The Bridgertons Happily Ever After - By Julia Quinn Page 0,41

to wonder if there might be something wrong with her.)

“Tomorrow,” Mrs. Brougham said delightedly. She clapped her hands together and beamed. “I shall send him over tomorrow afternoon. Will that do?”

Again, I could say nothing but yes, and so I did, wondering what exactly I had just consented to.

The following afternoon I was dressed in my best riding habit and was lolling about the drawing room, wondering if the mysterious Charles Brougham would actually make an appearance. If he didn’t, I thought, he’d be entirely within his rights. It would be rude, of course, as he was breaking a commitment made on his behalf by his aunt, but all the same, it wasn’t as if he’d asked to be saddled with the local gentry.

Pun unintended.

My mother had not even tried to deny that she was playing matchmaker. This surprised me; I would have thought she’d put up at least a feeble protest. But instead she reminded me that I had refused a season in London and then began to expound upon the lack of appropriately aged, eligible gentlemen here in our corner of Gloucestershire.

I reminded her that she had not found her husband in London.

She then said something that began with “Be that as it may” and then veered off so quickly and with such twists and turns that I could not follow a thing she said.

Which I am fairly certain was her intention.

My mother wasn’t precisely upset that I had said no to a season; she was rather fond of our life in the country, and heaven knows my father would not survive in town for more than a week. Mother called me unkind for saying so, but I believe that she secretly agreed with me—Father would get distracted by a plant in the park, and we’d never find him again. (He’s a bit distractable, my father.)

Or, and I confess this is more likely, he would say something utterly inappropriate at a party. Unlike my mother, my father does not have the gift of polite conversation, and he certainly does not see the need for double entendre or cunning twists of phrase. As far as he is concerned, a body ought to say what a body means.

I do love my father, but it is clear that he should be kept away from town.

I could have had a season in London, if I wished. My mother’s family is extremely well connected. Her brother is a viscount, and her sisters married a duke, an earl, and a baron. I should be admitted to all of the most exclusive gatherings. But I really didn’t wish to go. I should have no freedom whatsoever. Here I may take walks or go for a ride by myself so long as I tell someone where I am going. In London a young lady may not so much as touch her toe to her front steps without a chaperone.

I think it sounds dreadful.

But back to my mother. She did not mind that I had refused the season because this meant that she would not have to be apart from my father for several months. (Since, as we have determined, he would have to be left at home.) But at the same time, she was genuinely concerned for my future. To that end, she had launched into a bit of a crusade. If I would not go to the eligible gentlemen, she would bring them to me.

Hence Charles Brougham.

At two o’clock he had still not arrived, and I must confess, I was growing irritable. It was a hot day, or at least as hot as it gets in Gloucestershire, and my dark green habit, which had felt so stylish and jaunty when I had donned it, was beginning to itch.

I was beginning to wilt.

Somehow my mother and Mrs. Brougham had forgotten to set a time for the nephew’s arrival, so I had been obligated to be dressed and ready at noon precisely.

“What time would you say marks the end of the afternoon?” I asked, fanning myself with a folded-up newspaper.

“Hmmm?” My mother was writing a letter—presumably to one of her many siblings—and wasn’t really listening. She looked quite lovely sitting there by the window. I have no idea what my original mother would have looked like as an older woman, since she did not deign to live that long, but Eloise had not lost any of her beauty. Her hair was still a rich, chestnut color and her skin unlined. Her eyes are difficult to describe—rather changeable