No Marriage of Convenience (13 page)

She spared him only the briefest of glances, as if she found his presence as troublesome as she had hours before when she’d stormed out of his study.

He didn’t see what she need be so miffed about—he’d only been trying to help her, not embarrass her.

“Mason!” Cousin Felicity called out. “How delightful that you can join us. I was just telling everyone about a disturbing item in the paper, the Duke of Walford’s heir is missing, and they propose to drag the river. I was just getting to the good part when Lord Delander arrived. He insisted we continue our break from our lessons with a bit of tea and some cakes he brought over.”

Del grinned at the girls, though none of them returned his infectious smile. “Lessons? Female secrets on how to catch us poor unsuspecting men in the parson’s mousetrap, eh, Bea? Perhaps Mason and I can help—besides, we might be able to use some help in finding brides.” Del grinned at Riley with what was apparently his best rakish endeavor, but she wasn’t looking at him, so his efforts were wasted. “Come now,” he said to Riley. “What lessons would you recommend to your cousin?”

Riley demurred. “That would depend on what type of bride he seeks.”

Mason shifted in his seat as all eyes turned to him.

“Oh, yes, Uncle,” Maggie said, with the first show of spirit he’d seen since entering the room. “What sort of bride are you looking for?”

“Rich,” Del suggested.

Louisa nodded in agreement.

“Pretty,” Del added, rising to his feet and warming to
his subject. “And not too young, I would think. I can’t see your uncle with some simpering miss just out of the schoolroom.” He paced around the room. “She can’t be one of these silly creatures you find everywhere. She’d bore him beyond redemption.” Del scratched his chin. “But how to find her?”

“She sounds like that mincing and prancing Dahlia Pindar,” Beatrice said.

“Exactly!” Del told her. “There is a perfect heiress for your uncle. Rich and respectable.”

“And a regular ninny-hammer,” Bea added. “I think she could get lost in a closet.”

Mason should have known that Riley would eventually extract her own form of revenge as she took this moment to turn to him and ask, “And why haven’t you swept this veritable paragon off her feet and made her your countess,
Cousin
?”

With everyone watching him, their expectant gazes awaiting his answer, Mason shrugged. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

Much to his chagrin, Del leapt into the fray. “Then Miss St. Clair,” he said to Riley, “you should expand your charm school to include your cousin here, for it seems he needs a bit of prodding if he has any hope of making the illustrious Miss Pindar his bride. We can both help him.”

“Such a fanciful notion, Lord Delander,” Riley told him. “I had no idea you were such a romantic.”

“I am whatever you wish, my dear lady.”

Mason groaned at this flattering gallantry.

“You see,” Del said, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You haven’t the slightest idea how to talk to a lady.”

“And what about you, Lord Delander?” Maggie asked. “What do
you
seek in a bride?”

At this Del came to a stumbling halt. “Only one thing.”
He paused dramatically. “She must be able to beat my mother at piquet.” He turned to Riley. “Of course, you play, don’t you?”

Riley shook her head.

“Bother that, but it’s fairly easy to learn. You’ll master it in no time when we are—”

“Del,” Mason interrupted. “How did you find your way in?”

“What? Give away the location of my secret tunnel so you can fill it in? Add vats of boiling oil to the attic windows?” His friend pointed at a large rent in his breeches and the scuffs in his usually immaculate boots. “But since you ask, I waged my assault on this prison of yours by climbing the garden wall.”

Mason smiled. “It looks like the wall won.”

Del laughed. “It did. Sneaky tactics, letting the mortar get into such a state of disrepair that the least bit of weight and it sends one toppling over in a hail of bricks.”

“You don’t look all that much worse for the experience,” Mason told him, accepting the cup of tea Cousin Felicity offered.

“I’ll mend,” he said woefully. “My only thanks is that your garden is in an equal state of snarl. Those thorny monsters out there someone once called roses broke my fall.” To prove his point, he plucked a wicked-looking thorn from his jacket.

“Lord Delander, are you sure you aren’t hurt?”

