Mischief by Moonlight Read Online Free

long-established ease. Self-discipline had been something he’d demanded of himself since childhood, when he’d come to understand that his out-of-control parents had none.
    â€œListen, Colin, you won’t go away just yet, will you? I’m worried about Edwina.”
    He glanced across the room at Edwina, who was standing stiffly with Mrs. Biddle. He could only just hear her sharp tone as she told Mrs. Biddle not to buy some new sort of fabric from the shop in town because it was of inferior quality.
    â€œIs something amiss?” he said. “She seems quite as usual to me. And very lovely she is tonight, in her green gown. It sets off her black hair remarkably well.”
    His words seemed to cheer Josie in some way, because she smiled. Her smiles had such a ridiculous effect on him, and there it was, the little lift they always gave him.
    â€œShe is fine. But you know how our mother has not much helped her in finding a husband. I’m certain she wants Edwina to stay at Jasmine House forever and take care of her, even though Mama is perfectly able to get off the divan and start really living if she would only choose to.”
    â€œShe does seem to spend a lot of time on the divan,” Colin said.
    Josie gave him an exasperated look. “You know that she only gets up to go to bed. She even has her meals on the divan! Aside from the fact that we have so few friends in the neighborhood, it’s one of the reasons we never have anyone but you to dinner.”
    â€œYes, a bit difficult to dine like that.”
    â€œAnd you know how Papa refused to have governesses for us because he didn’t want us to become worldly. Never mind that he chased away every man who ever tried to court Edwina or me because he was going to marry us to nabobs.”
    His eyes lingered on hers, and he felt a smile tugging at his mouth. He really tried not to smile too much in her presence—it made him too happy, which resulted in a sort of hangover once he’d gone back to the enormous, quiet rooms of Greenbrier, where he would have been content in his solitude were it not for what Josie Cardworthy did to him.
    â€œAnd yet you seem to have managed very well. And Edwina shall do, too, doubtless. Why should you be worried about her?”
    â€œReally, Colin, I can only wonder if all that time alone thinking about the ancient kings of England hasn’t entirely dulled your brain to the life around you. But then, you don’t see anything wrong about people not marrying—you like to be alone all the time.”
    â€œNot true,” he said quietly. She had an idea of him that was not, in some respects, the way he really was. Oh, she knew him through the connection of the true friendship they shared. Their conversation was genuine and effortless, their shared silences companionable. They respected and sought each other’s opinions and enjoyed disputing with each other.
    But she was young and innocently unaware of the ways of men. She’d certainly be shocked to know how much he wanted to think about her body and the effort he spent making sure he never did.
    She thought he spent his days sitting soberly writing at his desk for hours, and he could only imagine how startled she’d be to see him as he usually was at home: in bed shirtless and unshaven with his books splayed out around him, their pages both his main pleasure and his distraction from the woman of whom he must not think.
    And she couldn’t know that he’d given up on other women when he’d fallen under her spell. He’d never been fond of casual dalliances, nor much interested in widows and courtesans beyond the occasional liaison. But in the last year, he’d stopped finding other women appealing at all.
    She had no idea that he planned his occasional short research trips to avoid spending too much time in her tempting company. In her mind, he was a sort of dear, sexless older brother, and he had to let her