Losing the Earl: Regency Romance Clean Read (Yearnings for Love Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

room.
    “May I ask something that weighs on me?”
    She stopped and looked at him, “With people dispersing it is not proper you and I should be in a room alone Mr. Caulfield.”
    “I beg but a moment. I think of my friend and his former situation, and I can’t help thinking that it parallels your current situation, does it not?”
    “Surely, you jest –if not, you are certainly speaking out of turn.”
    “With respect, my lady, did you have a choice in the choosing of this man? I was under the impression this was an arranged match?”
    “Yes,” she frowned, “but that doesn’t mean I disapprove.”
    “So you love him?”
    The question shouldn’t have offended her, but it did. “Not everyone is as fortunate enough sir as to come from a place where they can assign their own station in life.”
    “They told Thomas the same thing since birth as well. Where he was, the punishments for assigning his own station in life were far more severe than what British society offers. I mean don’t you have an opinion on your situation more than the one expected of you?”
    “I don’t think you understand the place in which you visit.” She didn’t want to be rude, but courtesy dictated they leave and let the conversation go.
    “I think you don’t understand your own potential for freedom. Don’t you ever wonder what you could do if given the choice? Can you not see you are bound?”
    She was getting angry. But something else plagued her as well. “What I feel, what I think, and how I live are…” Mary felt her chest heaving against her corset. The feeling she remembered from her dream watching William and Samuel fight. She held her breath for a second and let the feeling pass. She thought about breakfast, how she had been kind to his friend and did not understand why he now attacked her. Her business was her own.
    William’s expression was passive. She realized he was not trying to attack her. He was trying to understand her situation and why she allowed it. She relaxed.
    “What is all this?” Samuel’s voice disrupted her thought and the moment to expound passed.
    “I was just asking Lady Mary her opinion on slavery. I wanted to know what an English lady thinks of the barbaric practice.”
    The sharp bark of Samuel’s laugh hurt Mary’s ears. “Why would you ask her that?” He was genuinely amused.
    “To find out what she thinks.”
    “No, why are you asking a woman her opinion? Surely, in your Colonies, a woman knows her place as it is here.” Samuel smiled. “Women are for birthing sons, and hopefully, to make the home beautiful for when entertaining guests and to be an ornament to her husband. And of course to surrender a male child before too long. I wish the marrying bit was easier. The ceremony is a bit much, don’t you think?”
    William smiled at Mary, his eyes bouncing off her and focusing on her husband to be, “Is that so sir, so husbands and wives should share interests?”
    “Of course they should, if a husband has an interest it is part of the wife’s job to take up that interest.”
    “And what is your game of choice, sir?”
    “Boar and deer.”
    “Lady Mary you shall learn the use of the flintlock it seems.”
    Samuel laughed, “No good sir, you don’t bring a woman hunting. They are far too delicate, but I’m sure she’ll love hearing stories of the chase and the kill.”
    “I have seen warrior women ride down Buffalo on horses and spear them.”
    “Buffalo aren’t dangerous.”
    “In height and bulk, they are bigger than any bull I’ve seen in the United Kingdom. They do kill horses, riders or anyone annoying them, either with their horns or by trampling.” 
    “When annoyed?”
    “Why would a woman do such a daring thing?” Mary asked.
    “There is a lot of meat on a Buffalo. A woman without a man still needs to feed her children.”
    “But you speak of the savages, I’m sure she had fangs and a terrible odor as well.” Samuel offered his arm to Mary, and