His Wicked Kiss Read Free Page A

sheltered from it here. If you remembered it better, you’d t hank me. It’s not all fine carriages and fancy balls, my girl. That world out there has a dark side, too.” He sent her a glance from over the rim of his spectacles. “Disease, crime, filth, poverty, corruption. There’s none of that here.”
    “There’s no one to talk to!” she cried with a sudden threat of tears leaping into her eyes.
    With a compassionate wince, Papa plopped down onto his stool again. “Nonsense, there’s me! I am exceedingly good company—and there’s Connor, too. Well, he doesn’t say much, I’ll give you that, but when he does, it is worth listening to. There, there, my pretty child,” he said, patting her hand with a worried look. “I assure you, we are far more intelligent conversation than you will ever find in the drawing rooms of London .”
    “Just once, I’d like to know what normal people talk about,” she said barely audibly.
    “Normal? ‘Tis but another word for mediocrity!” he scoffed. “Oh, Edie, for heaven’s sake, those London chits you so admire are the silliest, most trivial creatures on God’s earth, not a thought in their heads beyond ribbons and bonnets and shoes. Why the devil should you want to be like them, anyway?”
    She stifled a groan.
Here comes the lecture
.
    “Look at the advantages you enjoy here! You dress how you want, say what you want, do as you please. You have no idea how those Society girls are forever dogged by chaperones whose sole purpose in life is to regulate their every movement. You’d go mad if you had to endure it for a day. Look at the freedoms I’ve given you—the education, for heaven’s sake!”
    Freedom
? she wondered.
Then why do I feel like a prisoner
?
    “I trained you up more like a son than a daughter,” he went on, traveling well-worn paths. She nearly had it by heart. “By Jove, do you think your fine London ladies can recite every known genus in the
Aracaceae
family? Make a bush tea to cure yellow fever? Set a broken bone? I think not,” he declared proudly. “You, my dearest Eden, are utterly unique!”
    “I don’t want to be unique, Papa,” she said wearily. “I just want to be a part of the world again. I want to belong.”
    “You do belong, darling. With me!”
    She looked away, suddenly feeling trapped. He understood perfectly well; he just pretended not to. “Have I not been a dutiful daughter? Have I not stuck by your side through thick and thin, and looked after you, and aided in your work, and done everything you asked of me?”
    “Yes,” he admitted uncomfortably.
    “Papa, they say in England that a lady is a spinster by the age of twenty-five. I know you have no head for such things, but just last month, I turned twenty-three.” He started to scoff, but she lowered her head. “Please, don’t laugh at me for once. It’s not just the ballrooms and fancy carriages that interest me. I admit, I like those things—what girl would not?—but that’s only a small part of it, and I should hope that you know me better than that by now.”
    “Well, what then, Edie, my dearest?” he asked kindly. “What is eating at you so?”
    She looked into his eyes, feeling so hesitantly vulnerable. “Can’t you understand? I… I want to find someone, Papa.”
    “Who?” he cried impatiently.
    “I don’t know yet who! Someone—someone to love.”
    He sat back and looked at her in pure astonishment. “So, that’s what all of this is about!”
    She lowered her head again, her cheeks aflame. Having admitted her heart’s loneliness, she now rather wished the earth would open up and swallow her.
    Papa slapped his thighs with both hands in sudden enthusiasm. “Well, I daresay the perfect solution has been right under our noses all along!”
    When she looked at him hopefully, he jerked a not-so-subtle nod in the direction Connor had gone.
    Eden turned scarlet. “Oh, Papa, please don’t start with that again!” she whispered