Read Online Captivated by a Lady's Charm (Lords of Honor Book 2) by Christi Caldwell - Free Book Online Page B

two o’clock. Should you not be sleeping?” He swiftly snapped the ledgers closed.
    “I should not,” she said with a wink. “Should you not be sleeping?”
    He gave a wry shake of his head. With her probing questions and tenacity, Lucinda was oftentimes worse than their mother.
    She propped her hands upon her hips. “I thought you would never arrive.” There was a faintly accusatory edge to her tone.
    “I assure you I would far rather be home,” even in this crumbling home, “than,” hunting for a marriageable young lady’s fortune, “attending any ball or soiree,” he substituted instead.
    She skipped over and he abandoned work for the evening, coming to his feet. Lucinda stopped before his desk. “I expected you would return and tell me all about the ball. Were the gowns wonderful?”
    One particular gown slipped into mind; one that was not at all wonderful with its hideous ruffles and flounces and yet there was something intriguing about the wearer of that gown. He came around the desk and chucked his sister under the chin. “As a non-wearer of gowns, I am afraid I cannot say.”
    Her lips formed a moue of displeasure. “Oh, pooh. You know I am living vicariously through your grand adventure.”
    His grand adventure. There it was again. That foolish phrase. The idea his sister craved that stirred unease within him. He propped his hip on the edge of his crowded desk. “The orchestra was lively and the dancers exuberant.”
    Lucinda sank into the cracked leather winged back chair. She pulled her knees up much the way she’d done as a small girl and dropped her chin atop them. “Do tell me more,” she pleaded. More than ten years younger than his own twenty-six years, he’d never been one to deny his sister anything. After despairing of the spare to Christian’s heir, news his mother had been expecting had been the shock of his parents’ marriage and the bane of Christian’s then ten-year-old existence. Until he’d first beheld her glassy, brown-eyed stare. Then he’d been helplessly lost to be anything but her protector. She leaned over and swatted him. “Will you not speak?” Before he could open his mouth, she said, “Mother says you are searching for a wife.”
    He choked on his swallow. Bloody hell, his mother had loose lips. “Wherever did you hear that?”
    “Well, I heard her muttering to herself about you hurrying up and wedding…” She wrinkled her brow. “Have you found a bride and you’ve not told me?”
    “Egads, no!” A small shudder wracked his frame. There would be a wife. The disastrous ledgers and crumbling estates, of course, made that inevitable and yet the idea of tying his worthless self to an innocent young woman knotted his belly.
    His sister swung her legs over the chair. She shot a bare foot out and connected cleanly with his shins.
    He grunted. “Blood—what in blazes was that for?”
    “Well, if you are in the market for a wife—”
    Christian choked again. “What do you know about any market for a wife?” God, with her single-minded attention to his marital affairs, she was worse than their mother.
    “Do not change the subject,” she continued over him with a frown. “If you are in the market for a wife, then it hardly behooves you to be so very dramatic in your displeasure at the prospect. In fact, I daresay you shouldn’t even marry a poor young woman under those circumstances.” She paused and gave him a meaningful look. “I certainly know I would not.”
    Alas, she’d not have to because he’d make that sacrifice for her. “When did you grow up?” he asked, giving his head a bemused shake.
    “I’m not a girl,” she said matter-of-factly. “I only want you to wed because you are hopelessly in love.”
    He paused as her words unwittingly dragged forth a long buried memory.
    “…I will love you until the end of time, my love…”
    Lynette pouted. “Oui. But I thought I was more than ‘your love’.”
    He caught her lush frame to him.