Read The Viscount's Revenge (The Royal Ambition Series Book 4) for Free Online Page B

evening.”
     
    She was so furious, she did not know whether to scream or cry. To be dismissed contemptuously as a bore. She
hated
Lord Hawksborough. She hated him more than Mr. Brotherington. She hated him more than anyone else in all her young life. Amanda turned on her heel and went back to join Richard.
     
    They both sat in silence until Amanda at last put her small hand over Richard’s large one and whispered, “Lord Hawksborough is leaving Bellingham sometime tomorrow. He plans to travel to London at night.”
     
    “Indeed!” said Richard Colby savagely. “Now, that, my dear Amanda, is very interesting indeed.”
     
    They looked at each other in complete understanding.
     
    Aunt Matilda came drifting up, looking rather wilted. Her large turban had sunk down on her forehead so that her faded blue eyes peered warily out at the world through a curtain of gold fringe.
     
    “Who was that extremely handsome man you were having supper with, Amanda?” she asked.
     
    “Lord Hawksborough.”
     
    “Hawksborough!” Two spots of pink began to appear on Aunt Matilda’s withered cheeks. “Now, I wonder. I just wonder,” she murmured.
     
    “Wonder what, Aunt?” demanded Amanda sharply.
     
    “Oh, nothing,” said Aunt Matilda airily.
     
    The dance was starting up in the ballroom again, but Amanda and Richard both declared they would like to go home. Amanda had not been to school, having gleaned all her education from Richard’s schoolbooks, and so, unlike her brother, had no friends to confide in. Richard, because he was hurt and humiliated, blamed his friends for egging him on to ask the haughty Miss Devine to dance, and wished only to get back to Fox End and lick his wounds.
     
    Both brother and sister were too miserable on the journey back to notice that Aunt Matilda was in unusually high fettle, humming snatches of dance tunes to herself, and smiling and nodding at no one in particular.
     
    Frost glinted and sparkled on the hedgerows like the diamond in Lord Hawksborough’s cravat, and a moon rode high above the countryside, as flat and silver as his lordship’s eyes.
     
    It was good to be home at last. The quietness of Fox End welcomed them with its comforting smells of beeswax, woodsmoke, dry rot, and damp plaster.
     
    Aunt Matilda sat an infuriatingly long time over the tea tray. Richard and Amanda wondered whether she intended to go to bed at all. She had removed her turban and her faded eyes sparkled and her wispy salt-and-pepper hair stood up around her head as she talked about the ladies she had met and the food she had eaten.
     
    At last, to their relief, Aunt Matilda announced she was retiring. First she insisted on carrying the tea things to the kitchen and washing them up, despite the protests of the twins.
     
    Then she fussed about the kitchen, picking things up and putting them down.
     
    Then she went into the back kitchen to prod a spoon into Amanda’s bramble jam to make sure it had set. Finally she lit her bed candle and mounted the stairs with a light step, singing softly to herself.
     
    “Well,” said Amanda in amazement. “It was certainly worth the expense just to see Aunt so happy and
alive.
”
     
    “We did not spend so much,” said Richard. “In fact, I could give you some, Amanda.”
     
    “No, keep the money,” said Amanda, settling herself down in the winged armchair facing Richard. They always used the morning room once the cold weather had set in. The dining room and drawing room were large and chilly and damp. The study was used as a sort of dump for old game bags and papers and unanswered letters and bills.
     
    Richard sat with his legs stretched out in front of him, thoughtfully watching the leaping flames. Amanda felt a pang of dismay and loss. All at once he looked older and his old carefree expression had gone.
     
    “What are you thinking about?” she asked.
     
    “Money,” he said. “Money and how to get it. I will never allow anyone to humiliate