The Captain's Bluestocking Mistress Read Free Page B

of losing his mind and proposing marriage. He planned on disappearing from Society altogether.
    But first, she was going to have to spend an evening shoulder-to-shoulder with the one person she would never be able to get out of her mind.

Chapter Three

     
    At half nine the next morning, Jane tilted a wingback chair beneath the locked door to her private library. Such measures were unlikely to keep Isaac out if her brother were truly determined to enter, but the barred door would at least prevent Egui the devil-cat from leaping onto her head whilst she searched for guidance among her books.
    Provided the cat wasn’t in here already, lying in wait.
    She peered about the library suspiciously but saw no sign of the potbellied gray demon.
    Not that one ever did, until it was too late.
    With a last look over her shoulder, she began to walk along the rows of books in search of inspiration. Something in one of these tomes was bound to help her get noticed. Perhaps no strategy could win her a suitor, but if she could be desirable , for once in her life…
    She ran a finger along the spines and sighed. The novels were no use. They were full of perfect, beautiful maidens whose greatest challenge was deciding which rich, devoted beau she should take for a husband.
    Jane was in no such predicament. Just the night before, she’d had her first conversation with an eligible bachelor in weeks and made a pretty botch of it by babbling about her obsession with ancient tragedies.
    Her life wasn’t a tragedy, at least. Other people were forced to the altar. She had narrowly escaped that fate and would just have to die an old maid. Was that not a blessing? A bad marriage had no advantage over spinsterhood.
    To gain a husband, she would have to relinquish the freedoms she currently took for granted. Isaac often traveled for weeks at a time, which did leave her lonely, but who was to say a husband would not do the same?
    Her brother loved her, which made for far more comfortable interactions than the silent, frigid meals shared by bitter couples that only wed for money or titles or because their parents had betrothed them while still in the womb, or other such nonsense.
    She wasn’t rich enough to attract fortune hunters on the strength of her dowry alone, but Isaac provided her with any pin money she requested without question. She could solicit the gowns she desired, attend any routs she wished, purchase any manuscripts she—
    Ah . There.
    She’d hidden the little book of erotic sketches inside the hollowed-out pages of a treatise on the evolution of various embroidery stitches across the centuries. She doubted Isaac would take it upon himself to research such a topic—and, besides, he had his own library—but one could never be too cautious. If she were to ruin her disappointingly pristine reputation, she wished to do so by enjoying illicit pleasures, not just by reading about them.
    Or staring openmouthed.
    Each illustration depicted a man and a woman in positions she could scarcely fathom. She’d perused these pages dozens of times, and still a few of them seemed impossible no matter which way she turned the book.
    She sighed. Sketches couldn’t convey the feel and scent and taste of lovemaking. To truly understand, she would have to experience the wonder for herself.
    Which, in her position, would be an extremely unlikely occurrence.
    From a certain perspective, it was almost too bad that she had been born into gentility. She wouldn’t wish to trade her position in society for life in the rookeries, but there was an elegant middle tier: demimondaines.
    Some of those women were wealthier and more sophisticated than the highest echelons of the haut ton and could select their lovers at will. Rumors of carnal liaisons enhanced, rather than ruined, their reputations.
    The only individuals enjoying somewhat comparable freedoms in Polite Society were the rakes—and even then, their debauchery could only go so far.
    Respectable women, on