When Strangers Marry Read Online Free PDF Page B

having nothing to do with something as banal as classical proportions. Her features were strong, the lines of her cheekbones and jaw and throat drawn with decisive purity. And he had never seen anything as inviting as the generous scattering of freckles…he wanted to follow their paths all over her body, and touch his tongue to every one of them.
    The fact that Lysette was too young for him did not matter nearly as much as it should have. Her self-possession was remarkable for a girl of her tender years. Clearly she was not afraid of him—she treated him as if they were equals, regardless of the years that separated them.
    His pulse quickened as sexual images driftedthrough his mind, and he forced his attention to the task at hand. “Do you require assistance with the letter, Mademoiselle Kersaint?”
    Her lush, deep-cornered mouth twitched with amusement. “I can write quite well, thank you.”
    Max had met many women, far more well bred and blue-blooded than she, who were virtually illiterate. A good portion of Creole society considered that too much education was bad for a woman. He half leaned, half sat against the desk, facing her. “You have been educated, then,” he commented.
    “Yes, thanks to my father. He hired a governess for my sister Jacqueline and me. We were taught to read and write, and to speak English as well as French. We studied history, geography, mathematics…even a volume or two of science. But after my father died, the governess was dismissed.” She picked up an engraved silver pen holder, rolling it between her slender fingers. “There wasn’t much more she could teach us, anyway. A woman’s education is only allowed to go so far, much to my regret.”
    “What use would you have for more education?”
    She smiled and returned his provoking gaze without batting an eye. “Perhaps, monsieur, I have ambitions other than serving as a brood mare to some pompous aristocrat who is afraid of having a wife who is smarter than he is.”
    “You have a high estimation of your own intelligence, Mademoiselle Kersaint.”
    “Does that bother you?” Her voice was silky soft.
    Max was completely fascinated by her, his mindthoroughly engaged, his blood stirring at the challenge she presented. Good Lord, how he wanted to bed her. “No, it doesn’t.”
    She smiled and smoothed the sheet of parchment before her. “If you don’t mind, monsieur, I would prefer a few minutes of privacy, while I exercise my inadequate feminine brain to compose a few coherent lines. Perhaps you would be so kind as to check my spelling afterward?”
    It wasn’t her spelling that he wished to examine. Max managed to produce a cool smile, when his entire body was urging him to flip up her skirts, pull her onto his lap, and ravish her for hours. “I take my leave with all confidence in your abilities,” he said with an answering smile, and left her while he was still able.
    Max had barely managed to conquer his raging lust by the time he returned to the salon. Irénée greeted him with obvious relief. “I knew that you would not take advantage of her, after all,” she said warmly. “Thank heaven you have changed your mind.”
    He gave her a blank look. “I haven’t changed my mind about anything.”
    Irénée’s face fell. “But the letter you are allowing her to write to her cousin—”
    “The letter will never be sent. If I’m going to compromise her, I don’t want a damned cousin interfering.”
    She stared at him in surprised dismay. “How could you, Max? I would never have believed you could take advantage of a woman this way!”
    “You believe me to be capable of quite worse, Maman,” he said in a voice edged with sudden bitterness. “Don’t you?”
    She looked away from him, unable to reply, her face drawn with a helpless regret that filled him with fury.
     
    The Medarts came to the plantation house far sooner than Max had anticipated. Apparently they and the Sagesses were visiting every residence on