Winning the Wallflower: A Novella by Eloisa James Read Free Book Online

side—because, frankly, I don’t think you ever noticed I have any curves until a moment ago. When did you intend to ask me what my name was? Or say anything to me beyond a commonplace about the weather? Or even kiss me for the first time? When we were actually in bed together ?”
    “Miss Towerton!”
    “Lucy!” she snapped back.
    “Lucy. I didn’t think about it,” Cyrus said, opting for honesty once again. “I suppose I assumed such intimacies would come in due course.”
    Lucy leapt to her feet and took two angry steps away from the settee. Cyrus stood up and stared after her. He felt as if he were seeing his fiancée for the first time. She was slender, but somehow managed to seem both delicate and ripe, her waist slim, her hips deliciously curved. Why hadn’t he noticed the fact that her height hadn’t turned her into a lean beanpole? Given the delicate muslin of her gown, it was obvious that her legs were exquisite, long and slender as a gazelle’s.
    He swallowed, just as Lucy swung around to confront him. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and her cheeks had taken on a rosy hue. She would look like that when she was making love, he suddenly realized, with an answering rush of molten heat between his legs. Her body would arch under his hands and her cheeks would flush with desire.
    “What!” she snapped.
    Cyrus raised a defensive eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything.” A stupid response, but a man caught in a sudden storm of desire isn’t always the clearest thinker.
    “You’re looking at me.” The tinge of color on her cheeks took on the shade of a poppy. Then she shook her head. “I’m being absurd. Here’s the point I’m making, Cyrus. You chose me because I wasn’t pretty enough to attract a suitor of a higher rank.”
    She enunciated it as if he could not disagree. Her chin was high and her eyes fierce as a hawk’s.
    “I didn’t think of it that way,” he said, marshaling, with some difficulty, the calm that he used as a shield against the world. “One doesn’t choose a wife on the basis of superficialities such as appearance.”
    Instantly, he knew that he had made a huge mistake. The light in her eyes died. “Yes, well,” she said. “I am calling off this betrothal, Cyrus, not because of the fortune I inherited, or because my parents dictated it, but because you don’t even know me. Or desire me, obviously.” She met his gaze, a wry smile on her lips. “If you wouldn’t mind some advice, I suggest that you introduce yourself to your future wife the next time around. And you might even ask for her hand in person; most young ladies expect it.”
    Cyrus felt frozen to the spot. Of course she was right. He hadn’t thought of her as a person at all. Miss Towerton was merely one of the objects on his list, the plan that had been forged years ago at Eton.
    He cleared his throat. “If I have offended you in any way, I deeply regret it, and ask you to forgive me. I do find you quite attractive.” The sentence sounded stilted and lame. A germ of panic stole up his chest. He hated the feeling of not being in control of a conversation.
    Her smile deepened and a little dimple suddenly appeared in her right cheek. A kissing dimple, they called it. “Oh, it’s all right. I always knew you were too handsome for me.”
    “What?” His mouth fell open.
    “You know,” she said, waving her hand in his direction. “You cast all the other gentlemen in the shade. It was absurd to think that someone like you would even look at me. Or if you did,” she added thoughtfully, “you’d take a beautiful mistress once we were married, which would just make me miserable.”
    “I would not!” Cyrus barked.
    The corner of her mouth curled up. “Take a mistress, or take a beautiful one? I hardly think that a wife can dictate her husband’s choices in that regard, and I should greatly dislike being cast in the shade by a bonne amie with all the charms I lack.”
    “I have no mistress and no