In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) Read Online Free PDF Page A

true. A few people had clustered on the corner to watch her argue with the jarvey. Louisa held fast to her muff, where her fat billfold was tucked into a pocket. She was an heiress, with not only a fur muff but a fur coat and a diamond pin in her veiled driving hat. She’d learned this past year to be careful, but all her good sense had deserted her today.
    Perhaps it was doubly Captain Cooper’s fault. She’d dressed to impress him, and it was difficult to think with his blue eye upon her.
    “Very well,” she said, raising her chin, and allowed him to lift her into the carriage.
    She and Kathleen sat side by side as Charles Cooper sprawled opposite, his long legs inevitably taking up some of their space. He was so silent Louisa felt obligated to speak.
    She didn’t like silence. She’d had way too much of it growing up at Rosemont with no one to talk to and no one to listen. Quiet made her—nervous.
    She searched for a neutral topic, something natural where Captain Cooper wouldn’t think she was prying too much, when all Louisa really wanted to do was ask him a thousand questions. How had a decorated soldier wound up living is such a shithole? She wouldn’t say
shit
, of course. She still had some vestiges of ladylike behavior left. Who had broken his nose? Was Africa worth visiting? Did he have a sweetheart stashed away somewhere?
    She opened her mouth but Captain Cooper beat her to it. “You needn’t worry. That cot is fine. I won’t share a bedroom with you, Miss Stratton. Neither one of us would get much sleep.”
    Louisa felt her blush rise. “You have very acute hearing.”
    “I do. It’s rather a miracle. A lot of soldiers go deaf. War is noisy. All that exploding ordnance.”
    “It’s very quiet at Rosemont.” Too damn quiet.
    He shifted in his seat. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t sleep well.”
    “Are you troubled by bad dreams?” She’d tried to read Dr. Freud’s very interesting book about dreams in the original German, with a German–English dictionary at hand, which really had not helped much.
    His face was unreadable in the shadow of the cab. “You might say that.”
    “I can call upon the family doctor. He can come to Rosemont and give you something for your nerves.”
    “My nerves?” His voice was ice-cold.
    “You know. To help you sleep,” she said hurriedly. Men never liked to admit they had any weaknesses. “When you are unsettled. Cannot get something out of your head. Dr. Fentress was very useful when my aunt wouldn’t let me have my debut. I had vexed her over something, I cannot remember what, and she punished me by canceling the whole thing. I couldn’t sleep for days until Dr. Fentress came with his elixir.” Oh, Louisa could remember perfectly well what she had done, but she wasn’t about to tell this stranger. She could still smell the lilies before they’d been shoveled out the door. Just one whiff of lilies had made her sad ever since.
    “Your
debut
.”
    She refused to flinch. “Yes. You must know how important it is for a girl to be fired off into society. One really cannot find a husband without the Season. Not that I want a husband
now
. I did then, though.” Louisa had really wanted her freedom and money more than she wanted any man, two things Aunt Grace refused to grant her. As her principal guardian and trustee, Grace had discouraged every male within miles of Rosemont from setting foot on its doorstep. By necessity, Louisa had become very inventive in seeking them out instead.
    For a while. And then the bars had dropped and she’d become a prisoner in her own home.
    “Let me see if I understand you, Miss Stratton. You took drugs to help you sleep because you couldn’t wear a fluffy white dress and dance all night and bag some rich nincompoop. Boo hoo.”
    When he put it that way, she did sound awfully spoiled. But spoiled was the very last thing she’d been. “You’re a man—you wouldn’t understand!”
    “Miss Louisa,” Kathleen