Read Online The Husband List by Janet Evanovich, Dorien Kelly - Free Book Online Page B

seat. It’s bad enough that you didn’t give it to me. Do you need to bounce around, too?”
    “I never bounce,” Helen replied. “And if you hadn’t dawdled, you’d have the seat you want, not that it would make any difference.”
    “What do you mean, no difference?”
    “Backwards is backwards, whether on the left or right. You’re acting like a spoiled child.”
    “ I am?” Amelia gasped, kid-gloved hand to her heart. “You dare say that after telling Mama you want to be the goddess Minerva at the costume ball, when you know that being Minerva is all I’ve spoken of since Monday? You’re the spoiled one of us.”
    “I’m the elder. I get first choice in costume, after Caroline, and I’m better suited to be Minerva. I love books and wisdom. You just want to carry an owl.”
    “You get everything you want.”
    Caroline had heard enough.
    “Markham, please pull over,” she called to the Longhornes’ coachman.
    The twins stopped bickering.
    “Caro, what are you doing?” Helen asked.
    “Out,” Caroline said, reaching for the door’s clasp before poor Markham could even get there.
    Amelia—who actually was a tad dramatic—gasped again. “What do you mean, out?”
    “I mean for you to get out of the carriage,” Caroline directed. “You’re being ridiculous. I’m moving to your seat, and the two of you are moving to mine. And the rest of the way to the Casino, we all are going to be Minerva and explore the wisdom found in silence.”
    Markham arrived. He took over his duties from Caroline, and readied to assist them from the carriage.
    “Now, out,” Caroline said firmly as her sisters gaped at her.
    “We never stop the carriage like this. You’re making a spectacle of us,” Helen said.
    “If I wanted to make a spectacle, I’d do far more than this,” Caroline replied. “Move along so we can get to the Casino on time.”
    The girls were standing curbside and Caroline had just risen and was readying to change seats when a gold-gilt carriage that even Mama would deem overdone pulled beside them and stopped. In it sat Flora Willoughby, with Jack opposite her. Caroline tried not to stare as her sisters were.
    “Are you having difficulties?” Mrs. Willoughby asked.
    Caroline couldn’t work up a response. Her silence wasn’t due to the other woman’s tennis attire, even though it was a wonderful near echo of what males were permitted to wear. Seeing Jack had scattered Caroline’s thoughts. After three days without a glance of him, she’d managed to convince herself that he’d left Newport. Life would be duller, but more manageable.
    Yet here he was. Jack, too, wore tennis whites, but where the color accented Mrs. Willoughby’s exotic paleness, it made him look more vital than ever. An odd sensation danced through Caroline.
    Hunger, maybe?
    “No troubles,” she managed to say after focusing solely on Mrs. Willoughby. “Just a slight rearrangement of contents.”
    “Good, then,” Jack’s friend replied.
    Caroline wasn’t sure what to say next. Rules required that she politely end the conversation. They were not formally acquainted, and Jack wasn’t making the effort. But to his questionable credit, Mrs. Willoughby wasn’t the sort of woman to whom Caroline should be introduced. Which, of course, made the introduction all the more appealing.
    She frowned at Jack. The blasted man grinned in return. But if he thought he held the upper hand, he was sorely mistaken. She stood a little straighter.
    “My name is Caroline Maxwell,” she said to the other woman. “And I believe you are Mrs. Willoughby?”
    Down on the curb, both twins gasped. This time she couldn’t blame them. Caroline was indeed creating that dreaded spectacle, and it was being noted by Mama’s friends in passing carriages.
    “Please call me Flora.”
    Caroline nodded her assent. “Thank you.”
    “Jack and I were just on our way to the Casino. I have decided to take up tennis,” Flora said.
    “I’m sure