The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right - Softcover

Allain, Suzanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 059354966X ISBN 13: 9780593549667

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

When a young woman trades places with her noble cousin, their innocent ruse leads to true love in this sparkling new Regency-era romantic comedy of manners from the author of Mr. Malcolm’s List.

When Arabella Grant’s wicked aunt dies suddenly, both Arabella and her cousin Lady Isabelle cannot help but feel relieved. She’d made their lives miserable, and now Lady Issie is free to read to her heart’s content, and Bella is free from taunts about her ignoble birth. 

Their newfound freedom is threatened, however, when Issie’s great-aunt commands her to travel to London for a come-out Issie has never wanted. Issie, who is in poor health, is convinced she’ll drop dead like her mother did if she drops into a curtsy before the queen. So when her great-aunt turns out to be nearsighted and can’t tell the noble Lady Isabelle from her commoner cousin Arabella, Issie convinces Bella to take her place. Bella can attend all the exclusive entertainments that her lower birth would typically exclude her from, and Issie can stay in bed, her nose in a book.

Bella agrees to the scheme for her cousin’s sake, but matters turn complicated when she meets the irresistible Lord Brooke. He begins courting her while under the impression she’s the rich and aristocratic Lady Isabelle, who, unlike Bella, is a suitable bride for an eligible young earl. And Bella, who is convinced that she has met “Lord Right,” worries what will happen when she reveals that he’s actually fallen for…the wrong lady.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Suzanne Allain is a screenwriter who lived in New York and Beijing before returning to her hometown of Tallahassee, Florida, where she lives with her husband.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

Lady Strickland considered it exceedingly vulgar for a lady to display any glimpse of her nether limbs in public, or even to make mention of them. So when she suffered a sudden fit and collapsed, she would have been quite pleased (had she been conscious) that her maid ensured she was decently covered before calling for help. When the doctor finally arrived, Lady Strickland had been dead for a good two hours at least. However, those who knew her felt that her features, hardened by death, differed very little from her usual rigid expression while alive, and had great difficulty believing that she was as dead as the proverbial doornail.

Lady Isabelle, who had been gently informed by her cousin Arabella that her mother had had a sudden apoplexy and there was nothing that could have been done to save her, blinked and nodded, before saying: "Is she asking for me? Should I go to her?"

Bella tried again to explain, stating bluntly: "Issie, your mother is dead." And then, feeling that perhaps she'd been too blunt, attempted to soften her pronouncement by saying: "She has gone to her eternal reward."

She felt quite foolish spouting this platitude, as Bella didn't feel her aunt deserved any reward, and since God was said to be omniscient, he had to have known it, as well. But Bella was accustomed to protecting her younger cousin from life's harsh realities, and one didn't have to be a high stickler like Lady Strickland had been to realize it was inappropriate to dance a jig on the occasion of your relation's death, no matter how awfully she might have treated you.

Although Bella had no desire to celebrate. Her aunt's passing seemed such an impossible thing to comprehend that she was having difficulty assimilating it and felt no more than a shocked numbness. She could understand Issie's instinctive refusal to accept that her domineering mother, who had tyrannized Issie for the first eighteen years of her life, had ceased to exist.

It became easier to accept in the coming weeks, after the will had been read and Issie had been named the sole beneficiary of the family estate. Bella had no expectation that her aunt would leave her anything so was not surprised when she was proven correct, though she couldn't help feeling a trifle disappointed. However, she was not totally penniless. Her father, who had been the late Lord Strickland's younger brother, had left her a small bequest when he died. (Although her annual income was less than what the Strickland estate spent on candles each year.)

Bella did derive one financial benefit from Lady Strickland's death: while she was alive her aunt had appropriated Bella's income, claiming it was her due for housing and feeding Bella, which she'd done for more than sixteen years since Bella had come to live with the family when she was three years old. Now that Lady Strickland had died, the family's man of affairs was forwarding Bella's allowance directly to her. So even though Bella did not inherit one penny from her miserly aunt, she suddenly felt very wealthy indeed, as she had pocket money for the first time in her life. Unfortunately, she had no opportunity to spend it, as she and Issie never left the estate.

