Trouble With Harry Read Online Free PDF Page B

list. “Let me see, applicant number fourteen was reported too ill to travel…”
    â€œStrike her from the list. If she is of frail health, she won’t be able to stand up to the strain of the children. It takes a strong woman, in full possession of her faculties—both mental and physical—to deal with my brood.”
    â€œâ€¦and number twenty-three changed her mind at the door…”
    â€œShy. Shy won’t do either. My wife has to have a firm sense of purpose. Determination, too. Grit wouldn’t hurt, either.”
    â€œâ€¦and numbers thirty and thirty-one appear to have run off together…”
    Harry raised both eyebrows and forbore to comment.
    â€œâ€¦and number thirty-three, the last applicant, appears to have decided not to meet with you.” Temple looked up. “There are no more, sir.”
    Harry stood and stretched, rubbing the back of his neck and collecting his hat. “Well, that was six hours wasted. I hope to God I never have to meet so many women again.”
    Temple trotted alongside Harry as he strode out of the inn, pausing to pass a few coins to the innkeeper before heading for the small stable block. “Were there none that meet with your specifications, my lord?”
    â€œShhh!” Harry waved Temple’s words away as he waited for Thor to be brought out. “No my lording , Temple. The fewer people who know my true identity, the better. At least until I find a wife.”
    â€œMy apologies, sir. Were there no women—”
    â€œNo, there weren’t,” Harry said, slapping his leg with his riding crop as he looked around the quiet inn yard. “Not a single blessed one of them would do. Most of them were too young, a few were of the right age, but lacked the mental capacity I seek in a wife. I don’t expect her to be a genius, but I must have a woman I can converse with, one who has an interest in books and current events and such.” Harry noted a very pretty woman hurrying into the inn, the bottom six inches of her dark red gown covered in mud and filth as if she’d been tramping through the woods. “The remaining two qualified applicants were, to put it finely, a little on the homely side.”
    â€œYou said that you weren’t requiring your wife to be toothsome, sir.” Although the words were subservient, the tone was most definitely chastising.
    â€œToothsome, no, but I’d like to be able to look at her without thinking of bulldogs. One of the women today had a great hairy wart right in the middle of her forehead. I couldn’t stop staring at it. No matter where I looked, my gaze ended up back on her forehead. I couldn’t possibly have a wife whose forehead held such an unwholesome fascination for me. That woman who scampered into the inn just now—she’s the sort I’m looking for. Not beautiful, but pleasing, soft on the eyes, with a delicate oval face and lots of”—Harry made a gesture with both hands that was universally understood by all men over the age of fourteen—“curves. Why couldn’t one of my women have been like her? I don’t think that’s asking for too much.”
    Thor charged out of the stable, snorting like a steam engine, his ears back as he hauled a young stable boy behind him. Harry grabbed the reins with the ease of long practice, thumped the horse on the shoulder in an affectionate greeting, and flipped the boy a coin before mounting the fiery bay. “Hurry up, Temple, I’ve a desire to get home before the children bring the house down about their ears.”
    â€œJust coming, sir,” Temple said, looking warily at the new mare Harry had purchased to replace his old mount. The mare bared her teeth and narrowed her eyes at him. Just as he was about to take his life into his hands and climb into the saddle, a feminine cry reached his ears.
    â€œMr. Harris? Sir?”
    Harry turned to watch as the