No Proper Lady by Isabel Cooper

Author:Isabel Cooper [Cooper, Isabel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Time Travel
ISBN: 9781402259548
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2011-09-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

“Do you people ever talk about anything but the weather?” Joan dropped, with a deep and exasperated sigh, into one of the chairs by the study’s fireplace.

Simon closed his book and studied her face. She looked irritated but not badly so. He flattered himself he was familiar enough with her real anger to recognize it. So he answered lightly, “I take it your visitors haven’t been to your liking.”

“Oh, not at all,” Joan said. “They’re very informative. If you want to know that it’s been unexpectedly fine this year. I’m very well aware of that right now. And it’s been nice of them to ask how I am so frequently. Next time, I’m going to tell them I’ve broken something. Or cut my own toes off with a carving knife. It’ll make a nice change.”

“You’re going to cut your own toes off? Lord, Joan, don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?” Simon smiled over at her.

Joan rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to sit through it.”

“Thank God for that. I’ve danced with Miss Thomson—there’s only so much suffering one man can endure in this life.”

“Which one is she?”

“The pale little thing who called on Monday. Spiritual girl. Poetic. Or likes to think she is.”

“Oh. Her.” Joan closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the chair. “She expressed her ‘unutterable sorrow’ about my husband. I always thought that ‘unutterable’ meant you couldn’t talk about something at all, let alone for five minutes straight. But I also thought it wasn’t in good taste to say you don’t know how you’d live if you lost a husband, the implication being that I should’ve jumped off a building.”

“Oh, I don’t think she meant to imply that. Suicides are such messy things.”

Joan snorted and then opened one eye to look at Simon. “And how do you know she was here on Monday? The butler said you weren’t here.”

“I hid,” Simon confessed, looking down at the cover of his book.

“How manly of you.”

When Joan grinned, Simon wanted to forget everything he’d said at Englefield and kiss her again. Now that he was in town, without the reminders that he was supposed to play the responsible country gentleman, stopping that night in the library seemed more and more like a bad idea. Their mission was going well, and Eleanor was looking much better. At times like these, sober responsibility began to chafe.

Careful, he told himself, but careful was the last thing he wanted to be just then. He wanted to pull Joan onto his lap. He wanted to undo her blouse and take her small, firm breasts in his hands again, this time with nothing between his fingers and her skin.

But the bonds were still his to bear. “She hasn’t set her cap for you.”

Joan needed a moment to figure out the slang. Then she started laughing. “Oh. Oh, God. Poor guy. I take it back. But can’t you just tell her you’re not into her?”

“A gentleman doesn’t do that sort of thing. Not if he has any sense of honor at all.

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