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Mary Balogh: The constant heart

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Mary Balogh The constant heart

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Miss Rebecca Shaw had lost her heart once in her young life — lost it and had it broken. At last it had mended — mended enough for her to say yes when the handsome, high-minded young Reverend Philip Everett asked her to be his wife and share a life of the purest propriety and best of good works. But now Christopher Sinclair had returned. He was free now of the marriage that had given him fabulous wealth at the price of leaving Rebecca behind and betrayed. He was free now to turn Rebecca's head again…away from the man who soon would be her lawfully wedded husband. And Rebecca was also free to change her mind- but was she foolish enough to turn toward a love that had proven faithless once and now could be utterly ruinous…?

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The Misses Sinclair were the first to rise to leave. Julian reluctantly followed their lead and got to his feet.

"Christopher will be here in two days' time," Ellen reminded the company. "I do not know how we will live through the rest of today and tomorrow. We will bring him to visit as soon as may be, Lady Holmes." She turned eagerly to Mr. Bartlett. "And you and he will have a chance to renew your acquaintance," she said.

Mr. Bartlett smiled and bowed.

After they had left, Lady Holmes rang the bell for the butler to remove the tea tray, and everyone sat down again.

"I am so pleased that Mr. Christopher Sinclair is coming here," said Harriet. "He is a very fashionable man, is he not, Papa?"

"Decidedly so, my dear," her father agreed. He had taken a jeweled snuffbox from the table beside him, placed a pinch on the back of his right hand, and sniffed delicately through each nostril in turn. Then he took a lace-bordered handkerchief from his pocket and waited with half-closed eyes and twitching nostrils for the sneeze to follow.

Having completed the action to his own satisfaction, he continued the conversation. "It will be interesting to hear what news he brings from town," he said. "It is so difficult here to be up to the minute on what styles and fabrics are currently in fashion. Mr. Bartlett, did you not tell me that black had become an almost acceptable color for evening wear? I can scarcely conceive of such a thing. Black!" He shuddered delicately.

"Beau Brummell started the fashion, my lord," Mr. Bartlett replied, "though at the time it seemed just a personal eccentricity. Yet now one sees the style with fair frequency. Of course, all men of any distinction of looks and bearing-like yourself, my lord, if I may be permitted to say so-still prefer more palatable colors."

The baron nodded affably to show that his guest was indeed permitted to say so.

"We must invite Mr. Sinclair to dinner within the week," Harriet said, as always oblivious to the fact that she was no longer mistress of the house. "But will that mean having to invite the whole family, Papa?"

"It will be a pleasure to have them all," Maude said. "It is some time since we gave a dinner party. Do you not agree, my lord?" she asked, glancing with hasty self-consciousness at her husband.

"Oh, quite so, quite so," he agreed.

"I hope Mr. Sinclair makes an effort to appear to advantage with his family," Mr. Bartlett added, smiling graciously at Harriet. "They are worthy and likable people."

Harriet raised her eyebrows and looked back at him, all attention. Rebecca, too, looked sharply across at him.

"Why would he not appear to advantage?" Harriet asked.

"Pardon me," Mr. Bartlett replied, serious for once. "There is nothing unacceptable in his manner by some London standards. If he is rather a spendthrift, one at least cannot say that he is so with anyone else's money than his own-now. And if he is something of a rake, one can say the same of many other men of rank in town."

Maude got to her feet and gathered together the embroidery that she had earlier set down beside her. "I am sure that Mr. Sinclair will know how to behave when he is here, Stanley," she said matter-of-factly. "Harriet, shall we go to my sitting room and make some plans for the dinner party?"

"Oh," replied Harriet, "I already have it all arranged in my mind, Maude. You do not need to worry about it."

"Then you shall tell me what you have planned," Maude said with quiet persistence, and she preceded her stepdaughter from the room.

The baron too retired to his room in order to rest before beginning the exertions of evening dinner and a hand or two of cards in the drawing room afterward.

Rebecca also rose to leave the room. She planned to have a leisurely bath after the hours spent teaching in a warm schoolroom and the hot, dusty walk to and from the village.

"You must have known Mr. Christopher Sinclair before his marriage, Miss Shaw," Mr. Bartlett said in his friendly way. He was smiling at her. "Though I believe he must be considerably older than you."

"Only a few years, sir," Rebecca replied. "And, yes, I knew him. It is impossible in a small place like this not to know one's neighbors."

"Tell me," he said, looking at her candidly, "was he always such an unprincipled man? I must confess that now I have made the acquaintance of the Sinclairs, I find it difficult to understand how he has become the way he is. I suppose that in most families there has to be one black sheep."

Rebecca sat down again. "Unprincipled in what way?" she asked guardedly.

"Perhaps he was a close friend, Miss Shaw?" Mr. Bartlett added, looking at her searchingly. "I would not wish to ruin your memories of him."

Rebecca made a dismissive gesture with one hand. "It is many years since I have even seen him, sir," she said.

"I knew his wife," he said. "She was a friend. A delightful creature, though not by any means a beauty. And many people despised her because her father was in business and not, strictly speaking, a gentleman at all. Sinclair married her for her money, of course. And I would not stoop to blame him for that. Many a gentleman with pockets to let has been forced to do as much."

Rebecca lowered her eyes to the hands in her lap. Perhaps she ought not to be listening to this. It was none of her affair, after all. But she could not help herself. It is sometimes too delicious to hear evil of a person one has despised for many years. She had not been mistaken, then.

"I could certainly have forgiven him for marrying my friend for her money," Mr. Bartlett continued, "had he treated her with proper respect thereafter."

"And he did not?" Rebecca prompted, raising her eyes unwillingly to his.

"The Sinclairs seem a humble enough family," Mr.

Bartlett said. "And that makes it all the more surprising that Sinclair himself is so insufferably high in the instep. He treated her with the utmost contempt, Miss Shaw. He never took her about with him, and he flaunted his mistresses before her most shamefully."

"Poor lady," Rebecca murmured, feeling sympathy for the late Mrs. Sinclair for the first time.

"Perhaps the situation would not have been so tragic had she not doted so much on him," Mr. Bartlett continued. "She lived with the hope that perhaps the child would bring him closer to her. Her death was tragic, yet under the circumstances perhaps for the best. She would have been disappointed, I am sure." His tone had become almost vicious.

"I do not find your story impossible to credit, sir," Rebecca said, her voice strained. "Yet I believe it would be as well to keep it to yourself. I would not wish to see his family hurt."

"Indeed, ma'am," he assured her earnestly, "I would not dream of breathing a word to anyone else. I would not have said anything to you either, but you seem to me to be a lady of sense. And I fear that perhaps Sinclair will not, after all, behave as he ought here. He has lived for too long a life of self-indulgence and depravity. I wish to suggest, Miss Shaw, with all due respect, that you keep careful watch over your cousin. She is a lovely and impressionable young lady and wealthy enough, I believe, to attract a fortune hunter."

Rebecca's eyes widened. "Do you believe he would dare?" she asked. "I cannot think it."

"And I trust you are right," he said earnestly. "But I felt it my duty to speak. I would not be able to forgive myself if anything happened because I had felt the matter too delicate to involve myself. Forgive me, Miss Shaw. My sister's family has in a sense become my own. I must be concerned for the welfare of its members. If Sinclair behaves as a gentleman ought, I shall be happy, though I may lose credit in your eyes."

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