This tender inquiry, much to everyone’s surprise, came from Bea, who had relinquished her place at the window and now stood beside Del. When she realized all eyes were now on her, she frowned. “Well, that wall is an embarrassment. Lord Delander is lucky his throat wasn’t slit in that wretched tangle.”

“Huzzah!” Lord Delander said. “I have recruited Beatrice to my side.”

At this passionate declaration, Beatrice blushed.

Lord Ashlin took a second glance at his eldest niece.

Bea, blushing? What the devil was that all about?

“What side would that be?” Louisa inquired from her solitary post in the corner, sparing a sly glance at Bea. There was an undercurrent to her question Mason didn’t understand, but he made a note to himself to inquire after it later.

Del glanced over his shoulder at Louisa. “I would have thought by now your uncle would have informed all of you of my intentions.”

“What intentions?” Maggie asked, offering him the plate of cakes and spilling half of them in the process.

Del smiled at the girl and wiped the crumbs off his pants. “Those toward your cousin, of course.”

Riley’s gaze rolled heavenward.

“Who?” Louisa asked. “Cousin Felicity?”

Del laughed, as did an uneasy Cousin Felicity. “Louisa, you are a sharp one.” He turned to Riley. “My mother always said that one would come to a bad end—watch out for her.”

“How is your mother, my lord?” Louisa asked, in tones that sounded as if she hoped the report would be dire.

“Admirable,” he told her. “The old dragon is in alt today.” He grinned at Riley. “Especially since I told her of my intentions to wed your dearest Cousin Riley.”

Bea sprayed the tea she had been sipping across the room. “Marry
her
?”

Maggie bounded from the sofa and pounded her sister’s back. In between thumps, she glared at Riley.

“As soon as she says yes,” he told the wide-eyed sisters.

Riley turned to him and smiled. “My lord, your offer
is most kind, but I cannot possibly marry you.”

“You can’t?” the sisters asked in unison.

“Of course not,” she told them. “My first obligation is to you three. The Viscount’s offer is generous and kind, but overly optimistic—I would never marry a man I barely knew.”

“Then I shall just have to remedy that,” Del told her. “Tonight you shall accompany my mother and me to Mrs. Evans’s musicale. It promises to be a terribly dull affair, I grant you, especially since your cousin will be there, but it will afford you plenty of time to hear all about me from my mother.”

“Now that
does
sound dull,” Louisa muttered.

Mason ignored his niece, and told his friend, “I am afraid my cousin’s time is taken up with assisting the girls with the preparations for their Season.”

Del laughed. “You three? Out for the Season. Now, there’s a lark.” He started to laugh, but was the only one in the room who found any humor in the situation.

Riley turned to the Viscount and said in a chilling tone, “And why do you say that?”

“Well, there was the time Bea called the Duchess of Harleton a harl—” he began, then faltered when his statement was met with stone-faced resistance. He tried again. “Or when Maggie stumbled in front of Lord Jeremy’s prized hunter at the park and sent the skittish creature racing, and Lord Jeremy left on his a—”

Again his jest faded away as it fell on deaf ears. “Oh, bother,” he finally said, turning back to Beatrice. “Come there, Bea. You were more fun before you decided to grow up. Remember the larks we used to have? The time your uncle and I taught you to ride at Sanborn Abbey the summer we were home from school? You were just a bit of muslin, but every time you fell off you used that
phrase you’d learned from the footmen, and then—”

“Oh, you…you…big nodcock,” she stammered, then ran from the room, her cheeks flaming.

“Whatever did I say?” Del asked Maggie.

She rose as well. “Bea’s right. You’re a regular nodcock.” She went to follow her sister, though as she passed in front of Del, she trod heavily on his foot.

The Viscount yelped in pain, but Maggie didn’t even bother to spare him so much as an apologetic glance in her race toward the door.

For once, Mason doubted that accident could be blamed on his niece’s clumsiness.

With a great sigh of resignation, Louisa rose, too. “My regards to your mother,” she tossed over her shoulder as she sauntered past the puzzled Viscount.

