“Did he see your dueling pistols, Your Grace?” Jones sounded nervous.
“Hard to miss them.”
“You didn’t happen to be pointing one or both of them at him, did you?” Jones had grown pale. He had reason to worry, Adam silently acknowledged with a well-hidden smile. Adam had been known to pull his pistols without warning. It added nicely to the fear he’d taken great pains to engender in those for whom he did not care.
“Of course not,” Adam said. “I was simply cleaning them in his presence. Several times a day for the entire week he was here.”
“No wonder he ran off.”
“An idiotanda coward,” Adam amended.
“Not what one would wish for in an heir,” Jones said.
“So what am I to do?”
“I would not presume to advise you, Your Grace.”
“Presume,” Adam ordered. “Or I shall not presume to pay your wages.”
Jones cleared his throat. “There, really, is only one way to prevent Mr. Hewitt from inheriting the title and lands.”
“Yes, but I cannot possibly live forever, Jones,” Adam drawled. “I am surprised you believe the rumors about my having sold my soul to the devil.”
“I believe the rumors are that youarethe devil.” Jones produced a rare smile.
Adam ignored the moment of wit. “I suppose I will have to torch the old pile of stones, after all.”
“There is another option, Your Grace.”
“Spit it out. I haven’t the patience to listen to you blather.”
“No, Your Grace. I mean, yes, Your Grace. That is—”
“Jones.”
Adam’s beanpole of a solicitor cleared his throat nervously. “You could marry, Your Grace,” Jones said on a strangled whisper.
“Have you lost your blasted, bloody mind!”
Jones made some kind of whimpering noise. If the man weren’t a genius with numbers and matters of law, Adam would have dismissed him ten years earlier. He was tempted to at that moment.
“What makes you think I would ever—ever—entertain the idea of a wife?”
“For an heir, Your Grace,” Jones choked out. “To cut Mr. Hewitt out of the succession.”
“It seems you are as much of an idiot as Mr. Hewitt. What lady would want to tie herself to me?”
“It could mean a great deal of money for her family,” Jones suggested, his tone tentative.
“Buy her, you mean?” Adam’s chillingly calm voice set Jones to trembling once more.
A muffled “mm-hmm” sounded from Jones’s throat.
“Quit shaking,” Adam snapped. “I’m not going to shoot you this time.”
“I am relieved to hear that.” But not, apparently, relieved enough to prevent the quaver in his voice.
“So,” Adam said, a hint of sarcasm in his otherwise neutral tone, “I am to offer some impoverished gentleman a small fortune in exchange for his obviously desperate daughter. How long would it take, