The Temporary Wife/A Promise of Spring Read Online Free PDF Page A

narrowing. “You accept my offer, then, Miss Duncan? I may cancel the other interviews I have scheduled to follow yours?”
    “Y-yes,” she said. And then, more firmly, “Yes, sir.”
    “Splendid.” He got to his feet and reached out a hand for hers. “I will expect your return here promptly at three o’clock. We will marry tomorrow morning.”
    She set her hand in his and got to her feet. Her eyelashes swept up again, and he found himself being regarded keenly by those steady blue eyes. He resisted the urge to take a step back. She must be looking at the bridge of his nose, he thought. She appeared to be gazing right into the center of both his eyes at once.
    “What happens,” she asked, “when you meet the lady you really wish to marry and spend your life with?”
    He smiled at her rather frostily. “The woman does not exist,” he said, “with whom I would consider sharing even one year of my life.”
    She drew breath to speak again but closed her mouth without saying anything. Her eyes dropped from his.
    It had all gone remarkably well, he thought a few minutes later after she had left. He had expected to be peppered with questions, most notably about what she would be expected to do during the weeks before she was set free to live out her life on what must appear to her to be a vast fortune indeed. Miss Charity Duncan had asked nothing. He had expected to be burdened with all sorts of confidences. She had offered none. He knew nothing about her except what had been in her letter of application. She was three-and-twenty years old, was the daughter of a gentleman, could read and write and figure, could speak French and draw and play the pianoforte, and had had experience in the care and education of children, whom she liked.
    He also knew that she was quiet, demure, neither pretty nor ugly, and shrewd. The only thing about her that had surprised him had been her demand for more money than he had offered. No, there had been something else too—her eyes. They were quite at variance with the rest of her. But then even the plainest, dullest woman was entitled to some claim to beauty, he supposed.
    And so she was to be his wife tomorrow. He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, considering the thought. Yes, she would do, he decided. Very nicely indeed.
    S HE SAT BY the window, trying to garner the last of the daylight for her task. She was darning the heel of one ofPhilip’s stockings. It was only six o’clock, but the light was fading. The narrowness of the street on which they had lodgings and the height of the buildings on the opposite side did nothing to help. How she longed sometimes for the countryside again. No, it happened more often than sometimes. She sighed.
    What was she going to tell Phil when he came home from work? She still could not quite believe even herself in the reality of the day’s events. She had gone to Upper Grosvenor Street this morning, hoping with all the power of her will that she would be offered the governess’s position. Yet even as she had approached the house her inward concentration on the interview ahead had been distracted by the foolish dream of finding a priceless jeweled necklace in the gutter or of finding some other unexpected road to a fortune.
    Instead of offering her a position as governess, Mr. Earheart—handsome, elegant, cold in manner—had offered her marriage. It was like some bizarre fairy tale—except that in a fairy tale he would have offered because he had fallen instantly and desperately in love with her. Mr. Earheart merely wanted a temporary wife, but he was willing to keep her very handsomely indeed for the rest of her life. She had made sure that the written agreement stated that. She would not be cut off in the event that he predeceased her. She would have six thousand a year for the rest of her life, besides the other things he had mentioned during the morning.
    She and Penny and the children could live very comfortably on six thousand a year.