Read How to Woo a Reluctant Lady for Free Online Page B

how to intimidate her into stopping this nonsense of putting him in her books. But as he’d neared the gates of Halstead and seen the crowds, it had dawned on him that the best solution was the simplest.
    Make her his wife. That way he could control her and her “fiction.” She was too practical to damage her husband’s future. And she had to marry anyway if she and her siblings were to gain their inheritance.
    A few years ago the idea might have thrown him into a bachelor panic, but with the upturn in his career, he would have to settle down with a wife soon. Especially if he became a King’s Counsel.
    And if he must have a wife, it might as well be one he desired. Minerva certainly qualified, no matter how she tried to hide her allure with her attire. Today she wore a fashionable morning gown of printed green muslin with a number of fussy flounces about the hem, those hideous puffy sleeves thathad become so popular, and a bodice that ran right up to her chin.
    Every feminine curve had been buried beneath furbelows and padded sleeves and lace edgings, and it didn’t matter one whit. He already knew that her figure was lushly feminine. Thanks to the many evening gowns he’d seen her in, he could imagine it as clearly as if she were naked. And just the thought of taking her to bed made his blood quicken and his good sense vanish. Truth was, seeing her always did something extraordinary to him.
    But God help him if she ever guessed it. Reading her books had offered him a peek inside her fathomless brain, so he knew she was clever enough to wrap him entirely about her finger if he allowed it.
    “As if I would marry a scoundrel like you,” she informed him with a minxish look that grated on his nerves. “Are you daft?”
    “I believe we’ve already established that I’m halfway to being a bedlamite. But humor me anyway.” Apparently she wasn’t clever enough to see that marriage to him was her only viable choice. He would have to correct that. “You ought to leap at the chance to marry a scoundrel, given how much you enjoy writing about them.”
    She eyed him as if he really were a bedlamite. “It’s not the same. You make an excellent villain precisely because you would make a wretched husband. You don’t fit any of my criteria for a suitable spouse.”
    “Criteria? Ah yes, the interviewing. You must have drummed up some questions for your prospective spouses.” He glanced about the room and spotted a stack of paper atop a red lacquered table. As he strode over, he asked, “Is this them?”
    When he picked up the sheaf of paper, she hurried over. “Give me that!”
    He held her off with one hand while he scanned the first page. “Let me see . . . Question one: ‘Have you ever been married before?’ That one’s easy. No.”
    “Because no woman would have you,” she muttered.
    “That probably had something to do with it. Question two: ‘Describe your ideal wife.’” He let his gaze trail leisurely over Minerva. “About five foot seven, golden brown hair, green eyes, with a bosom that would make a man weep and a bottom that—”
    “Giles!” Hot color filled her cheeks as she crossed her arms over that bosom.
    He grinned. “Suffice it to say, she’s quite beautiful.”
    The brief satisfaction in her eyes told him that Minerva wasn’t as immune to compliments as she pretended. “I wasn’t speaking of physical appearances, as I’m sure you know. I wanted a description of their ideal wife’s
character.
”
    “I see. Well then, my ideal wife is an unpredictable hellion, with a penchant for getting into trouble and speaking her mind.”
    “Sounds dangerous.” Her lips twitched. “And utterly unsuitable for a man who keeps secrets.”
    “Good point.” Except that her unsuitability was precisely the thing that intrigued him. She was wrong for him in every way. And that only made him want her more.
    Besides, he could handle Minerva. He was probably the only man in England who could.
    He tore