The Ideal Wife by Mary Balogh Read Free Book Online Page A

always give the impression that the money she earned as his mistress was of quite secondary consideration—that making love with him was the pinnacle of joy for her.
    But then, she had been recommended to him for just that quality.
    “No,” he said, smiling at her and laying three fingers lightly over her lips. “I have come here to talk, Jenny.”
    “To talk?” Jenny was not strong on conversation. She communicated with her body.
    “This has to be my last visit, I’m afraid,” he told her. “I am getting married tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow?” she said. “So soon?”
    “Yes,” he said, removing his fingers and kissing her briefly.
    She sighed. “When will I see you again?” she asked.
    “You won’t,” he said. “This is the last time, Jenny.”
    “But why?” She looked at him blankly. “You are taking your wife out of town?”
    Jenny obviously could not conceive of the idea that a man might give up his mistress once he took a wife.
    “No,” he said. “I will have the house made over to your name, Jenny, and all its contents. I shall pay the servants their salaries for one year, and you too. And I have bought you an emerald necklace to wear with your favorite gown—a farewell gift.” He smiled at her. “Is that fair treatment?”
    She removed her arms from about his neck. “Where is it?” she asked.
    She spoke again while he clasped the jewels about her neck. “Lord Northcote wants me,” she said. “He offered me more than you pay, and I think he will go even higher. He wants me badly. Perhaps I will take him, though he is not near as handsome as you. This is pretty.” She touched the emeralds.
    “I’m glad you like it,” he said.
    She turned and raised her arms about his neck again. “Shall I say thank you?” she asked.
    “If you wish,” he said, smiling.
    She took him by the hand and led him into the bedchamber that adjoined the parlor. He had expected her to thank him in words, he thought, kissing her and sliding her dress off her shoulders. But he could not insult her by spurning her way of thanking him.
    It even surprised him that he was reluctant. He had come there with the intention of spending many hours with her.
    He kissed her throat as she began to undress him with expert hands.
    “I am going to miss you, Jen,” he said.
    But strangely, he thought a long time later as she lay sleeping, her head in the crook of his arm, and he lay gazing up at the mirror over the bed, which had always made him feel a little uncomfortable, he was not feeling nearly as sad as he had expected to feel.
    The arrangement with Jenny was all business to her, all sexual dalliance to him. There was no relationship, no emotional tie whatsoever.
    He was about to enter into an arrangement in which there would be a relationship, a commitment, some emotional tie. And he was not feeling nearly as sick or as reluctant about it as he had earlier that morning.
    He did not yet know Abigail Gardiner. But during the hours he had spent with her that day he had felt a strange and totally unexpected tenderness for her—almost as if she were a child who had been put into his keeping.
    He thought of her as she had been at Madame Savard’s—quiet, bewildered, acquiescing in the decisions he and the dressmaker had made between them. And he thought of her as she had been at the confectioner’s—anxious, shy, wondering why he had chosen to marry her rather than give the letter of recommendation she had asked for. He thought of her terrible embarrassment when she had almost choked on her cake. He thought of her flush and look of surprise when he had kissed her hand. And he thought of her drab clothes and the cit’s home in which she lived.
    She was not pretty. And yet when she had removed her cloak at the modiste’s, it had been to reveal a trim and pleasing figure. And when she had taken off her bonnet, he had seen that her hair was in a heavy coiled braid at the back of her head. It looked as if it must be very