The Temporary Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

altogether too much to say. And this time was worse than ever because in the little they did say so many lies were necessary. He asked about the children who were to be her pupils and she was forced to invent genders and ages for them.
    She hated lying. But how could she tell the truth? There would be a time for the truth, when she was finally able to care for her family herself, when it would be far too late for any of them to exclaim in horror at the madness of what she was doing. Yes, there would be a time. But it was not now.
    She got up early in the morning, as she had done every day since joining her brother at his lodgings in town, to get his breakfast and to pack a couple of slices of bread and some lamentably dry cheese for his midday meal—and a currant cake as a special treat. She hugged him tightly and wordlessly when he was ready to leave.
    "Take care," he said, his arms like iron bands about her. "I hate the way you feel forced into doing this, Charity, when I am the man of the family. One day you will be free again to live the life of a lady, I promise you."
    "I love you," she said. In a few hours' time, Phil, I am going to be the wife of a very wealthy man. I am going to be a very wealthy woman. Oh, Phil, Phil . "Tears! How silly I am." She laughed and dashed at them with her hands.
    And he was gone. Just like that. The room was empty and cold and still half dark. It was her wedding day. She and Penny had played weddings sometimes as children—they were always joyful, lavish affairs. But this was the reality. This was her real wedding day. She blinked impatiently at more tears.

    "Are you quite mad, Tony?" Lord Rowling asked during the weekly evening ball at Almack's while the Marquess of Staunton languidly surveyed the female dancers through his quizzing glass. "Are you really going to go through with this insanity?"
    "Oh, absolutely," the marquess said with a sigh. He gestured about him with one jewel-bedecked hand. "Behold the great marriage mart, Perry—Almack's in London during the Season. All the most marketable merchandise is here on display in this very room and all the prospective buyers are looking it over. I am a buyer. Why would I not be? I am the heir to a dukedom—and the duke is reputedly ailing. I am eight-and-twenty years old and growing no younger. I have merely chosen to shop in a slightly different market."
    "You advertised for a governess and chose a wife," Lord Rowling said, shaking his head. "You chose a total stranger after a short interview. You know nothing about her."
    "On the contrary," the marquess said, his glass pausing on one particular young lady and moving slowly down her body from face to feet. "She comes highly recommended by the rector in whose parish she grew up. She was dismissed from her last post after eight months for lying, a charge which she denies. She is a plain, quiet, moral little mouse. And she bargained with me, Perry, and squeezed more money out of me than I had offered. She will do admirably. March's chit has put on weight since the start of the Season. Whoever takes her will find himself with a decidedly plump wife within five years. But then some men like plump wives."
    "Tony!" his friend said, exasperated. "Your cynicism outdoes anyone else's I know. But this marriage scheme goes beyond the bounds of reason."
    "Why?" the marquess asked. "If I were to address myself to the papa of any young lady here present, Perry, he would snap me up in an instant, my reputation as an incurable rake not withstanding. And so would she. I am a matrimonial prize. She would know nothing of me apart from superficial details, and I would know nothing of her. We would be strangers. Is there any real difference between marrying one of these females and marrying a little mouse of a governess who almost salivated at the prospect of coming within sniffing distance of my fortune? There is only one significant difference. The mouse will be easier to shed when she has served her