Wicked Temptations Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn't ever get hitched."
    "I might have considered it a long time ago," Priscilla said, even though no man had asked for her hand, "but ever since I began reading the writings of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony, I have come to realize that marriage is a man-made institution, inherently unjust to wives, and with this injustice, entered into with the sanction of church and state, husbands are given complete authority over their wives."
    Abigail looked at her, bafflement on her brow. "I never thought of it that way," she said. "I guess it's a good thing I didn't go ahead with the marriage."
    Edith stopped scrubbing and looked up. "That may be how you look at it," she said, "but I want to find a good man and settle down and let him make the money so I can concentrate on keeping house and raising the young’ns . The job here with you will be fine for a while, Miss Priscilla, but I don't want to stay working here the rest of my life. And I still want to get to know young Frank Gundy." She started moving the brush again.
    Priscilla stared at the covey of young women on hands and knees scrubbing the floor and was tempted to tell them a few sordid tales as a warning, but refrained. Perhaps they'd find good men who'd love and cherish them and want only the best for them. Then on the other hand, they could end up like so many others, which was precisely why The Town Tattler would have a column devoted to the suffrage movement. Feeling a renewed sense of purpose, she picked up a scrub brush and joined the women on the floor.
    ***
    Adam looked up at the freshly painted facade of The Town Tattler building. In only five days, the place looked functional, and the huge mound of rubbish out front was gone. He never would have believed it could be ready for business in just a week.
    However, Priscilla Phipps had come west with a wagon train of homesteaders, and her paper was potentially a rabble-rousing voice against cattlemen. That being the case, he was anxious to learn what printing equipment she owned. So here he was, heading across the street in a beeline. Although he told himself he wanted to look at her equipment, who was he fooling? He wanted to see the plain, unadorned spinster lady who was running the place. Something about the woman had taken hold of him, then burrowed under his skin like a wood tick that refused to let loose.
    When he entered the building, he found her struggling with a crowbar to wedge open a large wooden crate, which he assumed held her printing press. She stopped and eyed him guardedly while waiting for him to announce his reason for his being there.
    Glancing around the large room, he was surprised to find the plaster walls patched and freshly painted, and the scrubbed floors holding a waxy sheen. Then he settled his gaze on Priscilla Phipps. The unadorned brown dress she wore draped over her shapely body in a way that indicated she wore no corset. Although it covered her completely, the effect it had on him was unexpected. Her small waist, softened by the lack of whalebone, made him want to wrap his hands around it, and the sight of her full breasts, unhampered by bones or other stays, caused things to happen below his waist, something he didn't need right now. Focusing on her face, he said, "I thought I'd stop by to see how things were going."
    Wariness creeping into her eyes, she replied, "Things are proceeding as planned."
    Eyeing the crowbar clutched in her hand, he said, "You had your hands full opening the crate when I came in. Where is your pressman?"
    "He injured his wrist while moving the crate in," she explained. "The press is very heavy. But I can manage fine on my own." She jammed the crowbar into the crack between the boards again, attempting to wedge them apart. But the boards held fast.
    Adam walked up and took the crow bar from her hand. "It takes more muscle," he informed her. "Like I said, printing is a man's business." He shoved the bar between the boards and wedged them apart, then