Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

“I suppose—I suppose I have survived.”

     
    Leo had lied. The happiest hour of his life was not his wedding. The week before the wedding he’d been away, giving a series of lectures at the Académie de Paris. And when he’d returned and they’d exchanged their vows, it had been the first time Bryony wore that expression he would later name The Castle, wooden and emotionless. Until the moment the Bishop of London had pronounced them man and wife, he’d had a lump of fear in his throat that she would suddenly jilt him
.
    No, the happiest hour of his life had been when she proposed
.
    He’d last seen her when he was fifteen. He never thought that eight years later, when he met her again, it would be as if no time had passed at all, that he’d still be as enthralled with her as he’d been as a boy
.
    More, if anything
.
    For she had become even more beautiful than he remembered. Cool and self-possessed. Capable and accomplished
.
    He wasn’t so shabby himself. London celebrated him as a new kind of Renaissance man at the dawn of a new age. But he feared that he’d become too frivolous, that he was a little too tainted with the glitter and gloss of Society for her lofty soul
.
    But at least she’d come to hear him speak at both the mathematical society and the geographical society. And had watched him with such grave attentiveness that he’d nearly lost his place in the lecture both times
.
    He was completely enamored of the severely cut jacket-and-skirt suits she wore, so serious and put together—his lady knight, in her armor of crisp silk, ready to do battle with London’s microbes and infirmities. He adored the tarry-sweet whiff of carbolic acid, the great antiseptic beloved by her profession, that always clung to her hair—not that he often got close enough to smell her. And her quiet, so composed and assured, intrigued him far more than the endless babble the other young ladies were so fond of unleashing
.
    At night he lay awake and thought of her prim little hats, her utilitarian walking boots, and the buttons that strained just slightly at the rise of her breasts. Thought of her unkissed lips, unlicked nipples, unpenetrated thighs
.
    Then his lust had gotten away from him at the soiree musicale. He’d kissed her, not once, but twice, where any one of a hundred guests could have walked in on them
.
    He had no idea what to do next. Should he call on her
and apologize? Should he call on her and not apologize? And it wasn’t a simple matter to call on her, since she worked and kept no at-home days
.
    So here he was, on an overcast, drizzling London morning, too cold and dismal to be called spring, pacing his brother’s library in a strange agitation, flipping the card she’d given him between his fingers
. Miss Bryony Asquith. Internist. Anesthesiologist. Senior House Surgeon—New Hospital for Women. Lecturer—London School of Medicine for Women.
    Someone knocked. “Sir, Miss Asquith would like to know if you are home,” said Jeremy’s butler
.
    “Which Miss Asquith?” It was a stupid question to ask. Only the eldest daughter of the family was referred to solely by her surname
.
    He tried to think why she’d come to see him. Probably to berate him, which he deserved, of course, but he’d rather that she not be displeased with him. Perhaps she had a lecture of her own to give somewhere and wished to invite him to attend. But then again that could have been easily done with a note
.
    He gave up and told the butler to show her in
.
    She was so pretty. Raven hair, porcelain complexion, a natural blush of the palest rose on her cheeks. His heart had taken to beating faster when he was around her. And he was all too aware of the indent of her upper lip, the richness of her lower lip, the whole shape and curve and softness of her mouth
.
    They spent a minute or so standing in the drawing room, exchanging platitudes. He offered her a seat; she thanked him but made no move. He offered her tea; she