A Heart for the Taking Read Online Free PDF Page B

found herself wed to a man she didn’t know. A handsome man, to be sure, charming and urbane, but also arrogant and spoiled and five years older than her own father!
    Staring down sightlessly at the busy wharf at Richmond where their ship had finally ended its long journey from England, Fancy wondered at the twists and turns of fate that had brought her here. Her marriage to Spencer hadn’t been
unhappy;
in his way, he had been kind and generous, willingly taking on the care of Ellen and Aunt Mary, sheltering them at his country seat, Merrivale, with never a complaint or question about the money Fancy expended on them.
    Fancy sighed. In many ways her life hadn’t changed upon her marriage. Spencer saw no reason for his young and beautiful wife to follow him to London, and while she no longer had to worry over unpaid bills and could indulge herself with the latest fashions and lived in a grand house with servants at her beck and call, she was still buried in the country. Oh, every now and then the baron would allowFancy to give a ball or a soiree, but since he followed his own pursuits and was away most of the time, after the first few months of their marriage, Fancy, Ellen, and Aunt Mary were left to their own devices. Sometimes Fancy almost forgot that she was married.
    Even now, having been married for nearly eight years and widowed for over two, a faint flush stained her cheeks when she thought of the intimacies her husband had pressed upon her. Raised in the country, Fancy hadn’t been entirely without knowledge about what would happen when her husband came to her on their wedding night, but there was no denying that the act of lovemaking had come as a distinct shock to her.
    Spencer had been gentle with her that first night, and the loss of her virginity had not been the dreadful event she had feared. Painful and embarrassing, but not dreadful. In the first days of their marriage, Spencer had been a demanding bridegroom, seeking her bed frequently to satisfy his needs, but as time passed, his fascination with her innocence had faded, and to Fancy’s humiliation, he had gone on to seek compensation in the arms of more knowing and sophisticated women.
    Which was just as well, she decided ruefully, unable to say that she had
enjoyed
her husband’s lovemaking. She hadn’t
dis
liked it, precisely, but . . . If she were honest, she had been just as glad that Spencer had spent so much time away from Merrivale and that she hadn’t had to share her bed with him more than a dozen times in the last six years of their marriage.
    His death two years ago in a hunting accident had saddened her. He had been an affable, generous man, and he had never treated her unkindly—indifferently, perhaps, but not unkindly. In fact, Fancy still felt almost guilty at the sense of release that had washed over her when she had realized some three months after his death that she was truly
free
for the first time in her life. For the first time ever, there was no man in the background ruling her life, and lack of money was no longer an issue. Spencer had been generous to her—she had jewels, servants, and expensive horses andcarriages to call her own, and as his widow, she had the dowager house at Merrivale at her disposal, as well as a handsome jointure left to her by him. Her relationship with his sons, all of them older than herself, had been cool but cordial. Taking Ellen and the ailing Aunt Mary with her, without a backward glance, she had moved from the grand halls of Merrivale to the smaller, but equally elegant dowager house.
    Fancy probably would have been content to spend the rest of her days living happily in the dowager house, enjoying her own small circle of friends and pursuits, if it hadn’t been for Ellen . . . and Aunt Mary’s death. . . . Fancy sighed more deeply. Oh, how she missed Aunt Mary’s gentle guidance and blunt common sense. Aunt Mary had not lived for six months after they had moved into the dowager house, and