Free Cheryl Holt by Love Lessons Page B

stew over the carnal information she’d just received, but departure would have been the height of rudeness.
    She snagged the small sofa in the corner, hoping no one would join her, but to her dismay, her sister-in-law made a beeline in her direction. In Abigail’s distraught state, she couldn’t tolerate Margaret’s blathering.
    “I think supper was a success,” Margaret declared as she worked at adjusting her full skirts until she was able to perch serenely.
    “ ’T was delicious,” Abigail lied. She was so befuddled that she couldn’t have said what was served. Vaguely, she recalled drinking some wine, and it was gurgling and fermenting in her empty stomach.
    “I just heard the most exciting news.” Margaret leaned in. “I had to share it with you right away.”
    “What is it?” Abigail was almost alarmed by the zealous gleam in Margaret’s eye.
    “The Earl of Spencer is going to marry again.”
    Abigail’s entire body went rigid. The earl was James Stevens’s father. The mention of the man, coming so soon after her assignation with his illegitimate son, panicked her. For a frantic instant, all sorts of alien impressions swirled through her, causing her to worry crazily that the earl’s appearance at Margaret’s soiree would unmask her bizarre scheme. With determined effort, she pushed the errant concern aside. There was no way anyone could discern how she’d passed the afternoon, and she simply had to get a grip on her careening sensibilities.
    Searching for calm and steadying her breathing, she gradually realized that she didn’t understand the significance of Margaret’s pronouncement that the earl might wed. She asked, “So?”
    “He would be perfect for Caroline.”
    Abigail had never met Edward Stevens, but she knew quite a lot about him. He was a widower who had just completed a year of mourning for his late wife. Three decades earlier, he had sired two bastard sons with the actress Angela Ford, plus he had four grown, legitimate children. While she wasn’t certain of his age, she assumed it to be somewhere in his mid-fifties. “Honestly, Margaret,” she chided, “what would make you even conceive of such a match?”
    Margaret glared at her as though she were an idiot. “Rank and fortune, of course.”
    “Of course,” Abigail murmured, biting her tongue against numerous rude retorts. “But Caroline is only seventeen.”
    “An older man might be just what she requires.” Margaret’s gaze roamed across the room to where Caroline chatted merrily with several friends, and Abigail fought the urge to gnash her teeth. Margaret had always predicted that Caroline was too pretty, too lively, too uninhibited.
    “She’ll do fine with someone her own age,” Abigail insisted. “Besides, I can’t fathom that a widower would be interested in a girl who’s young enough to be his granddaughter.”
    “Older gentlemen like youthful wives. They find them more biddable. More easily trained.”
    “For pity’s sake, Margaret!” Abigail snarled. “You talk about Caroline as if she’s a pet dog.” A waiter strolled by offering wine, and anxious for something to do with her fingers lest she wrap them around Margaret’s throat, Abigail grabbed a glass.
    Undeterred by Abigail’s sharp tone, Margaret said, “Girls have many wifely duties to learn, and someone as . . .”—she paused, seeking the appropriate word, and Abigail tensed, waiting—“as
vivacious
as Caroline could definitely benefit from the firmer hand a more mature husband would provide.”
    “Caroline will secure an excellent husband. Don’t fret over her.” But she made a mental note to speak with Jerald as soon as she had the chance. Although it was out of his character and terribly modern, she had gotten him to acquiesce that Caroline would be consulted over any proposal, and that she could turn down those suitors who didn’t interest her. With the kind of determination only a seventeen-year-old girl can exhibit, Caroline