How I Married a Marquess Read Online Free Page B

dancing would be wonderful. Although it was a country dance and not a grand London ball, Josie had it under good authority from the second violinist that at least two waltzes were scheduled for the evening. And she did so love to waltz! In fact, waltzing was the only thing that had made the past five seasons bearable.
    Five seasons. Good God .
    Her shoulders sagged. At twenty-three, without any suitors or prospects, she supposed she would soon be officially on the shelf, and then she wouldn’t have to worry anymore about seasons or finding waltz partners who didn’t step on her toes.
    Truly, though, she wasn’t surprised. On paper, as the daughter of a baron, she rivaled most of the young ladies of England. But naturally, she was an adopted orphan who had been surrendered by her mother when she was three months old, a castoff of unknown lineage. Perhaps the child of a washerwoman or maid. Or worse. And no proper gentleman wanted to pursue a woman whose ancestry would only soil his progeny.
    Oh, she’d had a few suitors over the years. There’d been a few young gentlemen who’d visited Blackwood Hall for previous parties and taken an interest in her, but in the end their interest had lasted only as long as their stay. Local sons of squires and merchants had called on her over the years, brought her posies, taken her for picnics, and even had the daring to request a few kisses before offering for other young ladies. Occasionally a soldier or a vicar had been bold enough to pursue her. Those she chased away herself, knowing they were willing to overlook her past only to gain her dowry and a familial connection to a peer.
    Given all that, then, was it any wonder that she was still unmarried?
    But truly, wasn’t it for the best? While other young ladies focused on hunting husbands from the right families—with the right fortunes, of course—Josie had found purpose in working with the local orphanage and in doing everything she could to give the best lives possible to the children who hadn’t been as fortunate as she’d been. Which was why she’d never asked her parents for a London season. Here, in Lincolnshire, what did it matter if anyone knew her true past? Those people who really mattered to her knew who she was and cared about her anyway. But the London ladies would ostracize her if her past became common gossip, and no gentleman would dare to court her then. And even if she found a man who loved her and was willing to overlook her soiled ancestry, he most likely wouldn’t allow her to continue the work she did for the Good Hope Home. Certainly not all she did.
    And she couldn’t stop because she knew firsthand the horrors of that orphanage…cold winter nights sleeping three to a bed to keep warm, days when the only food was weak broth, and clothes worn until they fell away in rags, never washed and filled with lice and fleas. Mrs. Potter, the manageress whom Simon Royston had hired into the position, constantly stole from the supply stores and beat the children, locked them into the coal bin with no food or chamber pot, and often passed out drunk from gin.
    But Josie had been lucky. Just six years old when Richard and Elizabeth Carlisle adopted her, she’d been picked by them because she was the toughest little girl in the orphanage, afraid of nothing, and more than able to hold her own against three older brothers. Even as a child she’d vowed that she would never forget the other children, that she would do whatever she could to help.
    So if remaining unwed meant she could continue to care for the orphans, then it was more than a fair price to pay, she supposed. Yet her foolish heart still longed to meet a man who would fall in love with her. But with each passing season, that dream became more and more just that. Only a dream.
    And so she was still unwed and most likely always would be. Her family had never pressured her to marry, leaving the choice entirely up to her, and at this point, she was accepting