Duchess by Mistake Read Online Free PDF

brothers-in-law.
    "Come in."
    It wasn't Haverstock who came strolling into her room. It was Anna. A smile brightened her lovely face as she strolled straight to Elizabeth. "I've come to offer my felicitations. Charles told me the duke's offered for you."
    "He did." Her pale eyes connected with Anna's large brown ones. "I turned him down."
    Anna dropped onto the bed. "Oh, dear."
    "I am not like Kate. I cannot marry where there is no love--and I most especially don't want to trap the duke into marriage where there's no love." She drew in a breath. "He's apparently possessed of more nobility than I'd given him credit for."
    "Having never met the man, I will own that I too thought he was a profligate, but it seems I was wrong." Anna sighed. "I hope you're not closing the door on this opportunity because of Captain Smythe. He doesn't deserve your regard."
    Elizabeth spoke as if she were thinking aloud. "When he left England without offering for me, I thought my heart would break. Every time the post arrived, I hoped for his letter which never came. Every time I saw an officer whose build or hair colour was similar to his, my pulse would explode with anticipation. But a year has passed now, and with it, so too the pain. I no longer look for a letter, no longer think of him every hour of the day." But no man except Captain Smythe was capable of eliciting such profound feelings in her.
    "Not all marriages begin with a passionate love like you once felt for Captain Smythe. Take mine and Charles.'"
    Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "You cannot tell me you two weren't passionately in love when you married. I know better. I was here. I saw the hunger in your eyes whenever you looked at one another."
    Anna gave a soft smile. "Did you really believe we married for love?"
    "Of course!"
    "I swear on Mama's grave, neither of us was in love when we married."
    Elizabeth's mouth gaped open. "I cannot believe that!"
    Anna shrugged. "Ask Haverstock."
    "But he worships you!"
    "I think he may--as I adore him."
    "I've never seen two people so much in love."
    "I will own that a very short time after I plighted my life to his, I was deeply in love with him. Later, I learned he felt the same, but for a long time I didn't know he loved me. I thought. . .  oh, I can't speak of such to a maiden!"
    "You thought he only desired to make love to you. Because he's a man. Come, Anna, I know something about men and their cravings!” And that afternoon she'd learned something altogether new about the opposite sex--though she'd as lief she hadn't. Elizabeth started to shake her head, a gleeful look upon her face. "We all knew why you and Haverstock spent so much time in your bedchamber those early months of your marriage!”
    A secretive smile spread slowly across Anna's face. “There are so many kinds of foundations upon which a good marriage can be built. I will own that physical … compatibility was crucial to ours. There’s also the very sense that in the eyes of God and man, you belong to your husband until death. And him to you. From the very start, even though he did not love me, Charles held respect for my position as his wife and saw to it that others respected me. That brought us closer.”
    Elizabeth was still stunned. She had never suspected that Anna's and Haverstock's marriage was not a great love match. “I was serious earlier today when I told you I would not marry.”
    “But earlier today your innocence had not been compromised. Now it has. You must know how the Aldridge servants talk! It will be all over London that you were seen running from his bedchamber.”
    “If I turn my back on Society as Charlotte has done—concentrating on doing good works—it won’t matter if I’m shunned by the ton .”
    “It will matter to your brothers.”
    “I’m sorry. I know how Haverstock would have liked for me to marry Aldridge.”
    “All of your loved ones would be happy for the connection, but more than that, it would be good for you. Don’t forget