The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark Read Online Free

put her hands to her flushed cheeks and took in another deep breath. “I don’t think I could concentrate on anything else today. Do you think the other ladies would mind if I—”
    “Stayed here?” Julia smiled. “My dear, I insist upon it. We’re going to be discussing the new pulpit—nothing terribly urgent. Go upstairs and get some more rest.”
    Years of feeling responsible for setting a good example as the vicar’s daughter, however, were not easily suppressed. “But what will you tell them?”
    “I’ll simply inform anyone who asks that you weren’t able to come.” Patting her shoulder, Julia said, “Today is a milestone for you, Elizabeth. Stay home and make plans for your baby.”

Chapter 2
     
    Fiona Clay stepped back from the dressing table in the apartment over the Larkspur ’s stables to adjust the angle of the leghorn Spanish hat over her coal black ringlets. Her cashmere gown flowed gracefully over the curves of her petite figure like water over a stone, and its shades of mauve and violet made her eyes seem the color of ripe mulberries. From her ears dangled a pair of onyx earrings set in gold, and at her throat hung a matching pendant. She was still self-conscious about going anywhere in Gresham decked in such finery, but because her husband, Ambrose, insisted upon pampering her, finery was all she owned. In London she had no qualms about wearing them, for there she was known only as the wife of actor Ambrose Clay. But there were few people in Gresham who did not remember when she was the Larkspur ’s housekeeper.
    Not that anyone had ever been less than gracious to her. But she couldn’t help but wonder if people outside her immediate circle of friends thought she was putting on airs. And it’s your own pride that makes you even wonder! she scolded herself silently, crossing the bedroom to the window that looked out over the carriage drive. Mr. Herrick, caretaker of the Larkspur , was hitching Donny and Pete to the landau to deliver her, Mrs. Durwin, and Mrs. Latrell to the meeting of the Women’s Charity Society. Pride and self-absorption , she sighed. For who but a prideful woman would assume others had nothing better to do than think critical thoughts about her?
    She pulled on a pair of white gloves, took her velvet reticule from the foot of her bed, and walked into the parlor. Ambrose sat at a window, still in his velvet dressing gown, staring at the view opposite from the one she had surveyed. In the near distance the Anwyl rose abruptly—boasting its five hundred feet of red sandstone, green grasses, wildflowers, footpaths, and tenacious trees—crowned by the ruins of a second-century Roman fort. From the faint droop of her husband’s posture, Fiona could tell that the dark mood was still upon him. She walked closer and touched one shoulder.
    “Fiona…” he said, as if startled out of a daydream. He turned to look at her, the pallor of his aristocratic face lightening just a bit. “You’re so beautiful.”
    Fiona smiled and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “I don’t have to go, Ambrose,” she said in her soft Irish brogue.
    “Oh, but I wish you would.” Raising his hand to cover hers upon his right shoulder, he said, “It’ll be good for you to be involved with something other than nursemaiding me.”
    “Nursemaiding you, Ambrose? That’s not what I do, and you know it. If anything, you’ve been the one to take care of me.”
    “A responsibility I do not take lightly,” he teased.
    It was so encouraging when Ambrose could find his sense of humor even when in the grip of despondency. Coming home to the Larkspur four days ago had been the wise thing to do. He had finished the twenty-month run of The Barrister at the Prince of Wales Theatre with the usual glowing reviews. But in the latter months of the performance, his vacillating moods, coupled with the demands of the stage, had proved so taxing upon his strength that taking up another role immediately afterward