Free The Husband Hunt by Jillian Hunter Page A

her full attention. He would accept nothing less than her obedience.
    He seemed to sense when she was most vulnerable, watching, waiting for her to reveal another weakness, and the female in her was far too quick to respond to his male authority. "The situation of my birth isn't exactly something that I'm proud of," she said after a long pause. "Do you wish me to leave now?"
    "My sister wants you to stay," he said in hesitation, sounding none too pleased with the idea himself. A rather insulting smile spread across his face. "She has taken it into her head to find you a husband."
    Catriona's cheeks began to burn again. "Why is that so amusing?"
    He shrugged. "Well, it's just—"
    She squared her shoulders. When had she encountered such arrogance? "Just what?"
    "Oh, I don't know." A devilish chuckle escaped him. "Perhaps it's because I don't know too many young maidens on the marriage mart with your particular 'talents.'"
    "What exactly do you mean by that?"
    "Well, one generally seeks a wife with a stable background and genteel skills, such as embroidering samplers and playing the pianoforte."
    "Is that the kind of wife you want?"
    He frowned. "I don't want a wife at all."
    "And the idea of anyone marrying me is beyond the realm of probability?"
    "I suppose more astounding miracles have been performed." He hesitated, his gray eyes twinkling with humor. "Back in biblical times."
    She dropped the bucket on his foot. She hadn't meant to, but her fingers had gone numb, and her grip had weakened. When he finally recovered from the pain and stopped cursing, she looked him right in the eye. "I know you aren't going to believe me, but that was an accident."
    "Get these rocks off my feet," he shouted, "or both you and the bucket are going into that pond!"
    She drew back; he was scaring her now. She knew she ought not to push him any farther, but she wasn't about to retreat until she had made her point. "They're not rocks. They're—"
    "Yes. Yes. I heard. Sacred stones from Pixieland." He gave her a nasty smile, bending to pluck a pebble off the toe of his Hessian boot. "Howard's spleen?"
    She narrowed her eyes. "It's a heart. Although you probably have to possess one to recognize it."
    He tossed a cleft stone into the air and caught it before it hit the ground. "Lungs?"
    "No." She smiled archly as he ran his fingers inside the cleft. "Reproductive organs."
    His eyes met hers. "I guarantee you'll have your choice of suitors if you season a conversation with a comment like that."
    She bent, averting her face, before he could gauge her reaction. "What do you know?" she muttered, too upset to look at him. "I'll give my husband everything he desires, and he won't be mean like you. He'll be kind and gentle, and he won't care if I am a bastard.  He won't make a mockery of the things I believe in. He'll encourage me to help people."
    He stared down at her. Damnation, he had offended her, he realized in surprise. Before he could stop himself, he knelt and began to help her collect her stones, grumbling, "Well, my teasing got the better of me, but as I said, you will have to get used to it."
    "I've known worse." She glanced up, her eyes brimming with emotion. "Give me back my reproductive organs, and if you make fun of me, well, I'll show you what magic it can do."
    He settled back on his haunches, trying not to laugh at the threat as she dropped a handful of stones into the bucket, her nose in the air.
    "Careful," he admonished gently, glancing down. "I think you might have just put a dent in Howard's spleen. Or was that another unmentionable organ?"
    "Brain," she said, biting her lip against a sudden urge to laugh. "But of course you have to—"
    He grinned. "—possess one to be able to recognize it?"
    "You wouldn't be the first man not to know his brain from what grows below."
    One corner of his mouth curled up in amusement. The conversation was beginning to have a very unexpected arousing effect upon him. He had never met such a