Read 108. An Archangel Called Ivan for Free Online

to her and, of course, propose marriage.
    When they reached the house, she said to her aunt,
    “I have a headache. I think it’s because it is so hot, so I am going up to my room to rest.”
    “That is a good idea,” her aunt replied, “and I am going to rest in mine. Don’t forget that you have to look particularly beautiful tonight.”
    “Why particularly?” Arliva asked.
    There was a moment’s pause, then her aunt said,
    “Because there will be so many people expecting you to shine and I am sure that is what you will do.”
    Arliva knew that she was still thinking about what the Countess had said to her.
    There was no doubt that she had persuaded her aunt that marriage to the Earl would be a course that would really be to her advantage.
    ‘I don’t want to marry the Earl. In fact I don’t want to marry anyone,’ Arliva told herself when she was alone in her room. ‘If I do find people who love me for myself, then I will be proud to be their friends, perhaps even to marry a man who is not interested in my money.’
    But she knew that as long as she remained the rich daughter of Lord Ashdown, it would be just impossible for anyone not to think of her money rather than herself.
    ‘It’s a curse, rather than something creditable,’ she said bitterly to herself as she closed her bedroom door.
    Then she locked it and began to pack the case she would take with her when she went to Wilson Hall as a Governess.
    She packed all the items she wanted which seemed to her more than most Governesses would possess.
    Then, locking up the case, she hid it in the dressing room that contained most of her clothes.
    She felt that they looked at her almost reproachfully knowing that, although she had bought and paid for them, she would not be wearing them as long as she was so far away from London.
    Then she sat down at the writing table in her room.
    She wrote a letter to her aunt in which she said that she had been asked away to stay with some of her friends in the country.
    She would be away for a week or so, but they were not to worry about her as she felt that she must have a rest from all the exhausting activities of the Season.
    It was a very affectionate letter and she thought that because her aunt was not a very bright or clever woman, she would accept the situation as it was and not make a fuss but wait for Arliva to return.
    She lay on her bed wondering if she was mad in what she was doing.
    Perhaps she should stay and do what everyone else expected of her and that was to enjoy the Season to the full.
    Yet her father had followed his instinct in going abroad when people least expected it.
    He had visited countries where he was entranced by what he had found, which invariably turned to gold in his hands, although no one had managed to do it before.
    She was the same.
    She had to seek out challenges for herself.
    She had to find an answer to the question that was growing in her mind more and more day by day.
    It was not a question of whether anyone liked her for herself or for what she owned.
    ‘I want to be me ,” she reflected. “I want to be a person just like other people who have just enough money to live on, but not enough to throw about or envelop me with a golden halo.”
    She sat thinking it all over, vividly conscious of her case already packed, until it was time to dress for dinner.
    Her lady’s maid accompanied by two housemaids brought in her bath and she had it in front of the fireplace, although it was far too hot to need a fire.
    Then she put on one of her most spectacular gowns that had come from Paris.
    She knew that it would undoubtedly make her the belle of the ball this evening even without her mother’s diamond necklace. And there were two diamond stars arranged in her hair.
    ‘As this is my farewell’, she thought to herself with a smile, ‘I will give them something to talk about.’
    As she went down the stairs, she knew that her aunt looked at her appreciatively.
    When she arrived at the