Read Online In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) by Maggie Robinson - Free Book Online Page B

enough to touch.
    And he wanted to. Charles had not felt desire for anyone or anything since his crack-up in Africa. Louisa Stratton, despite her runaway tongue, might prove to be the trigger to dispensing with his self-imposed celibacy.
    But no. He was the hired help, and the ground rules had been clear. He couldn’t even find any satisfaction with someone more suitable—one of the housemaids, for example; he was a man still considered to be on his honeymoon. How disloyal Maximillian Norwich would be if he betrayed his lovely heiress. The irony of his sudden lust almost made him laugh.
    She waited at the threshold of her parents’ bedroom, expecting her due. Charles unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “You look nice, Louisa.”
    Her brows were several shades darker than her champagne-colored hair, and they knit briefly, then relaxed. “Thank you, Maximillian. You look nice, too.”
    “Any last-minute orders?”
    “I haven’t ordered you about, just made suggestions. It will be very like a minefield down there. Cook says the table is set for twenty. You are likely to be grilled like the Scotch salmon we’re having for the fish course. Just be . . .”
    Her unfinished sentence hung in the air. “Myself?” he supplied helpfully.
    “Don’t be ridiculous. You needn’t volunteer anything, but do speak when spoken to. And mention Lachapelle.”
    “Loire Valley.”
    “Exactly. Ready?” She floated toward him and held out a kid-gloved hand.
    They made it down the central stone staircase without incident. Louisa led him to a reception room the length of a cricket pitch. It was crammed with tapestries, Chinese jardinières, spindly French gilt furniture, and most of the dinner-party guests. At the center of the room, in a throne-like Louis the Somethingth chair, sat a woman whose resemblance to Louisa was unmistakable. Somehow Charles had been expecting a lumpy gray-haired dowager, but this soignée blonde must be the dreaded Aunt Grace. Charles thought she must be more than halfway from forty to fifty, yet her trim figure and unlined face made her look like Louisa’s older sister.
    She didn’t rise. “Mr. Norwich! How delighted I am to meet our Louisa’s husband at last.”
    Charles knew what he had to do without Louisa’s little push. He crossed the carpet and bent to kiss the woman’s extended hand. “Not as delighted as I am to meet Louisa’s beloved aunt. Do please call me Max.”
    “Max, is it? I understand your given name is Maximillian.”
    “But quite a mouthful, yes? My friends call me Max. I’ve been trying to persuade Louisa to follow suit, but you know how stubborn she can be.”
    Grace gave him her first genuine smile of the evening. “I do indeed. We are depending upon you to teach her all the errors of her ways.”
    “I can find no real fault with her, ma’am. One could not ask for a more dutiful or beautiful wife.”
    “Very prettily said. Louisa, you claimed he was handsome and charming, and I see that was not one of your usual exaggerations. Do forgive me, Max, for not leading you around to our guests. Dr. Fentress’s orders.” She smiled up at the older gentleman who stood by her chair. “But Louisa will perform the introductions. You haven’t forgotten who we are, have you, my dear, after all your time away from home?”
    “Not at all, Aunt Grace. Who could forget such distinguished company?
Max
, darling,” Louisa said with special emphasis, “this is Dr. Fentress, who tells me he’s known me since I was a baby.”
    “How do you do, sir?”
    “Quite well, quite well, Mr. Norwich, now that I know little Louisa is in good hands. Your wife ran harum-scarum as a girl, you know. Mrs. Westlake had her hands full, didn’t you, Grace? And going off to the Continent unchaperoned except for an Irish maid—I won’t tell you how many sleepless nights we’ve passed worrying about little Louisa.”
    Little Louisa bristled next to Charles, but somehow kept her mouth