How to Woo a Reluctant Lady Read Online Free PDF

grandmother laid down an ultimatum earlier this year—the Sharpe siblings must all marry or they all lose their inheritance. Knowing Lady Minerva, this is her way of irritating her grandmother.”
    Ravenswood gaped at him. “You mean the woman is seriously interviewing husbands?”
    “I don’t know how serious she is, but the interviewing is undoubtedly real.”
    The chit was mad if she thought this would gain her anything. He could only imagine how Oliver and Jarret would react, not to mention Mrs. Plumtree. The old woman had a spine of steel—she wouldn’t tolerate Minerva’s nonsense for one moment. She certainly wouldn’t change her mind about her plans.
    He tucked the magazine under his arm. “I have to go.”
    “Planning to show up for the interview, are you?” Ravenswood joked.
    “It’s a thought,” he said tersely.
    “You and Lady Minerva? That’s interesting.”
    “You have no idea.”
    An hour later, after he’d read Minerva’s first chapter, he was furious. Damn her to hell. She’d gone too far this time.
    So she wanted to interview men for a husband, did she? Fine. She was about to have one hell of an interview.
    M INERVA PACED THE Chinese drawing room at Halstead Hall, her spirits falling lower by the moment. How was she to get Gran to rescind her ultimatum if no one showed up?
    She’d envisioned scores of young fools and fortune hunters clamoring for her attention, overrunning Halstead Hall and making such a to-do in the press that Gran would
have
to give up. Or cut her off completely. And since Minerva refused to believe that Gran would make her siblings suffer for one grandchild’s indiscretions, that was the outcome she was hoping for. Then she could find a small cottage somewhere and write what she pleased, free of any husband.
    Hard to believe that she’d once considered marriage a good idea. Her parents’ marriage had been disastrous. And through the years, she’d seen that men had no respect for the institution.There’d been the publishers she’d approached to sell her book who’d made colorful suggestions about what she could do to gain their “favor.” And the legions of fortune hunters who were never far from her door. Respectable gentlemen wouldn’t have her, since she wrote novels under her own name.
    Not that she wanted a respectable gentleman anymore—they were the worst. She’d had a few as suitors and she’d even kissed a couple. But as soon as they’d learned what she was really like, they’d run as far and as fast as they could. Men didn’t particularly like women who spoke their minds.
    Even her brothers were no great endorsement of respectable gentlemen, with their wild living and autocratic behavior toward their sisters. Perhaps Oliver and Jarret had been domesticated a bit, now that they were married, but would it last? And what if it didn’t? Their wives would be trapped.
    Women were always trapped. Minerva would never forgive Gran for trapping her with the cursed demand that they all marry. And Oliver and Jarret—how dare they betray their siblings by going over to Gran’s side? Six months ago, they would have been leading the charge. Now, if they realized what she was up to and why, they would scuttle her plans at once.
    Her eyes narrowed on the door. Was that why no gentlemen had shown up? Had her brothers—or Gran—found out that she was being outrageous again?
    No, how could they? She’d purposely put her advertisement in
The Ladies Magazine
because it was delivered in the evening and no one in the family read it. Celia was too much a tomboy for such things, Gran only read the
Times
, her brothers wouldn’t be caught dead even opening the thing, and—
    Their wives. Drat it all. They had wives now. And while Jarret’s wife, Annabel, didn’t seem the sort to read a lady’s magazine, Oliver’s wife, Maria, was an avid supporter ofMinerva’s books. She wouldn’t have missed the first installment of the latest one.
    Minerva cursed under her