Read Online Marry the Man Today by Linda Needham - Free Book Online

of England in the public tea room of the Abigail Adams, still a pair of well-appointed elderly ladies, sharing a very English ritual.
    A ritual that always made the new account holder more comfortable with her new role.
    "Dear Elizabeth, you are a wonder!"
    "And you, Lady Ellis, were the perfect spinster, still look the part to a T." Elizabeth loved her popular publi c tea roo m — t he cozy chintz, and especially its subversive elements. With a fresh selection of newspapers to read without the husband looking on. With intelligent conversation encouraged. With scones and chocolate and sticky toffee pudding and perfectly brewed cream teas.
    Yes, the tea room was proving the perfect tool to recruit new members to the ladies' club.
    "I've never had quite so much fun!" Lady Ellis gave a girlish giggle. "I felt just like a spy!"
    "You'll have no trouble managing your new account, as long as you come and go from the tea room in an anonymous hack and wear the same wig and bonnet as part of your disguise every time you return to the Bank. You can change into your costume upstairs in the Adams."
    "You've thought of everything, Miss Elizabeth."
    "I've tried to." Elizabeth poured Lady Ellis another cup of Darjeeling, pleased that she was taking to the disguise so eagerly, even after the fact. "But the important thing is that you never raise suspicions and that your husband never finds out that you have become a woman of independent means."
    "One miserly pound at a time. But at least the money will belong to me." Lady Ellis sighed as she idly stirred cream into her tea. "Poor Arthur isn't a bad man, really, he's jus t . . . well, thick, when it comes to understanding that I might have a life intellectually separate from his. After all, I speak and write seven languages, and he can barely handle the one he was born with."
    Such a sadly common complaint among the women she'd come to know and admire. "Besides which, you manage a household of how many servants every day?"
    "Twenty-five."
    "And Lord Ellis manages how many employees at his investment f irm?"
    "Eight." Lady Ellis tsked as though she now pitied the man's insignificant fate. "My mother always said that women ran the world."
    "But wouldn't it be better if we had a vote in the casting of the laws that rule the land?"
    Lady Ellis shook her head. "You are so wise for one so young."
    "Thank you, my lady." It was wisdom hard-won, inspired and encouraged by so many brave women who'd come before her.
    "Just think, my dear, if I hadn't joined the Abigail Adams and attended the weekly club meetings, if I hadn't listened to the lectures by the Strickland sisters and Mrs. Green and all the other speakers you've brought t o us, if I hadn't met you, then I would never have found the nerve to break out of my prison."
    "I merely provided the opportunity, Lady Ellis."
    "And the courage. For which I thank you."
    "You're welcome." Though she disliked taking credit for the wise decisions made by people who only needed to be shown the way. "Now if I might suggest one last thing regarding your new account."
    The woman's eyes sparkled with her smile. "More intrigue, I hope."
    "It's just that you should try to carry out each of your transactions with the same clerk, every time. He'll grow so used to you, he'll soon not even notice you."
    "Just like my Arthur. He barely notices me at all anymore. Not like when we were first married." Lady Ellis leaned forward, arching a brow into her fusty wig, her words conspiring, barely audible. "You know ... in the bedroom."
    "I see." Though she didn't really, not fully. Elizabeth hadn't meant to still be completely virginal at the ripe old age of twenty-two, but there were such risks for a woman in all things sexual.
    And she'd met very few men worth a scandalous pregnancy, let alone an unsuitable marriage.
    Which made her think instantly, unreasonably, of that great lout Blakestone.
    With his enormous shoulders and broad chest, his rumbling voice that had simply