Just Like Heaven Read Online Free PDF

trying to thwart him.
    Which she would do. He was sure of it.
    It wasn’t that she was deliberately willful. She was, for the most part, a perfectly reasonable girl. But even the most reasonable of females took umbrage when they thought they were being bossed about.
    So he watched from afar, and he quietly scared off a suitor or two.
    Or three.
    Or maybe four.
    He’d promised Daniel.
    And Marcus Holroyd did not break his promises.

Chapter Two
    â€œW hen will he be here?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Honoria replied, for what must have been the seventh time. She smiled politely at the other young ladies in the Royles’ green and gray drawing room. Marcus’s appearance the day before had been discussed, dissected, analyzed, and—by Lady Sarah Pleinsworth, Honoria’s cousin and one of her closest friends—rendered into poetry.
    â€œHe came in the rain,” Sarah intoned. “The day had been plain.”
    Honoria nearly spit out her tea.
    â€œIt was muddy, this lane—”
    Cecily Royle smiled slyly over her teacup. “Have you considered free verse?”
    â€œâ€”our heroine, in pain—”
    â€œI was cold,” Honoria put in.
    Iris Smythe-Smith, another of Honoria’s cousins, looked up with her signature dry expression. “ I am in pain,” she stated. “Specifically, my ears.”
    Honoria shot Iris a look that said clearly, Be polite . Iris just shrugged.
    â€œâ€”her distress, she did feign—”
    â€œNot true!” Honoria protested.
    â€œYou can’t interfere with genius,” Iris said sweetly.
    â€œâ€”her schemes, not in vain—”
    â€œThis poem is devolving rapidly,” Honoria stated.
    â€œI am beginning to enjoy it,” said Cecily.
    â€œâ€”her existence, a bane . . .”
    Honoria let out a snort. “Oh, come now!”
    â€œI think she’s doing an admirable job,” Iris said, “given the limitations of the rhyming structure.” She looked over at Sarah, who had gone quite suddenly silent. Iris cocked her head to the side; so did Honoria and Sarah.
    Sarah’s lips were parted, and her left hand was still outstretched with great drama, but she appeared to have run out of words.
    â€œCane?” Cecily suggested. “Main?”
    â€œInsane?” offered Iris.
    â€œAny moment now,” Honoria said tartly, “if I’m trapped here much longer with you lot.”
    Sarah laughed and flopped down on the sofa. “The Earl of Chatteris,” she said with a sigh. “I shall never forgive you for not introducing us last year,” she said to Honoria.
    â€œI did introduce you!”
    â€œWell, then you should have done so twice,” Sarah added impishly, “to make it stick. I don’t think he said more than two words to me the whole season.”
    â€œHe barely said more than two words to me,” Honoria replied.
    Sarah tilted her head, her brows arching as if to say, Oh, really ?
    â€œHe’s not terribly social,” Honoria said.
    â€œI think he’s handsome,” Cecily said.
    â€œDo you?” Sarah asked. “I find him rather brooding.”
    â€œBrooding is handsome,” Cecily said firmly, before Honoria could offer an opinion.
    â€œI am trapped in a bad novel,” Iris announced, to no one in particular.
    â€œYou didn’t answer my question,” Sarah said to Honoria. “When will he be here?”
    â€œI do not know,” Honoria replied, for what was surely the eighth time. “He did not say.”
    â€œImpolite,” Cecily said, reaching for a biscuit.
    â€œIt’s his way,” Honoria said with a light shrug.
    â€œThis is what I find so interesting,” Cecily murmured, “that you know ‘his way.’ ”
    â€œThey have known each other for decades,” Sarah said. “Centuries.”
    â€œSarah . . .” Honoria adored her cousin, she