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

put his hand around that tiny waist and keep her still. He could do anything he wanted to her then, and she would be unable to resist. He’d pluck the pins from her pompadour and use her golden hair to guide her down—
    He was a beast. Miss Stratton was not that kind of girl, and he wasn’t that kind of man, was he? He’d never felt such unnatural desire in his life—to subdue. To control.
    How odd that modern women spent a fortune on corsets to contort their bodies to such unnatural shapes. A few months in a Boer concentration camp would have whittled their waists down to size at no expense at all.
    Charles shut his eyes. He could pretend to sleep until Mount Street. Maybe Miss Stratton was right. Charles would see this Dr. Fentress. Swallow bottles full of his elixir if it would make the nightmares stop and the days clearer. If he was to do without gin, he would need a bloody miracle.

Chapter

    5
    Thursday, December 3, 1903
    T he next day, Charles was both ginless and lacking in any sort of miracle. The princess had kept the porters busy at Victoria Station. Charles did not understand how one woman could fill so many trunks. And how could they all have been stuffed in her little motorcar during her travels? But apparently Louisa had sent them along with her car by steamship across the Channel. The car, thank the powers that be, would remain in London until the proper parts were found for it.
    Charles might not value his life, but he had no desire to end it in a ditch on the road to Rosemont, and he was grateful to sink into a somewhat tattered first-class compartment of the Chatham Line. The railroad company had the reputation of being a somewhat shaky enterprise, but at least its trains always arrived on time.
    In Charles’s case, he was not sure that was altogether a good thing. He’d gotten ahold of that magazine from Mrs. Evensong yesterday after tea, had seen photographs of Rosemont’s turrets and vast expanse of lawn running down to the sea. Charlie Cooper was going to be very much out of place.
    He’d had hopes that he’d be left to himself on the train with the ladies in an adjacent compartment, but that was not to be. The maid Kathleen made a great show of taking out a book so as not to participate in the conversation between “husband” and “wife.” Charles shut his eyes at the blur of gray sky and bare trees beyond the window, but he couldn’t shut his ears. Louisa Stratton was chattering incessantly as she was wont to do.
    “Chattin’ Stratton,” he mumbled.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Are you never silent? You’re giving me the devil of a headache.”
    “I suppose I’m a bit nervous about going home,” Louisa said, surprising him. “I haven’t seen my family in over a year. And it’s absolutely essential you understand the role you are to play. I thought we just might brush up on the details we discussed with Mrs. Evensong.”
    “Rembrandt. Louvre. You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”
    Her golden brows knit. “I’m sure I never told you to say that.”
    “It’s my own invention. You want Max to be your devoted dog, don’t you?”
    “Not at all! I would never want a man who could be led around on a leash. Maximillian is much too much of a man to allow me to dominate.”
    Charles flashed back to his mental image of a near-naked Louisa, her creamy flesh encased by a rigid corset. Bound. Helpless. Perhaps with a gag over those lovely ever-mobile lips. He shifted in discomfort on the seat. What the hell was she doing to him?
    “Fine. Then we will discount your looks. Did I marry you for your money?” Charles was sure this girl had been hotly pursued for her face and figure—the fortune was just a bonus.
    “Maximillian has his own independent income. A substantial one.”
    “How did I earn it?”
    Her tongue poked into the corner of her lush lips before she spoke. “You didn’t. You inherited it.”
    “Just like you, then.”
    “Surely you know women are