When We Touch by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

and don’t touch her, he told himself dryly.
    â€œArianna, there are cases of deep devotion between young wives and older husbands. And vice versa, for that matter. It’s not unheard of, you know, for an aging dowager to marry a much younger man,” he said.
    â€œOnly if he really needs the money!” Arianna retorted.
    Jamie sighed. “As I said, this will happen.”
    â€œThere must be a way to stop it.”
    â€œIndeed. Should I try to convince your father that he is a doddering old fool? That he doesn’t know his own mind? Or better still—should I point out the very obvious, that it is a fiscal matter, and that the bride is hardly in love with him? He is not a fool, Arianna. He wants the woman for his wife, and he can afford her, and therefore, he will have her. Nothing that I can say or do will change that. All that will happen is that he will push me away, and I will no longer be there as his confidant, friend, and champion. You must realize as well that any attempt I might make to prevent his marriage would certainly appear very badly. I am next in the line of succession to his titles and estates.”
    Arianna stared at him, entirely frustrated.
    â€œPerhaps I can stop the wedding,” she mused.
    â€œArianna,” he murmured warily. Blunt, even crude speaking had not been such a good idea. But at least she seemed to understand that he would, indeed, alienate her father if he attempted to step in. “You will stay here in school and study until I return for you. And then you will attend his wedding and be pleased with whatever happiness it is that he seeks from this young bride.”
    â€œYou will make sure that they make no attempt to have me be a part of that ceremony. In fact, you should inform my father that I have no intention of attending.”
    â€œArianna, please, be reasonable. Your father expects that the two of you will be friends.”
    â€œOh, I hardly think so!”
    â€œI’m sure she will make every effort to make it so.”
    â€œWill she? You don’t know just how fast rumor flies across the channel, Jamie. I know all about her. She was stunningly beautiful when she had her season, teased every man in the Ton, had her way, and rejected them all and eloped—with a policeman! Then he was killed. Serving the citizens of London, so they said. She probably planned it! Realizing that she had, indeed, married a commoner, and that there had been much more in the world for her to snare! She is able to maintain her beauty because she is so very evil. A strange magician is in her employ. He helps her make up her spells, and creates all kinds of incantations. And now, she has her eyes set on my father. She was left a penniless widow to rue her evil ways, and to rectify what she has done, she intends to milk my father dry. God knows, she’ll probably kill him as well!”
    â€œArianna! Her husband did die in public service; he was killed by the murdering madman he was trying to arrest. I assure you, there is no witchcraft going on in the house.” He hesitated. He, too, had heard about the man, Mireau. A friend of her husband, a poet, writer, in need of a patron. Was that all?
    Arianna was staring at him. “She did nothing to her husband. I have done extensive research on her past. Don’t you think that I would have made certain that all we had heard was truth regarding her first marriage?” he demanded indignantly.
    Yes, he had done research on her. She spent too much time in districts where poverty—and crime—ran rampant. She wrote letters to the newspapers herself, indignantly exposing those who set up shop as “mediums” or “spiritualists.” She had been known to dress in disguise and attend séances, then disobey the commands of the mediums, and fly from a chair to demonstrate that a ghostly spirit was nothing but a sheet on a string.
    Evil? Perhaps not. Foolhardy? Extremely. And the