Courting Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page A

toy grasshopper as, wound up, it crawled and kicked its way to the end of the bench. Admittedly, its stuttering progress was amusing, but not to an inventor trying to solve a problem.
    “I saw that smile. It’s too bad of you, Ayesha. He embarrassed me dreadfully. He slung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. All the men cheered and hollered. I was mortified. And he had the nerve to say he was preserving my reputation!”
    “The Rootail Pub does rejoice in a certain infamy.”
    “It’s a workingman’s pub. Besides, the landlord’s wife was there.”
    “And the other women?”
    Esme glanced down at the scarred worktable. The other women had all been prostitutes. Esme had nothing but sympathy for women reduced to selling themselves, but she couldn’t argue—their presence had daunted her. Their sexuality was so overt and tired. They’d rubbed up against the men, allowing themselves to be groped or roughly pushed away. When Jed walked into the pub, her discomfort had ratcheted up another level. She’d become blisteringly aware of her own feminine attributes, unable to prevent her imagination presenting her with images of herself and Jed. Embarrassment had added force to her resistance to his demand that she leave.
    She ought to be glad he’d stalked away in fury and disgust last night. Who needed a dictatorial male in her life?
    Of course, if he returned today, there were a few more home truths she intended to share with him. He was more enlightened than most men, but clearly even he needed a refresher course in the respect due a lady suffragette.
    If he returned…
    She grimaced. Angry though she was with the man, he’d seemed to feel he had an equal right to be annoyed.
    Courting was terribly hard on a woman. It forced her to look at the future, to realize that every choice had its price.
    At times like these, a girl missed her mother. But her mother had died over two years ago. Ayesha, to some extent, took her place as an older friend who could, if not advise her, at least be counted on to listen sympathetically. There had to be a way an independent woman could share her life while retaining her identity, and without driving herself and her beau crazy.
    There has to be, because I won’t be less than I am, not even for Jed.
    * * *
    “Jed Reeve, you scoundrel.” Esme inhaled sharply and her bicycle wobbled. She brought it to a stop and steadied herself with one booted foot on the ground.
    Around her, the busy activity of Bombaytown swirled on undisturbed. She’d left Ayesha’s shop with the problem of reconciling love and suffragism still unresolved, but insensibly comforted by her friend’s hug and smiling affirmation that “All will be well.”
    The school bell rang clear over the noise of market stallholders crying their wares and the low mooing of one of the sacred cows that roamed the narrow streets. Children ran for school, their uniforms clean and tidy, their satchels bumping with each hurried step. Youthful paperboys, who should have been going to school, waved their cheap newssheets, shouting that the men responsible for the theft of the world’s largest emerald, the Jungle Heart, still hadn’t been caught. Worshippers at the desecrated Indian temple from which it had been stolen were described as very, very sad.
    And very, very mad, Esme thought, her gaze on Jed.
    A thousand and one spices scented the air. Strings of flags and floating lamps were stacked in eye-catching displays, reminding everyone that Diwali, the Festival of Lights, was nearly here. Bright-colored silks fluttered as tailors re-dressed their narrow windows. Kites hung from a trader’s stall. A street performer set out his begging bowl, folded his legs and brought a flute to his lips. An eerie, plaintive tune wove through the chaos.
    On the other side of the road, Jed walked, seeming oblivious to the noise and spectacle, his head bent in total concentration as he listened to the conversation of a far-too-beautiful young