Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02] Read Online Free PDF

long ago night at Rochester’s ball—even though he’d subsequently proposed to her cousin the next morning. Miss Deirdre Cantor had outshone every other lady present. It had seemed that everywhere he’d turned, he’d caught glimpses of her shimmering golden hair and her shining blue eyes … and her delicious, elegant-but-by-no-means-sparse figure.
    When she’d moved into Brook House with her cousins and her thrice-damned stepmother, she’d seemed gracious and demure, but not especially bold. He’d become used to her presence, and after a while he’d found himself less bemused by her perfect features and more interested in the subtle play of emotions behind her poised facade.
    Although of course, he’d never thought of her as anything but a future relative.
    The plans on Calder’s desk refused to make sense to his eyes. He closed them and leaned his head back against his chair. He ought to have considered when he’d married a true beauty—again!—that truly beautiful
women had a way of interfering with one’s precious concentration.
    LADY BROOKHAVEN’S CHAMBER was a spacious, feminine indulgence of lush gold velvet and luxurious cream silk. A bedchamber with the enormous four-poster hung in more gold velvet, a matched sitting room with a grand fireplace, and a dressing room where, apparently, there would be no new gowns to hang.
    Deirdre pressed her palms to her cheeks to suppress the furious heat still lingering there. Stupid, stupid girl! She’d brought it on herself, of course. How could she have lost her temper at such a crucial moment? She’d put up with Tessa for all those years, she ought to have been able to control herself for a quarter of an hour as the new lady of Brookhaven!
    I thought those days were done. At least, I’d hoped … .
    The familiar oppression of the last ten years pressed down upon Deirdre as if she’d never escaped Tessa. She’d dreamed of having this view, but now she squeezed her eyes closed against it. How could she have been so idiotic? She could have wed one of the many young men, some nearly rich enough, who would have let her run her own life and his as well! She could have married someone like Baskin, whose puppyish devotion would have been irritating but useful, or even some priggish solicitor like Mr. Stickley, who could have kept her quite happily spending his money for the rest of her life.
    No new gowns. He thought her so shallow-minded that she’d quail before such a threat? What no one
realized was that stylish Miss Deirdre Cantor had never bought costly fashions and worn them just once.
    She had been making the same half-dozen gowns do for the entire season with clever trims and distracting accessories and the only reason she had that many was that even Tessa was forced to see the logic behind dangling well-dressed bait.
    How had she not foreseen that such a man could be demanding and harsh? His first wife had run away from him—and now Deirdre was beginning to get an inkling of why! Why had she tied herself to another tyrant?
    The inheritance, of course—only she didn’t really care about that. She never had. It had been Tessa’s obsession, once she’d learned of it from Papa. Tessa had imagined that she’d be the natural recipient of Deirdre’s eternal gratitude, not to mention the value of such a high connection.
    Now, however, that inheritance might mean the difference between continued oppression and real freedom. A man couldn’t take what he didn’t know about—and Deirdre was strongly considering keeping her future personal wealth a secret forever! She needn’t worry ever again that her controlling beast of a husband could affect her freedom in any way.
    “It’s not right to wish anyone dead,” she grumbled to herself, “but if the old Duke of Brookmoor feels the need to breathe his last sometime this week, it would be vastly appreciated.”
    Several crystal bottles stood lined up neatly on the gold-leafed vanity. Deirdre gently pushed