Charity Girl Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  About the Author

  Copyright © 1970 by Georgette Heyer

  Cover and internal design © 2008 by Sourcebooks, Inc. Cover photo © Fine Art Photographic Library

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks,

  Inc.

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  Originally published in the United Kingdom in 1970 by The Bodley Head Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Heyer, Georgette, 1902-1974. Charity girl / Georgette Heyer.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4022-1350-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4022-1350-6

  I. Title.

  PR6015.E795C48 2008

  823'.912—dc22

  2008017992

  One

  As far as it was possible for an elderly gentleman suffering from dyspepsia and a particularly violent attack of gout to take pleasure in anything but the alleviation of his various pains the Earl of Wroxton was enjoying himself. He was engaged on the agreeable task of delivering himself of a diatribe on the shortcomings of his heir. To the uninitiated his strictures must have seemed unjust, for Viscount Desford bore the appearance of a son of whom any father must have been proud. In addition to a goodlooking countenance, and a lithe, athletic figure, he had the easy manners which sprang as much from an innate amiability as from his breeding. He had also a considerable store of patience, and a sense of humour which showed itself in the smile which lurked in his eyes, and which was thought by a great many persons to be irresistible. His father was not of their number: when a victim of gout, he thought it exasperating.

  The month was July, but the weather was so far from sultry that the Earl had caused a fire to be kindled in his library. On either side of the hearth he and his heir were seated, the Earl with one heavily bandaged foot on a stool, and his heir (having discreetly edged his chair away from the warmth of the smould ering logs) at his graceful ease opposite him. The Viscount was wearing the coat, the buckskin breeches, and the topboots which were the correct morning-attire for any gentleman sojourning in the country, but a certain elegance, deriving from the cut of his coat, and the arrangement of his neckcloth, gave his father an excuse for apostrophizing him as a damned dandy. To which he responded, in mild protest: 'No, no, sir! The dandy-set would be shocked to hear you say so!'

  'I collect,' said his father, glaring at him, 'that you call yourself a Corinthian!'

  'To own the truth, sir,' said the Viscount apologetically, 'I don't call myself anything!' He waited for a moment, watching with as much sympathy as amusement the champing of his parent's jaws, and then said coaxingly: 'Now, come, Papa! What have I done to earn such a trimming from you?'

  'What have you done to earn praise from me?' instantly countered the Earl. 'Nothing! You're a skitterbrain, sir! A slibberslabber here-and-thereian, with no more thought for what you owe your name than some rubbishing commoner! A damned scattergood – and you've no need to remind me that you're not dependent on me for the money you waste on your horses, and your betting, and your bits of muslin, for I'm well aware of it, and what I said at the time, and say now, and always shall say is that it was just like your greataunt to leave her fortune to you, and exactly what might have been expected of such a shuttlehead as she was! As well have handed you a carte blanche to commit every sort of – of extravagant folly! But on that head,' said his lordship inaccurately, but with perfect sincerity, 'I shall say nothing! She was your mother's aunt and that circumstance seals my lips.'

  He paused, throwing a challenging glance at his heir, but the Viscount merely said, with becoming meekness : 'Just so, Papa!'

  'Had she stipulated that her fortune was to be used for the support of your wife and family I should have thought it a very proper bequest,' announced his lordship, adding, however: 'Not that I was not at that time, and at this present, able and willing to increase your allowance to enable you to meet the added expenses consequent on your entry into the married state.'

  He paused again, and the Viscount, feeling that some com ment was expected, said politely that he was much obliged to him.

  'Oh, no, you're not!' said his lordship grimly. 'And, what's more, you won't be until you provide me with a grandson, no matter how fast your great-aunt's fortune burns in your pockets! Upon my word, a pretty set of children I have!' he said, suddenly enlarging his scope. 'Not one of you cares a straw for the Family! At my age I might have expected to have had a score of grandchildren to gladden my last years! But have I? No! Not one!'

  'In fact you have three,' replied the Viscount disconcertingly. 'Not that it has ever seemed to me that they gladdened you precisely, but I do feel it to be only just to Griselda that her offspring should be mentioned!'

  'Girls!' snapped the Earl, sweeping them aside with a contemptuous gesture. 'I take no account of them! Besides, they're Broxbourne brats! What I want is sons, Ashley! Carring-tons, to succeed to our Name, and our Honours, and our Tradition!'

  'But scarcely a score of them!' protested the Viscount. 'One must be reasonable, sir, and even if I had obliged you by marry ing when I was twenty, and my unfortunate wife had presented me with twins every year, you must still have been at least two short of your expectation – setting aside the probability that there would have been several girls amongst such a bevy of grandchildren.'

  This attempt to win his parent out of his ill-humour might have succeeded (for the Earl was fond of the ridiculous) had not a sudden twinge in his afflicted foot caused him to wince, and to utter in a menacing voice: 'Don't be impertinent, sir! I would remind you that you – I thank God! – are not my only son!'

  'No,' agreed the Viscount, with unruffled cordiality. 'And while I can't but feel that Simon is too young to be setting up his nursery I have great hopes that Horace may oblige you – when the Occupation ends, as, from all accounts, it will do in the not too far distant future – and he returns to us.'

  'Horace!' uttered his lordship. 'I may think myself fortunate if he doesn't come home with some French hussy on his arm!'

  'Oh, I don't think that very likely!' said the Viscount. 'He is not at all partial to foreigners, sir, and quite as mindful of what is due to the Family as you are.'

  'I shan't be alive to see it,' said the Earl, seeking refuge in decrepitude, but slightly damaging his effect by adding an acrimonious rider: 'Much any of you will care!'

  The Viscount laughed, but with a good deal of affection. 'No, no, Papa!' he said. 'Don't try to pitch the fork to me! I haven't been on the town for nine years – and intimately acquainted with you for twenty-nine years! – without learning when a man is trying to come crab over me! Good God, sir, you're all skin and whipcord – sa