Chapter 1
“WHAT you need to do now, Wanstead,” Mr. John Cannadine said, slouching inelegantly in a deep chair beside the crackling fire, “is take a wife.”
Viscount Luttrell, who was leaning against the mantel, warming his legs against the fire, swirled the brandy in his glass and chuckled. “I have ever noted,” he said, “that those with leg shackles want company. What you need to do, Wanstead, is acquire skill in dodging scheming chits and matchmaking mamas—for which I might offer my humble services. They are all about you like bees around a July flower bed.”
“What you need to do, Wanstead,” Mr. Ralph Milchip said—he was at the sideboard, pouring himself another glass of brandy, “is tell them all that you mean to go back to Montreal in the spring. And after you get there, back into the wilderness—by canoe. That will put the wind up them in a hurry.”
Viscount Luttrell took a sip of his liquor. “Not so, old chap,” he said. “Wanstead’s connections with Canada and the wilderness and canoes and mosquitoes and fur-trapping are at least half his lure to the fair sex, had you not noticed? They sense a savage just beneath the veneer of his respectability and they find him irresistible. I would wager that there are chits lying awake in their beds at this very moment dreaming of being rowed upriver by our semiconscious friend here.”
But the semiconscious friend was not completely descended into inebriation or sleep or whatever it was that held him stretched out in the chair opposite Mr. Cannadine’s, his arms draped limply along its arms, his empty glass on the floor beside him, his eyes closed. The Earl of Wanstead chuckled.
“It would almost be worth marrying one of them and taking her over just to see her reaction when confronted with the reality of one of those canoes, not to mention one of those journeys,” he said. He yawned. “Why do I need a wife, John? Convince me.”
After walking back to his rented rooms in London with his friends following the third ball they had attended in two weeks, and after chatting and drinking with them for an hour or more, he was finding the warmth of the fire—as well, perhaps, as the inner warmth of the brandy he had drunk—quite lulling. His married friend’s answer was quite predictable, of course. He began to check off points on his fingers.
“One,” he said, “you have inherited the title and property and will need a hostess for the entertaining you will be expected to do. Two, for the same reasons you will need an heir, or preferably two or more. Three, you are—how old?” He looked up, frowning.
“One-and-thirty,” his lordship said obligingly.
“You are one-and-thirty. Of an age when a man begins to think of his mortality and the need to perpetuate his line. Four, you were wealthy even before inheriting but now you are as rich as Croesus. An heir is clearly needed. Five, I have it on the best authority—Ralph and Harry here—that you have a strong aversion to brothels and green rooms and such, but you cannot tell me that you also have an aversion to women. Six—”
“Exactly how many points are there to be, old chap?” the viscount asked, strolling away from the heat of the fire and plopping himself down in a chair not far distant. “As many as you have fingers? Or will you start all over again once you run out?”
“You will be terrifying poor Wanstead, John,” Mr. Milchip said, leaning back against the sideboard. “I knowmyknees are beginning to knock together.”
“Andsix,” John Cannadine said, undaunted, “there is a certain satisfaction in having a mate, Wanstead, a woman who understands one and devotes all her energies to one’s comfort.”
“Mrs. Cannadine will understand this late night, then?” the viscount asked, winking across the room at Ralph Milchip. “And forgive it?”
“Assuredly she will,” John Cannadine said without hesitation. “She is in a delicate way again, you know, and wished to retire early. She didnotalso wish to drag me away from my friends—and she knows perfectly well I amwithmy friends. She knows she can trust me.”
“Bravo, John,” the earl said, his eyes still closed. “The trouble is, one grows cynical with age. Ten years ago there was not a young lady with an ounce of worldly experience who would afford me a second glance. Their mamas—and papas—were like icebergs around me. This year, despite the fortune I have amassed, if I had returned from Canada as plain Gerard Percy, partner in a fur-trading company, do you think I would have received a single invitation to atonparty? Or been the recipient of one melting glance from a delicately reared female? Or of one gracious smile from her mama? But I am the Earl of Wanstead, owner of Thornwood Hall in Wiltshire, a large and prosperous estate. As such, I am suddenly eligible.”
“Veryeligible,” Ralph Milchip echoed. “But who would have thought ten years and more ago, Gerard, that you would ever inherit? Wanstead had his heir and a second son, both robust enough by all accounts. But both dead within ten years of his own death.” He shook his head.
“Which only proves my point about an heir or four,” John Cannadine said. “You danced twice tonight with Lizzie Gaynor, Wanstead. She had Miffling—thedukeof, I would have you know—dangling after her in the spring, but rumor had it that she did not like him. Perhaps it was his bald head or his paunch or his gout that she objected to or the fact that he is sixty if he is a day. Some girls are fussy about such things.” He paused to chuckle again. “She clearly likesyou.”
“She is remarkably pretty,” the earl said. “So is her younger sister.”
“A baron’s daughter,” Mr. Cannadine said. “Excellent breeding and a sizable dowry, or so Laura tells me. You could hardly do better, Gerard.”
“I wonder,” the earl said, reaching over the side of his chair only to discover that his glass was empty. He returned it to its place on the floor—he really did not need more to drink. “I wonder if she would have liked me, John, if she had met me eighteen months ago as Mr. Percy, wealthy trader.”
His friend tutted. “You are too sensitive by half,” he said. “The point is she would not even havemetyou.”
“There is nothing as cozy as a coal fire on a November evening,” Viscount Luttrell said. He had set down his glass beside his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “The trouble is, one hates the thought of having to step out into the street again. Ugh!” He shivered at the very thought. “Did you not tell me that the late earl had a sister, still living at Thornwood, Gerard?”
“Margaret?” he said. “Yes.”
“And how old is she, pray?” the viscount asked. “I have never seen her in town.”
The earl thought. “She was still a child when I left there twelve years ago at the age of nineteen,” he said. “She must be twenty or so now.”
“Well, there you are,” the viscount said. “You can marry Lady Margaret, Gerard, and keep everything in the family.”
“My own first cousin?” The earl frowned. “Sight unseen, Harry? She might well be an antidote. Though she was a pretty enough child, I must admit—all blond hair and big eyes. Followed me around like a little puppy.”
“Perfect,” the viscount said. “We have found Wanstead a bride, fellows. Now we can retire to our beds happy men. Except that we have to go out into the cold in order to find those beds.”
