Free Housebound by Anne Stuart

her.”
    â€œWe’ll be having children as soon as we can,” Wilson announced firmly, and Anne cast him a startled glance. Much as she wanted children, they’d never so much as discussed the subject, and his decision struck her as being both arbitrary and smug.
    â€œHow nice!” Holly chirped. “I can’t wait to be an aunt. How many will you have, Wilson?”
    â€œTwo,” he pronounced. “I would have liked three, but Anne is getting a little far along in her childbearing years, and I think we’d only have time for two.”
    Elderly Anne choked on her beer, sending an angry glare at her imperturbable fiancé, but Holly bounced on blithely. “I think that’s marvelous! I can’t wait to see Anne big as a house.”
    â€œAnd where will this happy, fecund family be living?” Ashley murmured delicately. “Anne is used to having lots of space—I don’t think she’ll care for that rather spacious apartment you have in New Hope. Not if she has to share it with squalling infants.”
    â€œAnd I wouldn’t ask her to. Any more than I’d ask her to give up this place. We all know how much it means to her.”
    A peculiar, guilty silence fell over the table, darkening everyone’s face except Steve Piersall’s. Even Noah looked strangely uncomfortable, Anne realized belatedly, and a sudden premonition of disaster washed over her.
    â€œNo,” Wilson continued, oblivious to the tension. “We’ve agreed that we’ll live here. Proffy has given us his blessing.” He nodded majestically toward the head of the table, and Proffy avoided his eyes. “And heaven knows there’s more than enough room in this rambling old place. Of course, I’d contribute a bit toward the housekeeping expenses.”
    â€œI’m afraid it will have to be more than a bit, Wilson, old boy,” Ashley drawled with his usual malice, well aware thatWilson was notoriously tightfisted. “The upkeep on a drafty old house like this would bankrupt a Rockefeller.” For some reason his pale, slightly protuberant blue eyes sought out Noah’s impassive ones for a moment, then moved onward. “If things keep up the way they are, you and your child bride might find yourselves on the street, the house sold out from under you.”
    â€œNo!” Anne’s voice was raw with pain and anger. “You’ll do it over my dead body!”
    â€œBut Anne, my precious, you know as well as I do that it won’t have to come to that,” Ashley murmured. “The house is in all our names, with the stipulation that if the majority of the heirs wish to sell it, they may. So if Proffy, Holly and I decide we could use several hundred thousand dollars a bit better than a crumbling pre-Revolutionary War farmhouse there won’t be a damned thing you can do about it. You know it’s going to have to come to that, sooner or later. It’s inevitable.”
    Anne fought back the panic that threatened to engulf her, and she managed a stiff smile. “You are a nasty wretch, Ashley,” she said in an unconcerned voice. “You love to pick out someone’s vulnerable spots and then stick pins in them. Stick away, brother dear. This house has belonged to Kirklands for over a hundred years, and it will be for a hundred years more.”
    â€œThat’s a lovely thought, darling, but impractical. Granted you’ll pop out the requisite two point three babies, but they’ll be Engallses, not Kirklands. And I’m afraid my life-style and preferences do somewhat preclude procreation,” Ashley said lightly, casting a contemptuous glance at his companion’s flushed face. “So it will be up to Holly, and unless she chooses to do it out of wedlock, they’ll have their father’s name also. So why bother to hold on to the old ruin?”
    Anne set her glass down with a snap. “All right, Ashley,