Free A Precious Jewel by Mary Balogh

Priscilla had looked several times from the window and sighed. She had taken Miriam with her that morning for a short walk, but the girl had complained almost every step of the way about her bunions. Priscilla had not thought to ask when she interviewed her new maid whether or not she had bunions.
    But there was no point in fretting. Her promise had been given the evening before, and she knew she must not set even one toe outside the door. She smiled to herself.
    It had not been funny at the time, of course, particularly when Gerald had made that nasty remark about her being tumbled one more time. She was notnormally of a volatile temper, but she had wanted for one horrified moment to smack his head right off his shoulders.
    Their evening together had never quite resumed its normal course. When they had retired to bed, he had taken her far more quickly and fiercely than usual and had not fallen immediately asleep, but had rolled to her side and lain staring up at the canopy above their heads.
    Only one thing had been as usual. He had spoken of leaving, of his obligation to join friends at White’s. And yet he had stayed to make love to her in a far more characteristic manner and to sleep until there was a suggestion of dawn in the sky.
    Priscilla returned her attention to
Robinson Crusoe
when she found herself wondering yet again about the young lady who had been in the barouche with him the afternoon before. He had referred to her as a chit. Would he have called a fiancée or someone of whom he was fond a chit? She shook her head and began reading.
    But no sooner had she become absorbed in the story than there was a knock on the door of her workroom and Miriam was informing her that Sir Gerald Stapleton was awaiting her in the parlor downstairs.
    Priscilla jumped to her feet, closed her book, and hurried to the mirror in her bedchamber. She was not expecting him. He had not said that he would come.She was not dressed for him. She hurried downstairs, anyway.
    “Gerald,” she said, moving quickly into the parlor when Mr. Prendergast had opened the door for her, “I am so sorry I was not here to receive you. What a pleasant surprise.”
    He took her outstretched hands and squeezed them. “I came to see if there were any toes peeping over the doorstep,” he said.
    She laughed. “Were you really checking up on me?” she asked. “You do not trust me to keep to my word, Gerald?”
    “I told you that if you wanted to walk in the park I would take you,” he said. “It is a lovely day again. I have come to take you to Kew.”
    “To Kew Gardens?” she said, her eyes widening. “You are going to take me there, Gerald?”
    “That is the general idea,” he said. “You had better run and fetch your bonnet. The straw one you were wearing yesterday, if you will.”
    She smiled before turning away in order to run up the stairs two at a time while Mr. Prendergast in the hallway below looked disapprovingly after her. Her father had always called her as pretty as a picture in that bonnet.
    She was going to Kew. He was taking her to Kew, she told her smiling reflection in the mirror as she tied the strings of her bonnet at a jaunty angle to one side of her chin.
    “To the botanical gardens?” she asked him when they were bowling along in his curricle.
    “You said you like to see nature,” he said. “I am going to show you nature, Priss.”
    “I have never been,” she said. “In fact, I have not been to many places in London at all. I went straight to Miss Blythe’s when I came here.”
    He looked at her sidelong and said nothing. And she felt herself flush. She had never told him or any other man in London anything at all about herself. She did not want to do so. She was content to be Prissy to those men, even to Gerald. If she said nothing to anyone, she could more carefully guard Priscilla Wentworth in the privacy of her own heart. She could the more surely preserve her identity.
    “There is a pagoda there?” she