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

turned it down outright
.
    He gave her a mock severe look. “You don’t want a seat and you don’t want tea. Is there anything you do want, Miss Asquith?”
    She cleared her throat. “Well, I was rather hoping I could offer you something that
you
would want.”
    “Indeed?” He had no idea what that could be but he smiled all the same. At least she wasn’t unhappy with him. “Well, go on, I’m listening.”
    She launched into an analysis of their finances, logistics, and temperaments. It took him at least three minutes to understand that she was speaking in the context of marriage. She believed their differing dispositions would complement each other, her quiet a natural foil to his brio. Their schedules would align nicely, as she was sure he needed plenty of time for his work, which he could do while she was at the hospital. And she would bring with her Thornwood Manor—which, having once been part of her mother’s dowry and stipulated in the marriage contract to go to the first Mrs. Asquith’s offspring, actually belonged to her—along with considerable monetary assets
.
    In his daze, it was some time before he realized that she’d stopped speaking
.
    “Have I shocked you very much?” she murmured
.
    “Yes, rather,” he said slowly
.
    She sat down at last, in a Louis XV chair before the fireplace. “Not too horribly, I hope.”
    “No, not too horribly.”
    “Is it something you could consider then?”
    It was definitely something he could consider. But marriage had been only a glimmer in his eye. He was three weeks short of twenty-four. And he’d thought it would take at least another year for the two of them to get to know each other properly
.
    “I will consider it most earnestly—you know I’ve nothing but the greatest esteem for you.”
    She bit her lip. “Here’s something else you should take into consideration then. It is highly unlikely that I could have children.”
    He was stunned. “Are you sure?”
    “Unfortunately.” She looked away from him. “Do you like children?”
    “Yes.” He did like children, very much. He spoiled his nieces and nephews rotten as often as he could
.
    Her eyes dimmed. “Then you should probably say no right now. Otherwise, it would be a hardship for you.”
    How ironic that upon being presented with his heart’s desire, he was also presented with one of the starker choices a man could face. “May I have some time to think about it?”
    She gave a wan smile. “Of course.”
    He walked her out of the house to her waiting carriage
and handed her inside. She settled herself into the tufted seat and lifted a hand to smooth back a strand of hair that had escaped her coiffure. Perhaps it was the watery day, or the lugubrious light of the English not-quite-spring, but she looked forlorn, desolate
.
    The rain that had sprinkled on and off the whole morning suddenly became a downpour, falling coldly upon his bare head. And he had an epiphany
.
    He belonged to her.
    He’d loved her since he was four feet high. Children would be lovely, of course, but children were not essential
. She
was essential. She had been alone her entire life. He would see to it that she was never alone again
.
    “Well, why not?” he said, smiling at his beloved. “It should be no hardship to be married to you.”

     
    Perhaps she had survived their marriage, but he had not.
    He’d lived a charmed life. He was widely hailed as the greatest mathematical prodigy in a generation. Magazines begged to publish his accounts of his jaunts abroad with his godfather. Even the play, which he’d written in a week, on a dare to be as naughty as possible without the censors coming after him, had turned out to be a resounding success: He was told that his portrayal of three Cambridgestudents gambling at love had become a favorite production to mount in drawing rooms and parlors and wherever else young men and women gathered and desired to exchange innocent-seeming double entendres right under the