank.
    The city was alive and alert, and a more attractive place to his mind now that darkness had fallen, like an ugly whore who took on once again the lineaments of her youthful attractiveness in the soft light of dusk and candles.
    He had just decided to return to the Right Bank across the Pont Royal when he heard a cry of alarm, a scuffle, and the sound of running feet. The next minute a figure came pelting round the corner of an insalubrious street and ran straight into him.
    The apologies were made first and instinctively in English, then, as the slight figure regained his balance, he switched to French.
    â€œEnglish will do,” Titus said in that tongue. “What’s amiss? Were you set upon? You were a fool to go into such a street.” It was obvious that this was a very young man, no doubt visiting Paris with his father or a tutor; he was well spoken and seemed gently bred.
    â€œI took a wrong turn and was lost in a maze of streets. Thank you, sir. My apologies for running into you, but the presence of another person has scared my pursuer off.”
    â€œWhy are you alone? Paris is a dangerous place after dark, or indeed, in those streets, at any time.”
    They had moved into a pool of light flooding out from an eating place. Titus was struck by the youthful good looks, the soaring, well-defined eyebrows and the generous mouth. The face looked familiar; who was this handsome boy?
    He caught himself up, shocked. That had never been his inclination, not even in his schooldays; not through lack of adventurousness or curiosity, but because his attention had early been drawn to the attractions of the fairer sex. Then it came to him. Christ, this was no well-bred young Englishman out a-whoring on his first trip abroad, as he had thought. It was a girl, dressed in men’s clothes, doubtless out touting for those clients whose tastes lay that way.
    To think that she had deceived him for even a moment, he must pull himself together. A good-looking girl, and young, it seemed a pity that she should have