Free The Luckiest Lady In London by Sherry Thomas Page A

night, imagining you watching me in the darkness. And when I finally fall asleep, I dream that I am naked before you, unable to stop you from . . . many liberties.”
    This time it was he who stopped in his tracks, though he did not need any reminder from her to resume moving. “Miss Cantwell, are you trying to arouse me?”
    Her heart had been beating fast for a while, but now blood roared in her ears. “I only speak the truth. I quite despise myself for these desires that run amok. But run amok they do. I daresay for the rest of my life I will dream of being fondled by you.”
    His eyes darkened; his hand tightened on the top of his walking stick. Her innards shook. With nerves, yes, but also with something that was almost exhilaration.
    This
was how she played the game.
    “What do you have against making your dreams come true?”
    “My entire upbringing, needless to say. But there is also something else, something that you, with your vast wealth, cannot possibly understand.”
    “Do please shed some light on the matter.”
    “We are poor, you see. Not indigent, as my mother still employs a cookmaid and has one-third share of a gardener—so we get by. But getting by means not buying much of anything beyond food, tea, and coal.
    “There is a shop in Cirencester that had a telescope in its shop window. Every month for ten years, I stopped before the window to admire the telescope. I wanted that telescope more than I had ever wanted anything else in my life—I dreamed of it by night and I schemed for it by day.
    “The telescope had been put there on consignment. The shopkeeper secretly revealed to me the lowest price he was allowed to accept for the instrument. But I couldn’t afford it—any spare penny we had went into an emergency cache for Matilda. Then one day the telescope was gone. It had been bought by a gentleman for his ten-year-old son, for the original owner’s full asking price.”
    Belatedly she noticed that they had both come to a stop. He watched her, his gaze unwavering.
    “And?” he prompted.
    “And nothing. I carried on. I was so accustomed to
not
having it that my life changed not at all. And so it will be with you. No matter how much I might want you, I will manage to endure it. And I will carry on as if nothing is the matter.”
    Melodramatic. But it was good melodrama, if she said so herself.
He
certainly seemed riveted.
    She began walking again—they were beginning to attract attention from the blindman’s buffers, standing there like that. A few steps later, he caught up with her.
    “Why did you want the telescope?”
    It was not the comment she had been expecting—not that she knew anymore what to expect from him. “That is of no relevance to the discussion at hand.”
    “I’d like to know.”
    “I will tell you when we are in bed together, but not before.” She flushed with the image that brought to mind.
    “And we will be in bed together only after I have pledged my name and protection before a man of God.”
    “Precisely.”
    “You are a devious woman, Miss Cantwell,” he said.
    She felt the warmth of his tone all the way to the pit of her stomach, as if he had licked her. “Only by necessity,” she answered, feigning modesty.
    “You would have been wasted on Mr. Pitt. And even more so on Lord Firth—that man would ask for a divorce were he to realize who you truly are.”
    “I would have made sure he didn’t.”
    “And is that any way to be married?”
    “It is how
you
will be married, with your lady wife never knowing who you truly are,” she pointed out, to another surprised look from him. “So please don’t say what you consider an excellent idea for yourself isn’t good enough for me.”
    “Touché,” he admitted.
    He said nothing else. The silence was at once nerve-rackingand electrifying. Had she been convincing? Or had she been
too
convincing? Had she further piqued his interest or merely managed to give him second thoughts?
    Lady Balfour was all