Wicked Temptations by Patricia Watters Page B

vote, while ignorant, drunken and immoral men can cast their ballots. It is grossly unfair to women."
    Trudy looked at Priscilla, fervor in her eyes, and said, "Do you have any literature on women's suffrage that I can read?"
    "Yes, right over here." Priscilla lifted a stack of newspaper clippings of speeches given around the country by women fighting for the cause and handed them to Trudy. "If you read through these, you'll know how to address the women at the meeting when they ask you questions about voting. Always remember that knowledge is power."
    Trudy took the clippings, an eager smile on her lips, and settled onto a tall stool at a table to began gleaning the articles.
    That evening, as Priscilla sat at the dressing table brushing her hair while mulling over the day's events, it came to her that Trudy, with her youth, and her enthusiasm, and her beautiful young face might be enormously successful in persuading women to vote for her father. Then she saw her own face in the mirror, and a sick feeling settled in her stomach. Lady Whittington's well-meaning attempt to make a plain woman into something she was not, troubled her. Priscilla had thought she'd come to terms with her appearance.
    Then Adam came along and made her wonder if she'd been too critical of herself over the years.... Until Lady Whittington pointed out the ugly truth.
    She thought about Lady Whittington's misplaced pity. She didn't want anyone's commiseration. But from Lady Whittington's piteous looks while dining with her during the past week, she knew the woman was genuinely concerned, which Priscilla found aggravating and pointless. Maybe it was time to apply that defense modus operandi from her early years when she'd been teased mercilessly about her appearance by her schoolmates, until she'd announced to them that she was a descendant of Queen Elizabeth, and produced the color plate to prove it. Although they never really accepted her, they had at least let her be after that. So if it worked during her school days, there was no harm in applying it now, if only to give Lady Whittington something to ruminate about.   At least for a little while.
    ***
    When Priscilla bathed and dressed for dinner, she had expected to dine alone with Lady Whittington. The children had eaten earlier and were busy with their studies, and the last she'd heard, Adam was to be at the ranch for the rest of the week. Instead, he had joined them shortly after she and Lady Whittington started eating, and Adam was sitting at the head of the table, staring at her intently, bafflement on his brow, a look that closely resembled his mother's questioning stare. The modus operandi had definitely taken a different turn than intended. Adam was not supposed to be there. But he was. And she knew precisely what he was thinking...
    ...she does not need the aid of infusions and dyes and all manner of female fripperies that will make her look like a clown...
    And in Adam's mind, she did look like a clown this particular evening.
    She'd put a dusting of pure white powder on her face to lighten her skin, added ovals of blush along the ridges of her cheekbones to heighten them, darkened her lips with rouge, extended the outer corners of her eyes with Kohl to make her eyes appear more wide set, and left her brows and lashes blond and untouched. Lastly, she'd pulled her hair straight back to emphasize her high forehead, allowing a dusting of coppery-red curls to frame her face, then tucked pearls into the braid curving across the crown of her head. Although she'd tried to be subtle with her representation of the queen, from the looks she was receiving from Adam and his mother, she knew she had not been subtle enough.
    Attempting to disregard the quizzical looks, she touched her napkin to her lips, and said, "It feels good to get cleaned up after a day of typesetting. But after handling all of the freshly-printed newspapers, I was not sure I could scrub the ink from my hands."
    Lady Whittington,