The Marriage Trap Read Online Free Page B

now.
    How had it come to this? Why was she eking out a living as a companion to one of the silliest women in Christendom? Why was she forever bailing Robbie out of one scrape after another? This wasn't the kind of life she had imagined for herself when her parents were alive.
    An image of her mother came to mind—Mama with her long russet hair, loose upon her shoulders, as she tucked her in for the night. Mama, practical and down-to-earth, relieving Papa of every household responsibility so he could devote himself to scholarship and the needs of his parish.
The Lord will provide
was the rule he lived by.
    Mama was more worldly.
The Lord helps them that help themselves,
she used to say, and she lived what she preached. She had a little business on the side to earn money for the extras that a vicar's stipend did not cover. From her own herb garden, Mama found the ingredients to make lotions and potions, which she sold to the ladies of the county far and wide. Papa knew about the lotions and potions and treated them with amused tolerance. What he did not know about was the exorbitant profit Mama made on each little bottle.
    There was no doubt that she took after her mother.
    Swallowing hard, she got up and went to the window to look out. It was foolish to look back. The present was what mattered and this was the present, here in this room, at the Hotel Breteuil. Outside her window was the rue de Rivoli, as busy as Piccadilly on a Friday night. Streetlamps were lit and carriages were coming and going, rattling over cobblestones. In spite of the frigid temperatures, pedestrians were sauntering along the pavement as they went their various ways. The hotel was in the hub of Parisian life, or so it seemed to her. The Tuileries, the Louvre, and the Palais Royal were only a five-minute walk away.
    The Palais Royal, that was her present.
    She was going to the Palais Royal, that well-known nest of immorality, to honor a deathbed promise she had made to her mother—she would look after her younger brother and see that no harm came to him. It was no hardship. Robbie was the apple of her eye, but that did not mean she was blind to his faults or that he would escape the sharp edge of her tongue when she met up with him. He wasn't supposed to be in Paris. He should have been in Oxford studying, having failed an important examination. And tomorrow or the next day, when his debts were paid, she would see him off personally, with suitable threats of retribution if he should fail her again.
    Until the next time.
    She let out a long sigh. She supposed that Robbie was no worse and no better than young men the world over.
    She looked at the clock. There was an hour to go before Robbie's friend, Milton, came to fetch her. That gave her plenty of time to get ready. Robbie, of course, dared not show his face in public because his creditors were after him.
    Creditors.
That was a polite way of saying that the thugs who worked for the moneylender who had loaned Robbie the money to pay off his debts were demanding their pound of flesh.
    After stripping off her gloves and throwing off the hated lace cap, she removed the pins that held up her long russet hair and let it fall to her shoulders. The next thing to go was the unflattering crepe dress. When she had tidied everything away, she washed her hands and face in cold water. This small ritual removed every vestige of the powder she used to make herself look older and wiser and eminently suitable as companion to a young girl.
    Invisible, in fact.
    Before she could wallow in self-pity, she went to the closet and removed the gown she had pressed earlier. It was an ivory silk that was so fine she could have squeezed it into a ball and stuffed it in her pocket. It was so fine that she gentled her hands as she draped it over a chair. This done, she took a step back and studied the gown critically.
    The trouble with fashionable gowns was that they were never in fashion for more than one season. Over time, she'd