Read Grahame, Lucia for Free Online Page A

was simply mischievous, and I
laughed.
    "I suppose you favor the works that have been restored,
then," I said.
    "What, the ones all patched together like Frankenstein's
monster with heads that don't belong to them!" He sounded highly insulted.
"Certainly not! I detest sham! Battered and broken she may be, but this
lady has at least kept her integrity."
    For the remainder of our visit, I enjoyed myself wholeheartedly.
It wasn't until I was alone again that I reviewed my behavior and berated
myself for having drawn our conversation toward a level of such ease and
intimacy. Sir Anthony had only followed my lead. I knew very well that had I
been more reserved, had I behaved in a manner more appropriate to an
inconsolable widow, he would have respected my distance entirely....
    But to think of all the little pleasures I would have missed!

CHAPTER THREE
    The rules of polite conduct require a widow to mourn no less than
two years for her departed husband. During the first year, she must not go into
society. For a woman whose child has died in infancy, three months is
considered the proper length of time to grieve.
    It seemed that I had turned the etiquette of bereavement
topsy-turvy.
    As I lay in bed the night after my jaunt to the Louvre, I recalled
vividly the feeling of Sir Anthony's light, confident but unassuming hand upon
my waist; it was as if some neglected and half-forgotten inner bowstring,
pulled tauter and tauter over the years, had been lightly plucked.
    Better for me had it remained in oblivion.
    Already it was beginning to tighten again—but this time I could
feel every teasing, agonizing increment of tension.
    It had nothing to do with Sir Anthony Camwell, of course. What was
he? A rich and idle dilettante who'd sought some brief amusement in my company.
A grave and reserved young man who seemed to consider his words too carefully
before he spoke: Even that small witticism about the Nik è of
Samothrace had sparkled in his eyes well before he'd shared the joke with
me.
    I felt myself blush in the darkness. The remark of his, which had
seemed so innocent amidst the austere classicism of our surroundings, now
struck a hot little flame in my drowsy mind, and I let myself wonder for a
moment or two just how Sir Anthony Camwell would use a woman's hands and
lips....
    What was I thinking! I had never thought of any man but Frederick
in so bold a way. And Sir Anthony, of all people!
    I turned over, pressed my face into the pillow, and inhaled with
faint hopefulness, but Frederick's familiar scent was long gone.
    The bed was too warm, that was why I couldn't sleep.
    I sat up and flung off my blankets.
    I couldn't keep my thoughts from straying back to my childhood as
I lay down again.
    My grandmother had always worried I was too hot-blooded. "I
live in fear," she used to say, "that you'll throw yourself away on
the first man who strikes a match to your loins."
    And so I had.
     
    My mother had, too. Against my grandmother's wishes and to her
fury, she'd married a poor, but ambitious, man for love, and had paid the
ultimate price for that piece of folly by dying as I entered the world. My
father begged my grandmother to raise me and promised that he would send money
to support us to the extent that he was able. Soon afterward, he'd sailed for
America. He never returned. He sent money faithfully, but he never communicated
with us otherwise.
    I had written to him, upon my marriage to Frederick, telling him
that I could manage without his further assistance but begging him to continue
sending money to my grandmother until Frederick and I were able to assume that responsibility.
How I'd hated having to ask even this of a man I had never known.
    The only other letter I wrote him was to tell him, two years
later, that Frederick and I were at last in a position to assume responsibility
for my grandmother's financial support and to thank him again for all he had
done in the past.
    After that, his checks to my grandmother stopped