In Want of a Wife? Read Online Free Page A

dance you’ve been invited to,’ Lizzy returned, head flung back. ‘And, as for the brood of grasping harpies, you’ve already made yourself perfectly clear to one of them!’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Let me introduce myself.’ Although her hand remained firmly where it was. ‘My name’s Elizabeth Sharp and Rose is my sister.’

CHAPTER TWO
    ‘H E’S awful. Arrogant, overbearing …’ Lizzy yanked on one knee-high boot and glared at her reflection in the mirror. Lounging on the bed, fully dressed, fully made-up, and looking as though she had just stepped out from the centre of a magazine, Rose caught her eye and smiled.
    ‘He can’t be
that
bad. Nobody’s
that
bad. Besides, he’s Nicholas’s friend and I know Nicholas would never have a friend who was as horrible as you say he is.’
    ‘Why do you always give everyone the benefit of the doubt?’ Lizzy grumbled good-naturedly. ‘It’s a terrible trait! Some people weren’t born to be given the benefit of the doubt and Louis Jumeau is one of them.’ She pulled on the other boot and made a quick mental comparison between herself and her older sister. Mental comparisons had become almost second nature ever since, at the age of fifteen, she had overheard her mother describing her to a friend as the odd one out. ‘Too brainy,’ Grace Sharp had lamented. ‘And if only she’d do something about her appearance, take a leaf out of her sister’s book …’
    Where Rose was angelically pretty, with rosy cheeks, huge blue eyes and blond hair that fell in ringlets around a heart-shaped face, Lizzy was darker, more angular, more like her father in appearance. She had always made a point of turning a deaf ear to anything her mother had to say about the way she looked. She had fulfilled her brief as the clever one,fleeing to university as fast as she could; she had pursued a teaching career while Rose had stayed in Scotland and settled for working in a boutique in one of the bigger towns fifteen miles away.
    From every perspective, they could not have been more different, but in spite of that they were close. If Louis Jumeau had made a point of telling her how loyal he was to his friend, then he had no idea how loyal she was to her sister—which was why she had kept quiet about the reasons for her animosity; not a word about gold-diggers. Rose would have been appalled to think that anyone could see her as the sort of girl who would chase a man for his money and, worse, she would have been hurt.
    ‘You’ve gone all out with your clothes tonight, Liz.’ Rose stood up, five feet ten inches of radiant beauty in a long-sleeved emerald-green dress and a little
faux
fur throw that matched her high black shoes. Lizzy didn’t think that she had ever possessed any item of clothing in emerald green. She tended to stick to black and grey; it was impossible to be too much of a fashion disaster in blacks and greys. Bright colours she left for her sisters, who could pull them off a lot better than she ever could.
    But tonight she had taken a leap of faith and borrowed a slim-fitting deep blue dress from her sister. The deep cowl neck showed just a hint of cleavage and made the most of her long, graceful neck. Her boots elevated her from a modest five-foot-four by at least four inches and, yes, she was wearing make-up: a light dusting of powder, blusher, mascara, eye shadow, lip gloss, most of which she had cadged from Maisie, who possessed enough make-up to open a small store.
    ‘Have I?’ Colour bloomed in her cheeks. ‘I just thought that I’d save Mum from having a go. You know how she is …’
    ‘Are you sure it’s not because you want to impress the arrogant, overbearing Mr Jumeau?’ Rose teased, smiling because she had noticed that faint flush on her sister’s cheeks whenshe had casually described him as ‘all-right looking, if you go for the tall, dark handsome cliché.’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ But that weird, tingly feeling she had had two nights