Beware of Virtuous Women Read Online Free PDF Page A

him.
    "Very well what, Miss Becket?" Jack asked, wondering if he should pretend not to notice the twin spots of color that had appeared on her cheeks. The little fawn had a temper. How interesting.
    Lifting her chin slightly, Eleanor began to count on her fingers as she rattled off her thoughts with the precision of a sergeant barking orders to his troops. "Number one, Mr. Eastwood, we are married, at least to the world, which includes your staff in Portland Square. Therefore, I am Mrs. Eastwood to the staff, and Eleanor to you. And you are Jack."
    "Not darling?" Jack asked, the devil rising in him now. "I had so hoped for a love match."
    Eleanor dropped her head slightly, lowered her gaze, then looked over at Jack through remarkably long, thick black lashes. "If I might continue?"
    Well, that had put him in his place, hadn't it? "My apologies.. .Eleanor."
    "Accepted. This is difficult for both of us, I'm sure," Eleanor said, longing to kick herself for being so formal, for being such...such a stick! "If you prefer the diminutive, Elly will also do."
    "Very well. But you can still feel free to call me darling, Elly."
    Eleanor clasped her hands together and pressed her knuckles against her mouth, trying to keep her lips from turning up into a smile. "Now you're being facetious."
    "I only sought to ease the tension between us. We'll be fine, Elly, I promise. My staff are very incurious, and that's by design."
    "Very well. I really don't look for any problems there, as I've read extensively about the proper running of a large domicile, although I much prefer my experience at Becket Hall. I will, of course, need a maid assigned to me, if I'm to go out in public without you. I also read that somewhere—that ladies do not walk about unaccompanied."
    "You plan to do a lot of walking, Elly?"
    He kept calling her Elly. She'd really rather he addressed her as Eleanor, that she had not suggested the diminutive. She was not, after all, his sister. "I would like to see some of the sights, if at all possible."
    "So I'm right in assuming this is your first trip to the city. You never had a Season when you were younger?"
    "Is my advanced age so obvious?"
    "Well, that was putting my foot in it, wasn't it? Then you're younger than your sister, the countess?"
    "No, you were correct. I am the oldest, already into my majority. I preferred not to have a Season."
    "Because of your—damn. I can't seem to say anything right, can I?"
    "No, Mr.—Jack. We probably should get past this, as I'm cognizant of the fact that you know little about your new wife. I am one and twenty, I never had a Season, and I suffered an injury to my leg and foot as a child that has left me with a slight limp. It pains me in prolonged stretches of inclement weather or if I overexert myself, but is otherwise simply a nuisance. I'm neither ashamed nor proud of my... condition, and would prefer you ignore it rather than concern yourself. I am, I assure you, more than capable of the mission I've accepted."
    "All but bullied your way into taking. Made a case for yourself against your father's wishes, actually, but who's quibbling?" Jack commented, once more holding back a smile. "I simply want to know why you were so willing to volunteer."
    If being a Becket qualified Eleanor for anything, it was the acquired ability to lie smoothly and without suspicion. "I have been no farther than a few miles from Becket Hall since I arrived there as a child of six, which is when I...became a part of the family. I know you are aware that only Cassandra is Papa's natural child, and that the rest of us came to him as orphans."
    "Yes, I do know that. It's all very intriguing, actually."
    "Not really, not if you knew Papa well. At any rate, Morgan's delightful stories of London have intrigued me, and I finally realized I should like to travel to the metropolis. Not for a Season, I don't delude myself into aspirations at that level, but I couldn't pass up this opportunity. Plus," she ended,