Read Online Incognita (Fairchild Book 2) by Jaima Fixsen - Free Book Online Page B

you acquit yourself honorably, but I never thought the army a good choice for you.” Warned by footsteps coming from the other end of the hallway, she motioned him into the drawing room. “Come inside. The maids don’t need to hear.”
    Alistair walked to the far wall, pretending to study the portrait of his cousin Henrietta. The artist hadn’t flattered her—Henrietta didn’t need it. But the painting couldn’t turn his mind from his aunt’s words. “You don’t think I’m fit for it?”
    “Of course I do!” she protested, realizing she had stung him. “You’re much too fine for it. I wouldn’t want a son of mine in such danger.”
    “You weren’t blessed with a superfluity of them,” he said, turning. She’d arranged herself neatly on the sofa, but he didn’t sit down.  
    “You mustn’t feel that way,” she said. “We can think of something. Charlotte Grayson isn’t engaged yet. Or Eliza Wrexham.”
    “I wish you wouldn’t. One foray is enough for me this year. I’m not desperate,” he said.
    She considered this. “Too much speed would look ill, but you’re running out of time. And who knows if next year you’ll be given leave?”
    Or be alive to take it? But it didn’t help to think along those lines. “I expect I shall be leaving London within a fortnight. Won’t be so bad,” he said. “I won’t have to avoid looking in the newspapers.” It took three weeks or more for London news to reach Spain.  
    “When were you recalled?” Aunt Georgiana asked, a crease between her brows.  
    Alistair reached into his pocket, drawing out the letter from his Colonel—it was marking his place in Horace. He passed it to his aunt. She scanned it, returning it to him with a steady enough hand, but pained eyes.
    “I don’t know this surgeon. Thought I’d see him tomorrow,” Alistair said. “No point in putting the thing off.”
    “Will he say you are fit?”
    “I don’t see why not.” The lingering weakness in his shoulder he could blame on the fistfight with Jasper. “I’ll be fine,” he said, for the benefit of his aunt, who scowled at a flower that had fallen from the vase and lay browning on the table. She pinched it up and rolled it between her fingers.  
    “Is that why you came? To tell me?”
    “Actually, I was hoping to ply you with questions. May I?” Anna Morris was something of a riddle. If he wanted answers, he must lose no more time.  
    “What about?”  
    “Oh, scandal, of course,” he said, pleased to see her expression going from grave to interested. “I think it’s high time we started talking about other people’s instead of our own.”
    She nodded assent and though she was plainly curious, she didn’t let him begin straight off, ringing for tea first and motioning him to take a seat beside her on the sofa. While he settled himself she arranged her hands prettily in her lap, tilting her head to a confiding angle. He could almost see the girl she had once been, sitting down to whisper over the failings of others—a wickedly enjoyable pastime for the young and blameless, and a comforting respite, even for them. They waited for the tray to come up, talking nothing but nothings as Aunt Georgiana poured out the tea and offered him a dish of confits that she herself ignored, since it was fashionable for ladies to content themselves with bread and butter. He only took one raisin tart, knowing his stomach had a limited tolerance for things composed primarily of butter, sugar and cream.
    “I’m still waiting for your questions,” she said, peering at him over the gilded rim of her cup.
    “I was only waiting for leave to begin,” he said. “You will think them strange.”
    “Dear boy. You know our family. I ceased long ago to think anything strange.”
    He doubted the truth of that—Aunt Georgiana had a very precise sense of what was acceptable and what was not—but plunged ahead nevertheless. “What do you know about the Morrises? The Warwickshire