Read The Matchmaker for Free Online

we wouldn't be having this conversation."
    "Have you no sense of decency?"
    He didn't fail to notice she let his remark about her marriage go unchallenged. "By society's definition? I suppose not. What does it matter?"
    Julia drew a short breath and looked at him with glittering eyes. "Then we'll set decency aside, since that means nothing to you. And I'll be as blunt as you've been. I don't want you. I don't want an affair. Is that clear enough?"
    "Let's walk," Cyrus said, rising to his feet and reaching for her hand.
    "No—"
    He grasped her hand before she could pull away, and gently but inexorably drew her up. "Don't fight me, Julia," he said, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm, "or you'll attract the kind of attention you'd rather avoid."
    "Do you often resort to blackmail?" she demanded tightly, walking beside him as he began strolling toward one of the paths that wound among trees and neat shrubs.
    "Only when necessary. Do admit you're more com fortable walking—if it's possible, that is, to feel anything but agony in that corset you're wearing."
    It was one of the least shocking things he'd said to her, and since "agony" was a fair description of what her tightly laced stays caused, particularly today, Julia was a little bemused to hear her own defensive reply. "To be fashionable—"
    "Fashion can go to hell. Forcing the human body to conform to an unnatural shape is foolish and dangerous, particularly in the name of fashion. And any man who'd choose to see his woman resemble a pouter pigeon ought to be forced to spend a few hours in one of those bloody contraptions."
    She couldn't think of anything to say to that, and glanced up at him in faint surprise. It was unnerving to discover that the top of her head barely reached his shoulder, and even more unnerving to believe that his indelicate talk of corsets had been prompted by concern. He was a strange man; his black velvet voice made her feel things she didn't understand, his bluntness disturbed her and left her without the protection of conventional propriety, and though he'd been very calm and matter-of-fact about it, his determination to have her seemed unswerving.
    Then he continued speaking in the same calm but forceful voice, and she wondered a bit numbly if there was anything, anything at all, that he considered im proper to discuss with a woman. Somehow, she didn't think so.
    "Besides that, you don't need any kind of artificial help to have a magnificent body. God gave you one. Seeing you naked has become my life's ambition."
    Julia wanted to gasp or laugh hysterically, but her stays were too tight to allow her to do either without fainting at his feet. She almost told him so, certain he'd appreciate the remark. Instead, staring straight ahead and determined to keep her calm no matter what he said, she said coldly, "I'm terribly sorry to frustrate your ambition, but I must."
    "Why?"
    "I told you. I don't want an affair."
    "I'll change your mind." He looked down at her as they walked along the winding path, wondering absently how long her hair was. It was difficult to judge, since the fiery mass was arranged in a pompadour. The hand he held firmly in the crook of his arm was very small and slender. Her left hand, he realized; neat gloves hid her wedding ring, but he knew it was there.
    Too tight. The thought sprang into his mind, and he didn't know if it was literal or symbolic, if her ring fit too tightly, or her marriage vows did.
    "I don't want my mind changed," she snapped. "I have no desire to be flung out in the streets and branded an adulteress."
    "Drummond wouldn't do that even if he found out," Cyrus said coolly. "He's a politician. Infidelity means- nothing compared to the damage a divorce would cause his career."
    Until that moment Julia had believed she'd experi enced all the pain a man could inflict on a woman, but this was a new hurt, an unexpectedly raw hurt. Another man, she thought bitterly, who discounted private tor ment as long as