Free Mistress by Marriage by Maggie Robinson

taste. And an exceptionally fast dresser. Remembering poor Lizzie, she squelched the desire to throw something, and rang for breakfast instead. She would write today. And write and write and write.
    Her Pride and Artifice notebook lay where anyone could find it. Now that Edward was a fixture in her bedroom, that would have to change. Perhaps it was still safe—Edward had always complained about her handwriting, claiming he couldn’t read it. Perhaps that was why he’d been in such a tizzy when he read her letter and learned that Ned had been there. Fortunately Garrett had no such difficulty editing her novels. His handwriting was even worse than hers.
    She had been the bane of her governess’s existence, but the schoolroom had held no interest for her when there were fells to walk and her brother to chase after. Nicky had no luck with his tutors either, and was sent off to school quite young—more to rid her father of one more distraction than his desire to see his heir educated properly. School was where Nicky changed and forged his deadly friendship with Andrew Rossiter. The poet (not the viscount) Pope’s words were never truer—

    A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
     

    Well, apparently something had sunk in, Caroline thought wryly. Wasn’t she just a font of poetry and philosophy this morning? She dipped her pen in the little crystal pot of ink and let it hover over the page. A tiny drop spread onto the page just as she felt Edward’s semen gush forth. She needed a bath desperately, but working on the book each morning was like drilling before going into battle. It made her limber so she could maneuver over the hills and valleys of her pages for Garrett. He would not be pleased to know she spent an hour each day wasting her words. She shut her eyes, picturing Edward at his most insufferable. It was not a difficult image to summon, and she began to write.

    “You shall do as I say. You will obey me in everything. And I mean everything.” The baron flexed his long fingers, as though he couldn’t wait to have her at his mercy.
    “Not while I have breath!” Constance’s eyes flashed, her heart beating wildly. Desperately, she dashed to the door.
    “It is locked, and only I have the key.”
    He advanced toward her, his green eyes glittering like evil glass .
     

    Hell and damnation. Glass could not be evil, could it? Caroline drew a black line through evil glass , then struck through the entire passage. Her muse had departed rather suddenly and locked her in the room with the baron and Constance. At that moment Caroline didn’t care if the baron used his long fingers to strangle Constance. Her private book was not going at all well. The baron, despite his evil glassy eyes, was really a gentleman at heart. She was very much afraid he was turning into a hopeless hero, not that Constance deserved him. She was simply too stupid to live.
    As for Caroline’s next heroine, the harlot, she was locked up firmly in a dark drawer, along with her future husband. Her story had degenerated so badly, Garrett would never publish it as is, if she ever finished it. Her deadline was just days away and for the life of her, she couldn’t care about the next installment of Courtesan Court . It was as if Edward’s shadow fell over her shoulder, blotting out her writing sun.
    Caroline closed the notebook, wishing she could close her thoughts away with such ease. Edward’s wretched little schedule was to arrive later. For the next three weeks, he would detail to the hour and the minute when he expected her to be available to him. Probably no two days would be alike—Edward was a busy man with numerous obligations. She was prepared to be perpetually off balance. For a woman who had fought a lengthy battle to wrestle her haphazard life into some order, it was like offering opium to an addict.