“Oh dear,” Cousin Felicity said, frowning at the girls’ sudden departure.

Mason noted that the only one who didn’t look upset was Riley.

Perched on her chair, she stared in the direction Beatrice had fled, a calculated smile on her face.

R
iley had watched from the library window as Mason and Cousin Felicity strolled down the steps and out toward the waiting carriage.

She could see a young lady inside the elegant barouche, and wondered if this was the infamous Miss Pindar.

Oh, bother, if only she could…

Stopping herself short of making that impossible wish, Riley returned to the papers and work she’d brought to the library. Just because she’d left the theatre didn’t mean she could neglect her duties.

But in the warm comfort of the library, Riley soon found her eyes more often shut than open.

What would a little bit of a nap hurt? she thought, curling up on the thick carpet before the fireplace and drifting off into sleep without another thought—until she started to dream.

She was lost in the warrens beyond Covent Garden. She ran and ran until she could barely catch her breath, calling for Lord Ashlin, for anyone to help her…

Footsteps clattered from the murky shadows and she knew she had to keep moving—keep ahead of them…

As she turned a dark corner, Clyde and his filthy grasp
caught and pulled her into his loathsome embrace.

“Yer a dead one now,” he whispered into her ear.

Riley awoke with a start, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her eyes blinking at the unfamiliar surroundings. Where was she? Then she remembered what was real and what was a dream.

Though it hadn’t all been a dream. Clyde was only too real, and still out there, somewhere in the darkness.

She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the shivers that were not entirely from a chill. The candles had burned low, and she rose quickly, lighting more to illuminate the darkness and chase away her demons.

Even as she lit the last one she could find, she heard the sound of someone creeping up the stairs, the poorly maintained steps of Ashlin House groaning and complaining with the person’s every move.

She opened her mouth to cry out, but closed it just as fast. Her gaze flew over the room, looking for a place to hide, but there was little in the way of cubby holes to provide cover. But she did see one thing that gave her some measure of comfort—a heavy fire iron leaning against the grate.

She crept as silently as she could to her newfound weapon and snatched it up. Weighing it in her hand, she knew she’d only have one chance to stop her assailant.

And it was a chance she couldn’t waste.

Mason returned home just after one from Mrs. Evans’s musicale. The house was dark except for the library, where it appeared someone was still up.

Riley
.

She was hard at work on her future, and he’d spent the night hard at work on his…

Unlocking the door, he let himself in. He’d instructed
Belton not to wait up for him. The man had enough duties at his age, and sitting up all night didn’t have to be one of them. He was relieved to see the stalwart butler had taken his orders to heart and was nowhere in sight.

Now Mason would seek his own respite—exhausted and weary from the music and chatter that had filled the Evanses’ ballroom to an overflow.

A crushing success he’d heard someone call the evening—a crushing bore, he thought a more apt description.

One young lady after another had come forward to delight the audience with her musical skill, or lack thereof. Miss Pindar had been singled out for her performance on the pianoforte and had been asked to play a second time.

The girl had beamed at Mason the entire time, as if to say,
I would make the most perfect Countess.

And she was right, she would, but she wasn’t…

He stopped himself right there. He had generations of Ashlins, not even counting his nieces, to whom he owed a duty to see the family name restored to some level of respectability.

Freddie was probably even now chuckling over his brother’s moral dilemma.

Climbing the stairs toward his chamber, he stopped on the first floor; at his feet a sliver of light illuminated a narrow path to the library door.

It beckoned him, teased him to follow its shadowed course.

Go on, little brother,
he swore he could hear Freddie whisper.
She’s waiting for you
.

As tempting as that notion might be, he straightened his resolve and turned the corner to the next floor when the door burst open, and the light from within opened its arms to envelop and blind him.

“Oh, my lord,” he heard Riley say, “’tis you.”

Then, as his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw her and marveled at the ethereal sight before him. Silhouetted as she was, she looked like an ancient warrior queen in her simple muslin gown, her fierce weapon held aloft. Her breathing was erratic, her chest fluttering up and down, her breasts straining against the low neckline. Her hair, the color of wheat, resplendent in its shimmering warmth, was bound in a single loose braid falling nearly to her waist. At the hem of her gown, her bare toes peeked out.

