Lady of Pleasure Read Online Free PDF

Whilst she endlessly cherished their friendship, including the two of them playing cards and reading the gossip columns to each other in absurd theatrical tones, what she wanted more than anything was the passion that Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth shared. One untainted by family or society or time or age or…pimples.
    She tightened her hold on his coin. “Is it my face? Or my parents?”
    His brows flickered. “Caroline. No. This isn’t about…” His expression grew tight with strain. “Things between men and women are tactless and messy. A romance between us? You don’t want that. It would end in a short breath. But in ten years from now, as friends, you and I will still be good friends. In the way we are now. In the way we should always be.”
    She swallowed and stared up at him, miserably.
    Maybe he didn’t love her in the way she loved him, and maybe he didn’t see her in the way she wanted him to, but she had to take heart knowing that in his time of need, in his time of whatever crisis he was enduring, he had thought to come to her. It was humbling to know that out of all the people he could have gone to, and out of all the people he could have entrusted his coin to, he had entrusted it to her. Not her brother. Her .
    She touched his arm. “I will safeguard your coin until you ask for it again.”
    He smiled brokenly. “Thank you.”
    Oh how she wanted to soothe away the sorrows that clearly drowned the real smiles she was used to seeing. “I have never seen you like this. What is it?”
    His features twisted. He shook his head. “You would think the worst of me.”
    “I would never.” Her fingers dug into the wool of his morning coat. “You and I are friends. Real friends. And we always tell each other everything without judgment. Don’t we?”
    “Yes.”
    She shook his arm gently. “Then tell me.”
    He hesitated and glanced toward the open doorway, as if to ensure they were alone. “I’m ruined.”
    She released him, her eyes widening.
    He raked trembling hands through his hair, digging his fingers into the sides of his head. “I need ten thousand pounds by the end of the month. And I don’t have it.”
    She gasped. That sort of money could pay the rent of many for years.
    He dropped his hands to his sides. “My uncle was only able to assist with a thousand. So it’s really only nine, but between my aunt’s debts and my own, I’m…” He fell silent. “I’m ruined.”
    Her breath caught in her lungs. “I don’t understand. Why do you owe so much?”
    “Since my aunt’s husband died a few months ago, she and her children have been struggling over in Paris quite a bit. My uncle Hughes has been assisting them, but it isn’t enough to make a difference and so I…” He winced. “I wanted my finances to be in order to better help them. So I took whatever money I had been saving and also borrowed ten thousand from someone I shouldn’t have.”
    Her lips parted as she attempted to even her breathing. “You borrowed ten thousand pounds? From one man?”
    He closed his eyes and nodded.
    “To do what?”
    Opening his eyes, he admitted, “My father used to breed racehorses in my younger years, when my mother was still alive. So I took it up knowing the sort of money that could be made. I was doing incredibly well. I had bidders on every thoroughbred. Only…a fire overtook the stable I was renting in the country. Some idiot on the grounds had padlocked the gates. When someone was finally able to make it in, all thirty horses were dead. I wasn’t there when it happened but—” He grabbed his head. “I was set to make a profit of almost forty percent and now I have nothing to pay the man back with. Nothing .”
    Oh, no. No, no, no. “What do you intend to do?”
He dropped his hands back to his sides. “There isn’t a damn thing I can do. If I don’t come up with the money by the end of the month, I will be escorted straight to Marshalsea. A warning was issued to me as of