Read London's Perfect Scoundrel for Free Online Page B

or a frown. The Marquis of St. Aubyn, however, wasn’t like any of those men. He was, in fact, precisely the sort of male both her mother and her common sense told her to avoid at all costs. In her first attempt to escape her brother’s staid version of what herlife should be, however, it made sense that she would be confronted with St. Aubyn.
    For some reason he’d been polite since she’d set the rules of behavior this morning, and uneasy as it made her to have the panther at her side, even with claws sheathed, she would use the circumstance to her own best advantage. She glanced over her shoulder at him as he stood, arms crossed, in the entry to the girls’ dormitory. He was gazing at her again—or rather, still—his light green eyes seeking or seeing something she assumed had very little to do with propriety.
    “Miss Evie, I thought you was to bring us pudding,” Molly said, her plaintive tone shaking Evelyn back to her senses.
    “I said I would, and I shall, but today I’d just like to chat with all of you, if I may.”
    “Is he coming in?” another of the girls whispered, prompting some low-voiced giggling.
    “I wish he would,” another of them said with a coy smile. “I heard his estate at St. Aubyn is paved with gold coins.”
    Evie frowned. “How old are you?”
    “Seventeen, Miss Evie. In another eight months I’ll be gone from here, living with some fancy man in Covent Garden, I imagine.”
    “Good heavens, I hope not,” Evie muttered, looking more closely at the flock gathered around her. Is that what they all expected of their lives?
    “Well, I’d rather live in a house with gold floors than on dirt in Covent Garden.”
    “As if he would marry the daughter of a seamstress, Maggie. You’re not even fit to clean his floors, much less stand on ’em.”
    Maggie swirled her tattered cotton skirt around herhips, flipping the ends at Molly. “I didn’t mean we should marry, halfwit,” she murmured.
    Molly stuck out her tongue. “That would make you a who—”
    Hoping St. Aubyn hadn’t overheard that part of the conversation, Evie stepped between the two girls. No one would be kicking or punching or verbally assaulting anyone while she was present. “I’m sure Lord St. Aubyn isn’t worth all this fuss, whatever his floors are made of. I don’t want to know about him, anyway; I want to know about all of you young ladies.”
    “I’m not a young lady. I’m a little girl.” Rose came forward, holding her scruffy doll by one foot. “And we’re all orphans.”
    “Not all of us are,” another of the two dozen girls—Iris, she thought—interrupted. “William and Penny’s papa got transported for seven years.”
    Alice Bradley grinned. “And Fanny’s papa’s in Newgate for cracking a bottle over a tavern keeper’s gourd.”
    “That rum cove deserved it,” Fanny shot back, knotting her hands into the front of her dingy brown dress. Evie couldn’t even tell what the material was any longer, though it had likely been of inferior quality to begin with.
    “Stop telling tales, Alice, you stupid sot, or we’ll tell her what your mama did to end up in Newgate.”
    “You will not!”
    Oh, dear . “Now, now. How about if I ask a question, and those of you who wish to may answer it?” She sat again, smoothing her skirt.
    Rose leaned against her knee. “I like the way you talk,” she said, scratching at her bottom with the hand not gripping her doll.
    “Thank you, Rose.”
    “What’s the first question?”
    Evie took a deep breath. She certainly didn’t want to do or say anything to make the girls upset with one another or with her, and neither did she intend to leave herself open to barbs at the hands—or rather, tongue—of St. Aubyn.
    “My first question is, how many of you can read?”
    “Read?” Penny burst out. “I thought you were going to ask what kind of sweets we like.”
    “Yes, sweets. You’re the one who brung candy here before, ain’t you?”
    Evelyn tried