The Husband List -2 Read Online Free PDF

head. “Who in his right mind would have imagined you’d actually approach the man, let alone propose marriage?”
    “It’s not as if I’m looking for a love match.” She heaved a frustrated sigh. “It’s a convenience, nothing more than that. This marriage is simply a means to an end.”
    “The end being a great deal of money.” Robin studied her carefully. “I must admit I am disappointed. I never thought you would succumb to this kind of temptation.”
    “Then you thought wrong.” The tension of recent days sharpened her tone, but it couldn’t be helped.
    It had been a scant week since her great-uncle’s solicitor had called on her with news of her inheritance. She had never met Jasper Effington, the youngest of her grandfather’s three brothers. All three had left England years before her parents were born, to make their fortune in America. And make it they did, in shipping and other pursuits.
    The two older brothers had married and had families to inherit their fortunes. Jasper’s wife had died childless, and he had never remarried. Gillian knew few other details of his life. According to his solicitor, her great-uncle had wished his considerable wealth to go to her because he had well understood the limited expectations of the youngest sibling in a family and further knew they were even less for a woman.
    However, Jasper was not quite as beneficent as to leave his holdings to an unmarried woman, even a widow. His bequest carried the stipulation that she be married by her thirtieth birthday.
    “I doubt Charles would approve,” Kit murmured.
    Robin shot him a quelling glance. “Charles would expect her to go on with her life.”
    “I have.” A pang of regret stabbed through her.
    And gone on rather well, she’d thought, until Jasper’s bequest had brought back the feelings of sorrow and anger she’d believed she’d put to rest with her husband eight years ago.
    Charles, Kit, Robin, and she had grown up together, forming a lasting friendship long before they realized the difference between boys and girls and their lots in life. The bonds forged in childhood remained even now. But while Kit and Robin were her dearest friends, it was Charles who had captured her heart. They’d married after her first season, and the joy of their time together lingered so strongly in her memory that no other man had ever seriously attracted her interest.
    To this day, one of Gillian’s deepest regrets was not fighting Charles’s decision to purchase a commission in the army, but they had both been young and convinced of their own invulnerability. To her everlasting despair they had been wrong.
    “I have gone on with my life,” she said again, wondering exactly who she wished to convince.
    “Marrying a man like Shelbrooke is scarcely what Charles would have had in mind,” Kit said loftily.
    “No, we know what he would have preferred.” Robin paused and nodded sharply at Kit, who sighed and, with a show of reluctance, stepped to his friend’s side. The men stared at her as if they were about to meet their doom and she was the executioner.
    Robin drew a deep breath. “Charles would have expected one of us to step forward.”
    “Bravely.” Kit squared his shoulders. “And without regard for the consequences.”
    “Consequences?” Gillian stared and tried hard not to laugh. They looked so ... so ... resigned.
    “Indeed.” Robin’s chin lifted. “Marriage.”
    “Shackled.” Kit sniffed. “For life. Or what would be left of it.”
    For a moment she considered letting them both dwell on the dire fate they fully believed she would deliver them, but they were, after all, her dearest friends. “I don’t expect either of you to marry me.”
    Matching expressions, not unlike those of men pardoned from the gallows at the last moment, passed over their faces. They were so predictable and frequently annoying, but she loved them as if they were her brothers. In truth, she was closer to these two than to her