Boadicea never looked so fierce or so beautiful. Nor had she, Mason knew, ever carried a fire iron.

“Do you know how to use that?” he asked.

She glanced up at her improvised weapon. “If I get the first strike, I do.”

Despite her warning, he stepped closer. “Remind me to have my arrival announced from here on out,” he teased, using one finger to push the iron down from her armed stance. He was so close he could almost feel her trembling.

He’d done this—frightened her with his untimely arrival. While he could tell himself it was his duty as a gentleman to offer his protection, he also found that being this close to her all he wanted to do was fold her into his arms and promise her that she’d never know another moment of fear.

A promise he’d seal with a burning kiss.

“My apologies,” she said, turning away hastily, as if she could read his errant thoughts. “I heard someone about, and I…well, I didn’t expect you back so early, and I thought…”

“I’m sorry to have startled you. Where is Hashim?” Mason had only gone out because Hashim had promised to stay by Riley’s side until his return.

As if on cue, the man rose up out of the shadows like a phoenix.

Mason nodded to him, marveling at his stealth. “Go to bed, sir. I shall guard our lady well,” he told him in Persian.

Hashim bowed and took to the stairs.

Riley leaned out the door, watching her servant’s departure. “What did you say to him?”

“That, Madame,” he said, “is between Hashim and me.”

“Harumph.” She blew out an impatient breath, and stomped back into the library, the fire iron still at her side.

Mason couldn’t help himself. He followed her, hypnotized by the saucy sway of her hips. He tried to reason with himself that he had given his word to Hashim that he would watch her, but he doubted that included eyeing her form.

Or the line of thoughts that came to mind with each seductive movement she made.

Did the woman know how she affected him? He hoped not.

Riley put the iron back into the holder next to the fireplace, then settled down cross-legged on the floor, where apparently she’d been working. Scattered pages, account books, and bills formed a semi-circle of litter around her.

Along with a pair of stockings and two red garters.

“How do you work in all that clutter?” Mason asked, his gaze lingering over her discarded undergarments. Why didn’t it surprise him the lady wore red satin garters?

“Quite well, thank you,” she snapped, gathering her unmentionables up and hiding them beneath her papers. “If you must know—I prefer to work in my corset and petticoat, but decided, for propriety’s sake, only to relinquish some lesser items. It won’t happen again.”

Mason hoped not. He could well imagine the sight that
would have greeted him if she’d donned, or rather un-donned, her usual coverings.

The idea of her in red garters was bad enough.

After a few moments, she took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m sorry, my lord. I’m quite out of sorts tonight.”

For good reason—she’d had a hell of a day and his untimely arrival had probably frightened her thoroughly.

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” he said.

She made an indifferent shrug, so he decided not to pursue the matter. At least, not right away. Besides, she was probably still angry over his earlier interview.

The interview where she’d claimed she’d never had a lover.

How could that be? The woman’s every move spoke of sensual promise. Her damned penchant for feathers, her rich tangle of hair, her luminous skin.

And those green eyes…every time he looked into them he found himself waxing between poetics and something all too Ashlin.

His gaze meandered back to the hint of red satin peeking out from beneath her papers.

Red satin garters? And she claimed not to have had any lovers?

“Uh-hum,” she coughed, her gaze flitting toward the door in an unabashed hint.

He decided not to take it.

Removing his jacket, he joined her on the floor, stretching his legs out in front of him, toes up against the grate where the coals glowed with a cozy warmth. “What is all this?”

“Revisions, schedules, blocking notes, orders for all the items we need for costumes and to finish the sets.” Her
tone bordered on curt, and with a not-so-subtle message—
leave
.

But he didn’t want to—leave, that is. After the senseless din of Mrs. Evans’s, the quiet disorder of Riley’s world called to him like a lone flute.

“I have quite a bit to do,” she said, hinting once more, this time with a glance and a pointed shrug toward the door.

