Provocative in Pearls Read Online Free PDF

heiress to a huge fortune around London, and eventually an impoverished lord will rise to the bait. In swallowing it he has to swallow his pride too, but if the meal is tasty enough in either beauty or wealth, he can stomach it if he must.
    She was supposed to be happy it had been Hawkeswell that they had landed. They expected her to be so dazzled that she would ignore how this marriage would interfere with her own plans, and in the life she was supposed to have.
    How often had Nancy scolded her on that? He could be old and fat and smell of death, she would scream. Only a fool would reject a man who looks like him. A woman can barely think when she looks in those eyes. You are a stupid ingrate not to appreciate how well we have done for you.
    At ten years her senior, he was not at all old. He did have wonderful eyes, but they were not for her alone. Any woman would do, she could tell. She had merely been the passable-enough commoner of suspiciously high fortune, obtained by craft and trade, who would solve his financial problems.
    “At least he is handsome. That is one consolation, I suppose,” Celia said, as if reading her thoughts. “The ladies do like him, so he is probably not unskilled in bed, if it helps to know that.”
    “I doubt he is much inclined to employ a lot of skill with me now. Regrettably, he is not angry enough to want to be rid of me either.” She bent to smell a freesia. She never tired of their scent. “I had rather hoped he would be. Foolish, I suppose.”
    Celia rarely appeared surprised by the ways of the world, but she did now. “Were you expecting him to want to divorce you? Does he have cause?”
    “I was not brave enough to give him cause. Now I rather wish I had been. No, I was hoping he would prove very amenable to supporting my petition for an annulment, when I told him I had been unwilling. I have reached my majority, you see. So if I can get free, I no longer have to go back to my cousin’s authority. I will be independent.”
    “I expect he refused because it would be very public and embarrassing. As bad as a divorce. Worse for him, actually.”
    “I think he was more concerned about the money. I miscalculated there. I thought that Hawkeswell received the funds in my trust that had accumulated while I was a minor. It was a very large fortune sitting there, waiting for me to marry or reach the age of twenty-one. With that in his purse, I believed that keeping me bound to him would have less appeal. Unfortunately, he says he has received nothing thus far.”
    “If the marriage were annulled, he may have had to pay it back if he had received it. He still might, even if he gets it now,” Celia said. “It would be a rare man who agreed to such a thing.”
    “I told him that I would make sure he received the money anyway. I intended to explain how I would do that. However, we never progressed that far in the conversation.”
    If she could explain that more plainly, however, he might see things differently. The notion that all was not lost raised her spirits a little, but not enough to eliminate the way her nerves affected her, and made her stomach sour and sick.
    They passed a group of large pots on the floor holding neatly clipped myrtle. “I have been mourning that you will be leaving us, but I think you intended to leave soon anyway,” Celia said. “You were merely hiding here until you turned twenty-one, weren’t you?”
    Verity stopped walking and took both of Celia’s hands in hers. She squeezed them. “We are all here temporarily, are we not? Yes, I intended to leave very soon. I pray that you and Daphne would have understood.”
    “Of course we would have understood. But where were you going to go?”
    “North. I planned to go home, far from London and Hawkeswell, and petition for an annulment from there. I want to live among the people of my youth, Celia, and try to save my father’s legacy. I would like to use my fortune the way it should be used, and not to prop