How to Woo a Reluctant Lady by Sabrina Jeffries Read Free Book Online

his gaze from hers to read on. “‘Question three: ‘What domestic duties will you expect your wife to perform?’” He laughed. “What sort of answer are you looking for? Some indication of the frequency with which your applicant would wish you to share his bed? Or a description of the acts he would wish you to ‘perform’?”
    She blushed prettily. “That is
not
the sort of duties I meant, and you know it.”
    “It’s the only sort of duty that matters to those louts out there,” he said coldly. “Since they intend to hire plenty of servants with your fortune, they need only focus on the essentials of having a wife. For them, those essentials are obvious.”
    “But not for you? You haven’t answered the question, after all.”
    “Whatever your ‘domestic duties,’ I’m sure you can handle them.”
    She glared at him. “It’s whether I
want
to that’s in question.”
    Leaving that alone for the moment, he turned back to her list. “Question four: ‘How do you feel about having your wife write novels?’” He snorted. “Did you honestly expect anyone to answer this truthfully with you breathing down their necks?”
    “Not everyone is as devious as you.”
    “Forgive me, I didn’t realize you were expecting a progression of saints this morning.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Just for amusement’s sake, what would be
your
honest answer?”
    He shrugged. “I have no objection to my wife writing novels as long as they’re not about
me.
”
    “You say that now,” she said with quiet seriousness. “But you’ll feel otherwise when you come home to find that your dinner isn’t on the table because your wife was so swept up in her story that she forgot the time. Or when you discover her sitting in her dressing gown scribbling madly while your house goes to rack and ruin about your ears.”
    “I can afford servants,” he countered.
    “It’s not just that.” She gestured to the list. “Read the next question.”
    He glanced down at the paper. “‘What sort of wife do you require?’”
    “Any respectable man requires a wife who lives an irreproachable life. Why do you think I haven’t married? Because I can’t give up writing my novels.” She flashed him a sad smile. “And you in particular will require an irreproachable wife if you’re to succeed as a barrister.”
    She had a point, but not one he dared argue at present. “I’ve already succeeded as a barrister. In any case, I haven’t lived an irreproachable life, so why should I expect my wife to do so?”
    Her gaze turned cynical. “Come now, we both know that men can spend their evenings in the stews and their mornings cropsick, and other men just clap them on the back and call them fine fellows. But their wives aren’t allowed to have even a hint of scandal tarnish their good names. They certainly can’t write books.” She gave a dramatic shudder. “Why, that smacks of being in trade. Horrors!”
    “I already told you—”
    “Did you know that my mother was a writer, too?”
    Now she’d surprised him. “What did she write?”
    “Poetry for children. She used to read her verses to me, asking my opinion.” A heavy sigh escaped her. “But she stopped after she and Papa argued over her wish to have them published. He said that marchionesses didn’t publish books. It wasn’t done.” Her voice hardened. “It was fine for him to toss up the skirts of any female who took his fancy, but God forbid Mama should publish a book.”
    He tensed. “I’m not your father, Minerva.”
    “You differ from him only in the fact that you’re unmarried. Safer to keep it that way, don’t you think?”
    Damn it, sometimes his role as a scoundrel slapped him rightin the face. It chafed him raw that she couldn’t see past it any better than the rest of the world. “Or a man could change.”
    “For a woman? Really? In fiction, perhaps, but rarely in life.”
    “Says the woman who buries herself in her books,” he snapped. “Your idea