He continued to ignore her. “And you’ve chosen to do it all at once?”

At this, she finally smiled. “You wretched man,” she said. “Here I am, trying to stay mad at you, but you won’t let me.” She reached over and playfully squeezed his arm.

After an evening of being treated to every artful wile Miss Pindar possessed, Riley’s guileless touch startled him with its innocence.

Yet at the same time, her touch ignited his imagination, already smoldering at the idea of red satin. Of what it would be like to gather her into his arms…his fingers pushing aside her skirt, while his hand moved upward until he touched that fiery satin, warm from her skin and beguiling to the senses…

“I suppose now I must apologize,” she said.

“Whatever for?” he asked, wondering if it was he who should be apologizing, and profusely, for his wayward delirium.

Maybe staying hadn’t been the best idea.

“For my behavior earlier, when you told me you had fired my Runner. I was ungrateful and acted most unbecomingly.”

“You are never unbecoming,” he told her, wishing for once the woman could look dowdy and plain, like the young misses who had flocked to his side this evening.

And not as if she’d just tumbled out of bed.

“I think you look quite tolerable,” he joked.

She snorted at his compliment. “I can see you are working on your charm. And here I thought I would have to give you lessons. Did this hidden talent serve you well this evening? Are you betrothed?” she teased back.

Mason shuddered. “I think not.”

She glanced away, and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Finally she asked, “Was Miss Pindar there?”

“I don’t recall,” he lied. For some reason he didn’t like discussing his suit for Miss Pindar’s hand with Riley.

She smiled. “Your cousin has high hopes you will find favor with the young lady. According to Cousin Felicity, Miss Pindar is quite plump in the pockets.”

“Yes, she is that,” Mason said. What he didn’t add was that he found the lady cloying and pretentious, and as Bea had said, a ninny-hammer.

Riley continued sorting through her papers. “Was she in the carriage that picked you up?”

Mason glanced over at her. Riley had watched him leave?

“No, that was Lord Chilton’s daughter.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Lord Chilton? I keep hearing his name—who is he?”

“Cousin Felicity’s beau.”

Riley’s mouth fell open. “Cousin Felicity has a beau?”

“Yes,” he said. “She and Lord Chilton have been seeing each other for nearly twenty years.”

“Twenty years? Oh, you jest,” she said, waving her hand at him again, but this time not touching him.

Mason shook his head. “On the subject of Cousin Felicity’s marital prospects, I never jest. Freddie teased her quite mercilessly about the situation. Offering monthly to call Chilton out if the old boy didn’t marry her posthaste.
Ask her about him and she has a thousand excuses for why they are still as yet unattached.” He paused. “The truth is, I think she finds the entire arrangement embarrassing.”

“Then why hasn’t he married her?”

Mason shrugged. “He’s a Chilton. They are terrible about making up their minds. The story is that it took him twenty years to propose to his first wife, so the joke is that Cousin Felicity can’t be that much further away from getting her trip to the parson.”

“The poor dear,” Riley said. “How humiliating. There must be some way to get Lord Chilton to propose.”

“If you can do that, you’d more than repay your debt to the family. I think Lord Chilton holds off so he doesn’t have to pay her modiste bill.”

Now Riley laughed. “She does love her clothes.”

“Yes, she does,” he agreed. “And I have the bills to prove it.”

They both laughed at this.

“I see you’ve changed some other habits as well,” she said, nodding at his evening clothes. “You’ve lost some of your
predictable
severity.”

He didn’t know if he liked being described as predictable. “One of Freddie’s that I had reworked,” he said, plucking at the sleeve. “My brother left closets of suits that had never been worn. I saw no point in having new ones made. Much to the horror of his tailor, I had these recut to fit me.”

“We do that in the theatre all the time. I think I’ve worn this gown in nine different productions. The poor fabric is getting terribly thin just from all the sewing.” Riley shrugged. “I know it isn’t fashionable, but I have a terrible time throwing anything out. That, and we never seem to have enough money to buy new costumes.”