How to Seduce a Scot Read Online Free PDF Page B

“I beg your pardon?”
    â€œWe are going to find a man to love you. He will have to love you all his life, and beyond. That’s certain.” Mary Elizabeth frowned, looking off into the middle distance as Margaret clanged on the piano, missing more than one note.
    Catherine felt her blood rising into her cheeks, and she cursed herself silently. If she had a fairy godmother, she would not ask for gowns or princes, but for her foolish blush to be gone for life.
    â€œDo you not seek a husband for yourself, Miss Waters?” she asked, trying to be polite while deflecting her friend’s focused regard.
    Mary Elizabeth’s hazel eyes seemed to pierce her where she sat, like a butterfly on a pin. She felt exposed as she never was when her mother or her sister looked at her. Her father had seen through her, past her soft smiles, to the girl within. He had fed her hunger for botany and growing things, and had even paid for a Latin tutor to teach her the proper terms for the foliage on their estate. Her father had been the last person to truly know her.
    As she sat, caught in her new friend’s gaze, she wondered if Mary Elizabeth might also see behind her polite smiles to the self she tried to keep hidden. No man cared for her true self, nor would. Marriage was not an accommodation of souls but a meeting of two people who needed each other—for companionship, for children, so that they might not grow old alone. To wish for someone to see past her smile into her soul was to wish to hold the light of the moon in her hand.
    â€œI need no husband,” Mary Elizabeth said. “In spite of my brothers’ scheming and my mother’s insistence, Papa will allow me to hunt and fish on our glen for the rest of my life. There is no need to marry to do that. But you”—Mary Elizabeth’s gaze did not waver, even as she blinked as if to clear her vision—“you shall marry for love.”
    Catherine found herself smiling then, and the smile was a true one. “There is no such thing as a love match that lasts.”
    â€œOf course there is. My parents have it. I think your parents had it, before your father died.”
    Catherine looked across the parlor to her strident mother, who had only become so after she had managed to crawl out of the chasm of her grief. It was almost as if, without her father present in the world, her mother was afraid of not ever being heard again.
    â€œThey did,” was all Catherine said.
    â€œAnd we will find it for you.” Mary Elizabeth squeezed her hand, and Catherine felt for one hideous moment as if she might weep.
    She had not cried in years, not since the summer her father died. Tears were wasted salt. Her grandmother had taught her that a woman had better use salt at table and leave weeping to children, who could not help themselves.
    â€œI have made you sad, and I am sorry. Come to the ballroom with me.” When Catherine hesitated, Mary Elizabeth smiled and tugged her to her feet. “Your sister is happy and well banging that pianoforte until it’s out of tune. Your mother is safe in Robert’s care. He’s not good for much, but he can chat with a woman until the sun sets and rises again in the east.”
    Catherine laughed a watery laugh, and blinked her unwelcome tears away. “All right.”
    Mary Elizabeth announced to the room at large, “We are going up to the third floor. Offer our guests another cup of tea, Robert.”
    Robert Waters glowered at his sister over Catherine’s mother’s head, but Mary Elizabeth only smiled at him sweetly. Catherine looked at Robert, trying to find in his blue eyes some of the warmth she had felt his brother direct at her. He was an attractive man, with curling auburn hair and shoulders as broad as his brother’s. But there was nothing else between them. Only a kind regard on his part, coupled with his polite and distant smile.
    Perhaps she had imagined the