The Major's Faux Fiancee Read Online Free PDF

applied herself to every one of them. Sending letters. Rifling through ledgers. Recruiting help. Marking progress.
    She never threw anything away. One never knew when it might be the key to saving a life. Sometimes it took days to find this precise figure or that specific newspaper reference, but they were all right here within her grasp. Somewhere.
    She took a deep breath and opened the door.
    To the untrained eye, well… Captain Steele was right. She no doubt looked positively mad.
    To his credit, Bartholomew refrained from pointing out the similarity.
    “Interesting,” was all he said aloud. “And here I thought debutantes preferred decorating with pastels and flowers. I burned some letters this very morning that I could’ve brought to add to your collection.”
    She cuffed his arm. Some of the tension finally seeped from her shoulders. This was Bartholomew. He would help her, not judge her. Nothing would have to change. Her work could continue.
    Her life would matter.
    She stepped into the center of the room. “I said I was a crusader. These are my causes. I’m married to every one of them.” She traced her fingers along the clippings covering her walls. “Wheat farmers. Weavers. Miners. Workhouses. Orphans. Apothecaries.”
    “Apothecaries?” His brow creased. “If you’re referring to the act prohibiting unlicensed medical practitioners, wasn’t that passed last year?”
    “Formal qualifications and compulsory apprenticeship are a wonderful first step, but training and methodology is still wildly unpredictable and, in far too many cases, deadly.” She paused and tilted her head to study him more closely. “I’m surprised you’ve heard about it.”
    “Because I’d been at war, or because you doubted I knew how to read?” he asked dryly. “Something about spending months in bed waiting to see if an amputated leg will heal gives one a new appreciation for passing time with the written word.”
    She frowned but didn’t look away.
    A hint of belligerence in his stance indicated he’d expected his words to shock her. Why should they? Did he think she’d cringe at the forthright way he’d said “amputated leg?” She arched a brow. If he had any concept of the atrocities that crossed her escritoire daily, he wouldn’t think her as missish as that.
    Or did he fear that his reputation as a rake and a dandy had given her the idea that there was nothing between his ears but waistcoats and women? Daphne would be the last woman to make assumptions about another person based solely on the persona they portrayed to the public. She was a vicar’s daughter… and perhaps England’s most clandestine political agitator on behalf of the poor.
    She placed her correspondence onto her desk next to her reading spectacles. “This is why I must remain unwed. Every minute attending routs or planning dinner parties is a wasted minute these desperate people can ill afford to lose.”
    “Perhaps it’s not as bleak as that. There must be some gentleman out there who wouldn’t expect you to plan or attend society functions.”
    “Must there?” She couldn’t help but scoff. “Some gothic recluse who lives in a rundown castle in the moors? Some palsied invalid who wants me to hold his hand until he leaves this earth?”
    His eyebrows rose. “Are invalids and recluses any less worthy than other people?”
    “Of course not,” she said softly. “But a husband is fewer than ‘other people.’ I cannot devote myself to one individual, no matter how worthy, if it means abandoning ten thousand more. No one voice or single letter causes change. It needs many voices. Many letters. By remaining unencumbered, I can help make a difference.” She tilted her head and studied him. “You’re the last person I would have expected to make a case for marriage.”
    A startled laugh escaped his throat. “God’s teeth, have I? ’Twas not my intention. I have never wished to wed, nor shall I, so it would be the height of