Read A Matter of Class for Free Online Page B

each other? We will leave them alone. Mrs. Mason, do come into the music room. I will have tea fetched there.”
    And she swept across the room and opened a door that led to a connecting room—the music room, obviously. Reggie glimpsed a large pianoforte in there and his mother exclaimed over its size. The two older men followed, one behind the other. The earl was the last through the door. Reggie waited for it to shut.
    He waited in vain. It closed, but only halfway.
    Privacy, it seemed, was to be illusory.
    There was no sound of conversation from beyond the door. They had probably all pulled up chairs to listen. And also to watch? It was impossible to tell.
    He turned his head to look at Lady Annabelle. She was also looking at the door—and then at him. Their eyes locked and held.
    He raised his eyebrows. She raised hers. She was far better at it than he. Her eyebrows had been born ar istocratic.

    â€œWell,” he said.
    â€œWell,” she replied.

    M r. Bernard Mason was huge. His head was as round as a large ball and almost as bald. It had glistened in the sunlight that was streaming through the drawing room windows. He had an amiable, almost jovial face. He spoke with a broad north country accent.
    Mrs. Mason was plump and pretty. She seemed placid and good-natured. She spoke with the same accent.
    Both were talkative. Both were absolutely appalling in her father’s eyes. Annabelle had been able to see that. The fact that he was beholden to them, that he must marry her, his only daughter, to their son, must be the stuff of nightmares to him.
    But he was not the one who was going to have to marry Mr. Reginald Mason.
    Annabelle liked his parents. She always had. Not that she had been allowed to have any dealings whatsoever with them, but she had not been able to help hearing Mr. Mason’s booming voice when he talked with the vicar after church, or his loud laugh when he
exchanged pleasantries with fellow parishioners. And once, when she and her mama had taken a basket of food to a sick villager, sitting in their carriage until their coachman had delivered the offering and the woman of the house had come out to make her curtsy and shower them with thanks, the woman had remarked that Mrs. Mason had called earlier and had sat talking with the sick person for all of half an hour. Annabelle had wished that they had done that. It sounded like fun. It sounded compassionate.
    Their son was a different matter altogether. Although he bore a faint resemblance to his mother, it was really so faint as to be virtually nonexistent. He was dark-haired and tall and slender, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist and hips, and long, well-muscled legs. He was immaculately tailored and elegant. He spoke with the refined accent of a gentleman. And his face, faultlessly handsome, was set in an expression that seemed halfway between amusement and contempt.
    How dare he!
    â€œIt would seem,” he said when it became obvious to both of them that the door between the drawing room and the music room was not going to be shut, “that our
fathers between them have arranged our marriage, Lady Annabelle.”
    He did not bother to lower his voice or disguise the fact that the idea had not been his.
    â€œYes,” she said, gazing at him disdainfully. If he was going to look at her that way, then she was going to look back at him this way.
    â€œAnd yet,” he said, “only a week ago you were so determined to marry someone else that you ran off with him. Your father’s coachman, I understand.”
    She pressed her lips together and glared at him. Her eyes narrowed. Oh, he was going to play games with her, was he?
    â€œWhat was his name?” he asked.
    â€œThomas Till,” she said. “I would guess it still is his name.”
    â€œTill?” His mouth quirked at one corner. “You would have enjoyed being Mrs. Annabelle Till ?”
    â€œFar more than I will enjoy being Mrs. Annabelle