Wallflower Gone Wild Read Online Free PDF

her.
    But if she married the Mad Baron, who selected for her because she was Prissy Missy London’s Least Likely to Cause a Scandal, then she’d be condemning herself to a short life of the utmost propriety. The very thought made her want to jump into a hedge to avoid him.
    It was a dreadful fate, one sorely lacking in kisses, waltzes, and adventures of all kinds. She’d never fall in love. Or be deeply loved and passionately desired. Instead, she’d manage servants and embroider in solitude until her fingers bled.
    “You’re awfully quiet today, Lady Olivia,” said Mary, while she took care not to burn her with the iron. “Are you nervous about meeting your intended?”
    “Wouldn’t you be? Especially given his reputation as a murderer?” Olivia replied. But she was more nervous about what she was going to do.
    Something scandalous.
    Something unladylike.
    The sooner she made it clear she was not the woman he expected, the sooner she could . . . return to being a wallflower. Or do something outrageous to land a loving husband, as Emma had done.
    “I suppose,” Mary agreed. “But it could just be gossip. He’s here already, you know. He came with his solicitor. They’re both meeting with your father right now.”
    There was only one reason a solicitor would be here: to draw up marriage contracts. It was absurd that they’d progress with such alacrity when she’d never even met the man! They must think her so docile, obliging, and desperate to be wed that she’d agree to any proposal. It seemed she would have to show they were gravely mistaken. She was finished being the Dutiful Daughter.
    “Have you seen him?” Olivia asked.
    “I have,” Mary said, not quite meeting Olivia’s eye in the mirror.
    “And?”
    “His solicitor is more handsome,” Mary ventured. And that said it all, really.
    “I suppose he is wretched. Tell me, is he old and fat with beady eyes and a malevolent air?” If she learned anything from novels, it was that villains always possessed beady eyes and a malevolent air.
    “Time to tighten your corset and put your gown on,” Mary said brightly, thus confirming that the Mad Baron was the most repulsive, loathsome man in Christendom and that she must do whatever it took to get out of this match.
    If only she had kissed that stranger!
    “Mary, I think I seem a bit pale,” Olivia said as an idea occurred to her.
    “That’s your complexion,” Mary said. “Lovely and fair, like porcelain.”
    Indeed, everything about her was pale and fair and angelic and forgettable. She wasn’t colorful or wild or desirable.
    “But perhaps I could use a spot of color on my lips,” Olivia said. “And perhaps some kohl for my eyes. Do you have any?”
    “This is an unusual request, Lady Olivia,” Mary said uneasily. She glanced toward the bedchamber door. “I fear your mother . . .”
    Proper Ladies did not wear lip paint or otherwise adorn their face. Only a certain kind of woman did that, and men in search of docile, biddable wives were not interested in Those Women.
    “I’ll take care of my mother if you fetch me some lip paint. Please, Mary. My future happiness depends on it.”
    W hen Olivia descended the marble steps to greet her parents and the Mad Baron in the foyer, she was perfectly poised and the very picture of a Perfect Lady. From the neck down.
    Thanks to a heavy-handed application of lip paint and rouge, she looked like a trollop. A drunk trollop. A drunk trollop who had applied makeup while standing on one foot on a ship at sea during a storm. Her lips—and a bit beyond—were a fierce shade of crimson. Her cheeks were pink, perhaps even fuchsia. As if she were her father in one of his rages, or as if she were burning up with embarrassment. Her eyes had been lined with enough kohl for her to be mistaken for a raccoon.
    Olivia felt absolutely ridiculous, but completely resolved in her rebellion.
    She thought she looked tremendously unappealing.
    Now if only the Mad Baron