Surrender to a Wicked Spy Read Free Page A

accept the only offer of marriage that she had received.
    Lord Greenleigh is a very handsome man. Lord Greenleigh is a very powerful man. Lord Greenleigh
—
    Lord Greenleigh was beginning to plague her off.
    Enough. Olivia began to braid her hair for bed. She would get out of this silly, provocative nightdress as well. She may as well not have taken that second rosewater bath of the day, either. There was no point in waiting for the fellow—he obviously wasn't coming, just as he had not come to court her, just as he had not come to ask her if
she
wanted to marry
him
.
    It wasn't as though she would have had the wherewithal to turn him down. She wasn't an idiot—she knew the family and all their dependents at Cheltenham had no other recourse but this marriage.
    It simply would have been nice to have been asked.
    Of course, Father had been no better, selling her off without the slightest thought to whether or not she even
liked
the man. No, Father had arranged the entire thing behind her back, like trading a recalcitrant horse.
    Men were not like rain. Men were more like an outbreak of rodents. One never knew what they were doing out of sight. Just when one thought the cats were managing everything nicely, it turned out that the dratted things were plotting against one all the while.
    Men were most definitely rats!
    Feeling better having put that question to rest, Olivia removed her diaphanous wrapper—silly thing! It wouldn't serve a spider for its web!—and reached to untie the delicate tapes that held closed the neckline of her even more transparent nightgown'.
    A sound at the connecting door stopped her cold. Her indignation fled as she was forced to face anew the fears she'd been fighting for a month.
    She was wife to a stranger. She was dependent on a man who could—well, who could do as he liked with her.
    That could mean a great many things. She was not as sheltered as some of the young ladies she'd encountered during the last month of the Season. She'd not been governessed to bits, nor chaperoned by more than a lazy housemaid or two. As the years went by at Cheltenham, the servants had correctly assumed that Lord and Lady Cheltenham had no intentions of arranging a grand match for Lady Olivia.
    Instead, her mother and father had pinned all their hopes on Walter, who was a year younger and a much better bet, being vastly more attractive and charming. Olivia could hardly blame them, for she'd been as dotty over Walt as any elder sister could be. He'd been full of life and humor yet not light-minded in the way of some spoiled young lords. She'd adored him, as had everyone who met him.
    When Walt and her parents were gone from Cheltenham, which was much of the time, the entire estate seemed to go into a sort of hibernation. Most of the time, Olivia managed to occupy herself nicely with the cares and welfare of her family's dependents. The village of Cheltenham had suffered as much as the estate through the years of destitution, so Olivia did whatever she could to allay that suffering.
    She was every bit as fond of her Cheltenham "family" as she was of her real one.
    Which is why you wed Lord Greenleigh.
    Right. Hopefully, pots of money would soon be on their way to Durham County in the north of England, earmarked for all the improvements that had been needed for so long.
    Lord Greenleigh was a very generous man.
    And he truly was a handsome giant…
    The fluttering in Olivia's middle was becoming a panicked beating of wings. She swallowed hard.
I shall be a willing and obedient wife
.
    Unfortunately, obedience had never been one of Olivia's finest virtues. Not that she was intentionally rebellious or even especially contentious. She was more likely to be…
accidentally
disobedient.
    Up until today, her mother's strictures had been the most difficult to obey:
Your hair must never fall from its place. You must keep your feet hidden beneath your hem or they will think you no better than a milkmaid. You must not laugh