Read An Introduction to the Pink Collection for Free Online Page B

you.”
    They were certainly two of the happiest people Rena could ever imagine.
    Sometimes she thought they had forgotten her and everything else in the world except that they were together.
    But she realised now that it had left her in limbo. They did almost no entertaining, and since her mother’s death her father had stayed at home except for his duties. She had met almost nobody.
    A curate had stayed with them for a week, and she had sensed that he admired her. Papa had even asked her how she liked him, and reproved her for levity because she had disliked his red hands and wrists, and his habit of sniffing before he spoke.
    But she knew he was glad that she did not want to leave home, and the matter was allowed to drop.
    Despite her restricted experience she was not quite as unworldly as her father believed. Lacking any other companionship Rena and her mother had grown closer and had many long talks.
    She learned that her grandfather Sunninghill had not been a faithful husband. With money to spare, he had indulged himself in the pleasures of the flesh, including mistresses.
    Mrs Colwell had considered long before divulging this to her daughter, but had eventually decided that some worldly knowledge was essential, if the girl was not to be left completely vulnerable.
    And so Rena knew of her grandfather’s scandalous habits and the way he had broken his poor wife’s heart.
    But her greatest education had come from the kindly way her mother had spoken of these girls.
    â€œThey weren’t really wicked, my dear, although the world calls them that. They were just sad, misguided creatures who loved him and mistakenly trusted him.
    â€œOne of them came to the house once. She was desperate, poor soul. My father had set her up in a fine house, lavished gifts on her, then thrown her out when she was with child. Even my mother pitied her, and gave her some money.”
    â€œWas Grandpapa a wicked man, Mama?”
    â€œHe was like many a man, selfish and indifferent, concerned only with pleasing himself. That’s why a kind, loving man like your father should be prized. There are so few like him.”
    In that modest, virtuous household there had been nobody to tell Rena that she was growing into an attractive young woman. Her hair was a pale honey colour, and her eyes which seemed almost too large for her small face, were the blue of the sky.
    In fact, if she had been properly dressed and her hair well arranged, a man might easily have called her beautiful.
    As it was, when she had seen herself in the mirror recently, she was not impressed. Her illness had left her thin, especially her face, so that her large eyes now seemed enormous.
    â€œI look plain and haggard,” she had thought, but without emotion, for what difference could it make to her now?
    But suddenly she remembered the Earl saying –
    â€œHurricanes, mermaids, beautiful young women springing up through trapdoors – Her Majesty’s Navy is ready for anything.”
    He had called her beautiful.
    But he was only joking, of course.
    But no man had ever used that word in connection with her before. And she couldn’t help smiling.
    She had come to the drawing room where the lamp showed her a large sofa that might do for a bed, just for tonight. Some moonlight came through the large windows and she decided to return the lamp to the kitchen.
    Turning, she headed for the door and immediately collided with a chair that she hadn’t seen in her path. It went over onto the wooden floor with a mighty clang that seemed to echo through the house.
    She stood listening while the echoes died away. Then there was silence.
    She made her way back to the kitchen where Clara was inspecting the floor.
    â€œYou’d better come with me,” she said. “After tonight I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Parish property indeed.”
    She turned out the lamp, scooped Clara up and returned along the passage to the drawing