In Want of a Wife? Read Online Free PDF Page B

then tossed his head back to finish the wine in his glass. Just in case she got any ideas about going anywhere, he reached out and planted his hand firmly on the wall so that she was locked in.
    Lizzy wondered how soon she could escape so that she could strangle her overbearing mother.
    ‘Repeat—none of your business.’
    ‘A little tip—men don’t like women who show their claws the way you do.’
    ‘I
show my claws
because I happen to loathe you!’
    Louis laughed. He wondered if anyone had ever had the audacity to tell him that they loathed him. Nope; he couldn’t think of a single instance.
    ‘And,’ Lizzy continued, fuming, ‘I don’t ask
you
about
your
private life!’
    ‘Ask on. What do you want to know?’ He straightened, but when he shifted it was only to further block any exit routes.
    ‘I’m actually not at all interested. And anyway,’ she couldn’t resist adding, ‘I don’t need to ask, because I can guess what sort of private life you have.’
    ‘Oh? Tell me. I’m all ears.’
    ‘Lots of women,’ she threw at him. ‘Glamour models andairheads who smile sweetly and do whatever you ask them to do. You have so much money that you can pick and choose, and rich men only ever pick stunning women. But my guess is that, when and if you ever do decide to tie the knot, it’ll be with someone from your own class. That’s why you don’t like the thought of Nicholas with my sister. He comes from lots of money and therefore he should stick to his own kind.’
    ‘You’re flirting dangerously with my boundaries. And my patience.’
    ‘You have been flirting dangerously with mine as well.’ She looked at him and something wild and dangerous shifted inside her. Just as quickly she glanced away, but her pulses were racing and her heart was thumping so hard that she felt as though she might faint.
    Behind him, she could hear the first strains of music as the small jazz band—two members of which she had gone to school with—began tuning their instruments.
    ‘Care to dance?’
    ‘You’re kidding!’
    Louis laughed again. He had intended to be brutal on this fact-finding mission, but he found that he was enjoying the way she scratched and bristled. It was novel. She had been dead-on target when she had said that the women he dated were beautiful airheads. Airheads didn’t interrupt his work life, and his work life ate up a considerable amount of his time. She had also been dead on target when she had said that the woman he eventually chose would be someone of equal standing—no one who could possibly be interested in his vast wealth, which would mean that her connections would have to be similarly impeccable; no argument there. Neither type of woman would resemble the one currently nursing her empty wine glass and glaring up at him. A girl who got her kicks riding motorcycles and whose mother despaired of her settling down. Even in her finery, she still managed to have a slightly untamed air about her.
    ‘Don’t you dance?’ he asked.
    ‘I choose my dance partners with discretion.’
    Louis made a show of looking around him. ‘And anyone here take your fancy? Or do you go back too far with all of them? My guess is that familiarity can breed contempt in a place as small as this. Is that the reason you legged it down to London while your sisters stayed up here?’
    ‘Rose is the only one who lives here. Leigh and Maisie are at university and Vivian is abroad.’
    ‘Doing good works. Like I said, I already have the potted family history.’
    ‘Isn’t there
anything
my mother didn’t tell you? Couldn’t you just have chatted to her about the weather, like any normal person would have?’ Lizzy blurted out in frustration and Louis grinned.
    It was such a breathtaking ceasefire after hostilities that she felt her breath get trapped somewhere in her throat. The man was beyond good-looking, she thought in confusion. He was wickedly, sinfully devastating.
    ‘I should mingle.’ Her voice