The girls had been surprised to find that, other than that initial visit from the family attorney, they had been left completely to their own devices. Bella finally concluded that Lady Strickland had never expected to die before Issie was married and so had made no arrangements for that eventuality. After all, before Lady Strickland's sudden death, she and Issie had been actively preparing for Issie's come-out and had been planning to travel to London the following week. Therefore Issie and Bella, just eighteen and nineteen, had no older woman to chaperone them. Nor did they have any desire to point out this oversight. They were much happier to be allowed to make their own decisions without criticism, and rejoiced in their freedom from the myriad rules and restrictions Lady Strickland had imposed on them. This freedom was limited, however, as they were expected to observe strict mourning, and Bella couldn't help feeling that even though Lady Strickland was gone, the conventions that she had insisted upon were continuing to control them.

But a year couldn't last forever, and eleven months after her aunt's death, Bella approached Issie in order to discuss their future. She had no doubts about where she would find her cousin, and when she entered the library-a much cozier room compared to when her aunt was alive-she found Issie curled up on a sofa reading by the light of a candle, exactly where Bella expected her to be.

It was only midmorning but it was a cold, damp, cloudy day in late February, and one indulgence they'd granted themselves since Lady Strickland's passing was the lighting of fires and candles in any room they pleased. And Issie's favorite room was the library. Bella enjoyed reading, too, but not nearly as much as Issie, who had to be reminded to eat and sleep when she was engrossed in a book.

Issie didn't look up when Bella entered the room and, even after Bella cleared her throat, Issie merely gave her an absentminded smile and a nod before retreating once again into her book.

"Issie," Bella said.

"Yes?" she replied, though she wasn't looking at Bella when she did so.

"Issie, give it to me."

This finally got Issie's attention. She pulled the book tight against her chest as if she were its mother and it was an infant that Bella was trying to forcibly wrest from her arms. "Why?"

"I need to talk to you, and I need you to pay attention."

Issie sighed, but obediently handed the book to Bella, though she looked bereft as she did so. Bella, looking more closely at her cousin, was surprised by her unhealthy appearance. As critical and dictatorial as Lady Strickland had been, she was better than Bella at making sure Issie ate, slept, and left the house. In the eleven months since her mother had died, Issie had become a virtual hermit. She hardly ever dressed for dinner, and she and Bella very rarely ate in the dining room, contenting themselves with a tray in their rooms. They never went to church or into the village, or paid or received calls, and Bella at first had been happy about this state of affairs, as she felt that if she and Issie were seen in public without an older female chaperone, one of their officious neighbors might take it upon themselves to contact someone who had the authority to appoint one. But now she felt guilty that she had let her cousin deteriorate to this point, and wondered if having an older female companion would have been such a bad thing, after all. It was highly unlikely that anyone could be as harsh a taskmaster as Lady Strickland.

And Bella acknowledged that, while Lady Strickland had been far too demanding of Issie, Bella had not been demanding enough. Bella knew, more than anyone, how her cousin had suffered under her mother's merciless domination, and so was inclined to give in to Issie too easily, condoning behavior that could not be for her long-term good. Why, Issie had dark circles around her eyes, was white as a sheet, and seemed even thinner than she had been before Lady Strickland's death, and she had been slender then.

Bella felt a sudden surge of sympathy for her poor, rich cousin, and asked very kindly: "Dearest Issie, isn't there anything you would like to do?"

"What do you mean?" Issie asked.

"Our year of mourning will end in a few weeks. Wouldn't you like to go to London? You were on the verge of going when your mother died. Just think, in less than a month it will be permissible for you to attend balls, and musical concerts, and the theatre . . . oh! I envy you prodigiously!" Bella said, in all sincerity. She knew her common birth and lack of fortune made it impossible for her to have her own...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 059354966X
• ISBN 13: 9780593549667
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland