Kasey Michaels Read Online Free PDF Page A

and didn’t insist. If he wanted to stand until she had seated herself, it was his prerogative. However, if he wanted to stand until Hell froze over and the Devil went ice-skating, well, then she’d just have to make him see the error of his ways. As long as he ended by sitting down, and believing that taking his seat had been his own idea.
    She would do whatever made the man happy, or made him think he was happy. That’s what her mama had always said. And her mother had always made it a point to keep her men happy. All of her men. So many, many men. For years, Sophie had thought herself to be the luckiest of children—having so many doting uncles.
    Until she realized that, although her uncles numbered in the dozens, she strangely had never met any aunts or cousins.
    That’s when Desiree had taken her aside and explained the ways of the world to her—something her mama never would have done, preferring her daughter to be innocent of such things. But Desiree had “lived the life,” as she called it, before fleeing Paris in 1804 with her latest protector, who had made the mistake of backing the hapless duc d’Enghien in his plot against Napoleon. When that man had tossed her over a few years later for no other than Constance Winstead, Desiree had come to Wimbledon bent on a hair-pulling match, and ended by becoming Constance’s sometimes lady’s maid and boon companion, an arrangement that had suited them both.
    The gentleman in question, however happy at first, had not found this arrangement quite so pleasing when he learned Desiree was now officially out of the life (Lord only knew what naughty ideas that man had harbored in his head!). He soon dejectedly departed for friendlier climes with both an English and Gallic flea in his ear, leaving behind him two giggling ladies much in charity with each other.
    Desiree had immediately thrown off her stays, indulged her love of French pastry, and taken the then still-quite-young Sophie under her motherly wing.
    Firstly, lastly, and probably eternally—it was Desiree who had tried and failed, and tried and failed again, to break Sophie of her one seemingly insurmountable fault: her rather volatile temper. If the maid had not succeeded in banishing that temper over the years, she had at least brought Sophie to the point of recognizing her failing, and for the most part successfully curbing it, twisting it, turning it, using it to her advantage.
    Which was not the same as saying that the grown Sophie now had the disposition of a cute, cuddly kitten. Unless one was speaking of cute, cuddly young tigers , who could just as easily lick your hand or nip off your nose, depending on their mood. As Desiree had been heard to mutter more than once as she tried to console herself, if the little tiger had not changed her stripes, at least she had over the years learned how better to hide them from view.
    It also had been Desiree who had carefully explained a man’s needs when Constance had done with her lessons on a man’s wants. It had been Desiree who had helped school the young Sophie in her lessons, which explained the young woman’s hint of a French accent. It had been Desiree who had hidden Sophie from the worst of her mother’s life, and allowed her a peek or two at the best of it.
    And it had been Desiree who had held a sobbing Sophie when the heartbreaking news came that her beloved, scatterbrained mother and her dear, sweet Uncle Cesse had unexpectedly perished in a tragic carriage accident.
    It had been the resourceful Desiree who had so cleverly written the letter concerning Sophie’s come-out, forged the various signatures that made it all look so wonderfully important and legal. A highly enjoyable round of slap and tickle with the local solicitor—coming out of retirement for the sake of her beloved Sophie, and just to see if she could still do it—had secured all the proper stamps and seals that cemented the legitimacy of the letter then forwarded to the ninth