Second Best Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

smiled slowly, looking surprised. 'I even think I may enjoy it, young Georgie. Whatever else it is, it certainly won't be dull!'
    ‘But, William, I don't want to marry you!' Georgina wailed.
    ‘You will when you get used to the idea,' he returned calmly. ‘My dear girl, susceptible to your own passions you've always been, but I don't believe anyone else has ever stormed your selfish little heart before today. Take care you don't lose it to me entirely if it amuses me to turn you into a loving wife after all.'
    ‘William, I hate you!'
    ‘Of course you do,' he answered in soothing tones. ‘But hasn't anyone ever told you, Georgina dear, that hatred is the other side of the coin of love? Now, calm down and listen for a change. I have to be in Sri Lanka in three weeks' time. Can you be ready by then?'
    Georgina seethed with frustrated fury. ‘Am I supposed to answer that? How can I make it any clearer to you? I'm not going to marry you!'
    ‘We can be married that same day in the morning,' he went on unperturbed. ‘That'll give you the flight to get over the shock of finding that for once you haven't got your own way about something. Cheer up, Georgie, I won't hurry you into the responsibilities of married life once we're safely away from here. You'll have all the time you need before we come back to England and Jennifer. By that time you'll have forgotten that you were ever a reluctant bride and wife.'
    ‘And what about Peter?'
    William had the audacity to grin at her. ‘I think I'll see Peter myself. If he's really set on marrying you, he'll probably take it better from me that you've changed your mind about him. I have an idea that you wouldn't throw your heart into the chore of telling him you're about to jilt him for another.'
    ‘You're right! Nor am I going to jilt him! I refuse to allow you to take my life over in any way. This is the twentieth century, William Ayres, and you'll soon find out you can't do it!'
    For an instant he looked almost sorry for her. ‘But I can, Georgie, that's the whole point. I can do it because you're the kind of girl who has been brought up to believe that she ought to marry her lover.' His eyes narrowed, giving him a wicked look that made her tremble inside. ‘Would you prefer me to take you without marriage?' His eyes never left her face which he had forced up at an uncomfortable angle to make his point the more brutally. 'No, I thought not,' he said at last. 'At least you don't pretend that I couldn't do that too if I had a mind to! You're a poor loser, but you have a proud spirit. When I've finished with you, my sweet, you're going to be quite a woman!'
    A lump formed in her throat and dissolved into a ball of hot wretchedness that robbed her of speech. All she could do was to thump her closed fists against his chest. She would have given anything to have poked him in the other eye at that moment, but her tears defeated her. Boxers wouldn't be boxers if they ever cried, she thought. Nor were they ever overwhelmed by a sense of desolation that occasionally afflicted all her sex. Life was so unfair! 'William, please let me go,' she whispered.
    'I'm sorry, Georgie, but I can't do it. You won't find it so bad once you're used to the idea. And you'll enjoy living in Ceylon for a few months, if you'll allow yourself to. It's a beautiful island and a beautiful people to go with it. You'll love it!'
    At any other time, under any other circumstances, that might have been true, but he must be mad if he thought she would enjoy anything in his company when she had thoroughly disliked him ever since she could remember. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but somehow the words didn't come out as she had intended. Instead a quite different question came tumbling out.
    'What do you do when you go abroad for months together?'
    He gave her a startled look. 'Don't you know? I'm an engineer. This time I'm going to Sri Lanka on a Commonwealth project to do with irrigation. It's one of the most