The Spring Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

handsome young gent and fallin’ in love?”
    â€œIt would be nice to fall in love,” Jane said uncertainly. “But . . .”
    â€œCor, these strings is knotted tight! So what’s the problem? It’s not the broffel, is it? I mean you weren’t touched or nuffin’.” It was how they’d met—Jane and Damaris had been kidnapped and sold into a brothel, and Daisy, who’d been a maid there, had, with Abby’s assistance, helped them escape.
    â€œNo, it’s not that. It’s just . . . It’s not so simple. I can’t fall in love with just anyone. I have to make sure he’s the right kind of man.”
    There was a short pause, then Daisy said bluntly, “You mean rich, don’t you?”
    Jane sighed. “I know, it sounds awful, but you must understand, Daisy, a girl like me, without a bean to my name except the allowance dear Lady Beatrice makes us out of the goodness of her heart, well . . . I need to marry a rich man if I’m to have . . .” She trailed off.
    â€œWhat? Pretty dresses? Jewels? Lots of parties—what?”
    â€œChildren.”
    â€œ
Children?
” Daisy stared at Jane in the looking glass. “Gawd, Jane, you don’t need a rich bloke to get kids.”
    â€œ
I
do.” She knew very well the consequences of being too poor to support children. She’d lived them and she would rather die than submit her own children to such a fate. “I think it’s more sensible to choose a man for what he can offer, instead of trusting to luck to fall in love with the right kind of man.”
    And a rich man who was good to his aunt and who liked dogs didn’t sound like the wrong kind of man.
    She continued, “Trusting to love is like a leaf trusting the wind to blow it to safety. You never know where you might end up. So I don’t plan to fall in love at all. I will choose a husband carefully and then I’ll fall in love with him.”
    â€œIt don’t work like that.” Daisy shook her head knowingly. “Not for you. When the time comes, you won’t be able to ’elp yourself. You’ll fall in love, just like Abby and Damaris; they never expected it neither. There y’are, it’s done now.”
    Jane pulled off her stays and stepped out of her petticoat. “Nonsense. People
choose
whether they fall in love or not.”
    Daisy snorted.
    â€œThey do, they just don’t realize it,” Jane insisted. She shrugged off her chemise and slipped her nightgown on. “I’ve observed it in others. There’s a period of time at the beginning when a person thinks, ‘Him? Or not him?’ And they either find reasons not to like him, or else they spin rose-colored stories about how wonderful he is.”
    She climbed into her bed. “People
choose
to fall in love.” And plenty of people who made convenient marriages fell in love, she knew; it happened after the marriage, that was all. Because they chose to make the best of things.
    Daisy climbed into her bed. “Some folks might think like that, mebbe. But not you.”
    â€œWhy not me? You think I’m being a coldhearted, designing female? Maybe I am, but there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious. You are, for your business.”
    â€œYeah, but bein’ ambitious and fallin’ in love is poles apart. Anyway, I’m tough, me. I was brung up in the gutter, I know what I got to do to succeed and I’ll fight to make it ’appen. And sure, plenty of ladies are ambitious to marry the richest bloke they can find. But not you—you got a heart as soft as butter.”
    â€œI haven’t!” Jane said indignantly.
    Daisy laughed. “So who was it who brought Damaris out of the broffel with ’er, endangering ’er own escape—but would you take no for an answer?”
    Jane frowned. “That was different. Damaris saved me