The Ideal Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

blue eyes, Laura. But I will probably never see him again. He was doubtless having his little joke at my expense. He must have been joking, don’t you think?”
    “Oh, Abby.” Laura frowned and set down her brush. “Do earls joke about such matters?”
    “I have no idea,” Abigail said. “Do they?”
    “What if he was serious?” Laura said. “Are you going to throw away such a chance for security, Abby? Why don’t you continue to be his ideal woman for two days longer?”
    “Would it be honest?” Abigail asked.
    “But you are not a monster, Abby,” Laura said. “And you would be as sweet and quiet as he seems to think you if you would just remember not to talk all the time.”
    Abigail laughed. “And a murderer would be as mild as the next man if he would just remember not to kill people,” she said. “I don’t think I could do it, Laura. Apart from the morality involved, I don’t think I could do it. I almost burst a few times this morning.”
    “Think about it,” Laura said. “Oh, Abby, I feel as excited for you as if it were me. And I would not feel nearly as bad about being responsible for having you dismissed if everything ended so splendidly for you. Think about it—two more days of being demure in exchange for a lifetime of luxury.”
    “I am not going to think about it,” Abigail said, striding to the door and setting her hand on the knob. “He probably will not come tomorrow anyway. I am going to concentrate my mind on devising the very best method I can think of to deflate Humphrey’s conceit. No thanks are called for. You may owe me a favor.”
    “Oh, Abby,” her friend said, laughing despite herself.

3
    T HE EARL OF SEVERN STEPPED FROM HIS carriage and looked up at Mr. Gill’s house. The man was a cit, he guessed from the location. He was doubtless a man who thought to increase his consequence by hiring a companion for his wife. And doubtless the type who would then believe that he owned the companion and was free to use her as he would.
    He hoped that Miss Gardiner had passed on his message to the man.
    He stood on the pavement as his footman raised the brass knocker on the door, and concentrated on looking nonchalant. He was feeling anything but. Indeed, if the truth were to be admitted, there were butterflies dancing inside him.
    He had had a day and a sleepless night in which to brood on his hasty offer of the morning before. And he had been foolish enough to spend all the afternoon and part of the evening with Gerald, who had pointed out all the possible disasters that could result from such a match, and some of the impossible ones too. And then he had gone to Jenny’s and ended up spending the whole night with her when he had found her every bit as amorous as she had been the night before.
    And Jenny was to be exchanged for Miss Abigail Gardiner! Unfortunately, he would not be able to reconcile it with his conscience to have both a wife and a mistress. Yet Jenny was by far the most satisfactory mistress he had ever kept.
    He wished, as the door opened and a uniformed maid bobbed a curtsy, that it was the prospective bride he could shed rather than the mistress. But the offer had been made and accepted, and making his wish come true was no longer a possibility.
    He must fortify himself with thoughts of Frances.
    “Would you announce to Miss Gardiner that the Earl of Severn has arrived?” he said to the maid, walking past her into a dark and cluttered hallway.
    She gawked past him to his footman and coachman and his carriage waiting on the street, turned to bob him more curtsies, and scurried away without a word.
    Was she really as plain as he remembered her? the earl wondered, removing his gloves and hat. It was strange, deliberately to have chosen a plain woman as his bride. He had always dreamed, he supposed—if he had dreamed of the married state at all—of a lovely wife, someone he would enjoy looking at every day of his life.
    And was she as quiet as he remembered? He