"Freda Warrington - A Taste of Blood Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Warrington Freda)

"I can do what I like!" Madeleine's mouth became a sulky rosebud.
"You had better not."
"I don't know what's the matter with you, Charli. You're being
utterly ridiculous. I—no, I'm not going to argue with you here, it
would be too undignified." Madeleine slipped gracefully to her feet
and walked away to rejoin her friends, her sulky expression
vanishing as if nothing had happened.
Charlotte was shaking from head to foot. Much as she loved
Madeleine, her love was sometimes spiked with irritation—and
envy. She would have done anything to share her sister's easy
confidence.
Charlotte had not gone to school with Fleur and Madeleine but had
been educated at home by her father. Their mother had died when
she was a child and he had been her constant companion, training
her in science so that she could work with him. She had taken
willingly to the role, but it had meant a sheltered life in the dry,
donnish atmosphere of his circle. Had it shaped her, or had she
chosen its security because she was reclusive by nature? She
avoided the wilder side of Cambridge life, the end of term
celebrations and May Week, keeping to the well-worn comfortable
paths on which she met no challenge and no danger. She was happy

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A Taste


to be a quiet presence at her father's side, respected because she was
his daughter and his assistant.
And yet… she must have wanted something more, or she would not
have given in so easily to her aunt's wishes.
"Charlotte will suffocate," Aunt Elizabeth had said. "It's essential
for a girl to be introduced to society, especially with the shortage of
eligible men after the War. Look what a good marriage Fleur has
made. You must let me bring her and Madeleine out together—or
do you want her to grown into a dried-up old spinster, George?"
He father had not replied to that, but neither had he tried to stop
Charlotte as she gave herself over to her aunt to be presented at
Court and all the palaver that followed.
But Charlotte was no debutante. She had wanted to succeed, she
longed to be charming and confident, to make friends and attract
admirers, but the cold reality was that she hated it. She seemed to
have nothing in common with these brittle insincere people, who all
knew each other, who judged everyone they met by their status and
social adeptness and dismissed anyone who did not fit in. Once
outside her own safe world she had fallen apart.
So much for Elizabeth's hopes of marrying her off. If a man showed
more than a passing interest, she would freeze involuntarily with a
dread that turned her eyes to ice and her tongue to stone. However
polite she tried to be, everything about her cried, "Don't come near
me!"