The Major's Faux Fiancee Read Online Free PDF Page A

behind the desk and swaggered from the room.
    Daphne turned to Bartholomew with tears in her eyes. “This is a disaster.”
    “That’s why I’m here,” he said simply.
    She shook her head. “I can’t let him send you to Newgate for breach of contract.”
    Nor would he. Bartholomew made his decision. “If I go, he goes, too. Fraud is illegal, but so is coercion into an unwanted marriage. It must be bluster.”
    “Are you willing to risk the point of his sword on it?”
    “I’d like to see him try.” He belatedly recalled he was no longer light on his feet. Even a child could beat him at fencing now. “What did he mean about final approval?”
    “He doesn’t trust my judgment.” Her cheeks flushed, but she lifted her chin. “It’s my charity work. He says a young lady like me is meant for ballrooms and ices, not playing nursemaid in the rookeries, and he intends to pair me with a man who can keep me in line.”
    To his chagrin, Bartholomew didn’t completely disagree. But it was not his decision. “There is a chance Captain Steele won’t let me sign a marriage contract?”
    She gazed up at him in wonder. “You still wish to?”
    Save her from an unwanted betrothal? Yes. Help her to ruin her life? No. “I won’t let him send you to prison or Bedlam, but I need to understand what I’m getting myself into.”
    “Then you’ll need to see what I’m fighting for. Why it is of utmost importance that I remain unwed.” She scooped up her letters. “Come with me.”

Chapter Five

     
    Daphne’s heart thumped as she led Bartholomew Blackpool to her bedchamber.
    The last time she’d been anywhere near him, she’d been too young to think of boys as anything more than vexing playmates. Ten years later, they were both older and wiser—but there could still be nothing between them. No matter how handsome and heroic he might be.
    She needed to continue her charity work. It was all she had left.
    When she was a child, she’d thrown herself into charity work to gain her father’s approval. It hadn’t worked. She never managed to hold his attention at all.
    The parishioners, however, appreciated her little kindnesses. They might forget the incident—and her—in a fortnight or two. But first, for a few scant hours, she was important to their lives.
    That was the moment that had changed everything. The moment she realized if she couldn’t be wanted, she could be needed . If not by her father, then by the hundreds of thousands of people throughout England who didn’t have food to eat or clothes to wear.
    Fear twisted her stomach as they approached her bedchamber door.
    What if Bartholomew didn’t understand her need to help others? To matter? What if he refused to take part in her charade after all?
    Now that she’d built her life around charity work, she couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Not only would it be selfish to choose marriage over the masses, she wouldn’t be able to live with the shame of abandoning so many worthy causes. Men. Women. Families .
    Dedicating her life to the common good and dedicating her life to the will of a husband were mutually exclusive and irreconcilable. She’d chosen the path that would help the most people. For Bartholomew to risk Newgate to help her, however, she’d have to prove to him it was the right path.
    Which meant inviting him into her bedchamber. Yet she was terrified to do so.
    The wheezing rattle in her too-tight lungs, the appalling tremble in her ice-cold fingers, the fear that flooded her whirling brain until she couldn’t even think— that was because she dreaded letting him see that her bedchamber was actually her office. Her center of operations. Her biggest, deepest secret. There would be no going back.
    She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob.
    The documents, correspondence, and figures piled upon her escritoire and papering her walls were how she tracked the many worthy causes lacking a champion, lacking a focus, or lacking results. She