A fiery redhead would be good, he thought. With some meat on her bones and a few curves in the right places. A real woman, down to earth, practical. Someone who could hold her own.
Women like that did not exist outside his overheated imagination, he knew.
So what was he to do?
He would have to ask Hetty. Offer her a small fortune to pretend to be his wife for a fortnight only. He grimaced.
Edmund arrived home and threw his hat and stick at Jenkins, who seemed tense.
"There's a lady waiting in the drawing room," Jenkins said. "In addition to a ... "
Edmund interrupted. "A lady? What lady?"
Jenkins gestured at the drawing room. "See for yourself, my lord."
Edmund stepped across the threshold and stopped.
He blinked.
A red-haired beauty lay asleep on the sofa.
A luscious creature with the most gorgeous red hair he'd ever seen. The midday sun streamed through the window, setting her hair aflame.
His jaw must have dropped slightly.
Athena. No, t'other one. Aphroditto. Whatever.
The woman of his dreams.
Just like that. Materialised.
CHAPTER THREE
Earlier.
"Hanover Square Eleven."Ellen frowned at the slip of paper in her hand and glanced down at Noni. He'd slept for most of the journey and now seemed weepy, hungry, and out of sorts, as children tended to be when they’d travelled too long. She'd fed him an apple, a slice of bread, and a bit of cheese, and let him finish the milk in the flask she'd brought.
The child hadn't spoken a word during the entire journey. He'd clung to her, though, with a mute question in his beautiful dark eyes. Ellen's heart clenched with compassion. The child must be frightened and confused, being dragged from one place to another. Who knew where he'd come from and what he'd been through before being unceremoniously dumped on the steps of Miss Hilversham's seminary. She ran her other hand through his thick, black hair. She wondered what had happened to his mother. He was probably an orphan, poor child. But sweet as the boy was, he wasn't really her problem. The sooner she left him in the hands of his guardian, the better.
Ellen would still have time to visit her family before catching the coach back to Bath. She hadn't seen them for over a year. Her stepsiblings, Jimmy and Melly, were nearly five. Their mother Jenny had given birth to another baby two months ago. She would like to greet the newest addition to the family before returning to Bath. Then there was the eldest, Drake, who was a son of her stepfather, Jacob Robinson's previous marriage. Ellen frowned. Jenny had written about him in her letter, greatly worried, as it seemed he'd abandoned his studies and fallen in with an unsavoury group of men whose primary pastime was gambling and drinking. It was worrying indeed.
But first: Lord Twinsbury of Hanover Square Eleven. She clamped the paper between her lips, and keeping hold of the child's hand, his trunk in her other hand, she climbed the stairs to an intimidating white terraced townhouse, with an iron-railed fence and a porticoed entrance with a gleaming blue lacquered door. There was no doubt: Noni's guardian must be quite plump in the pockets if he could afford a house like this.
Ellen's hand hesitated for a moment at the brass knocker. Then she rapped sharply three times.
The door opened almost immediately, and an elderly butler peered at her suspiciously.
She still had the paper between her lips. Ellen dropped the trunk and removed the paper from her mouth. "Is this Lord Twiksbury's residence?"
The butler's eyes wandered down her wrinkled and mud-spattered dress, spotted the child hiding behind her and raised an eyebrow. "Tewkbury is our name."
Goodness, why must butlers always be so lofty? Ellen had no great love for the aristocracy, especially when they dropped off their little charges like bundles of rags in front of the school and had arrogant butlers as gatekeepers who patronised their visitors.
She lifted her nose, narrowing her eyes to slits. "Then tell his LordshipTewkburythat Miss Ellen Robinson from the Seminary of Young Ladies in Bath is here to deliver his ward." She pushed Noni forward.
The second eyebrow rose and disappeared into the man's receding hairline.
"I wasn't aware his lordship had a ward."
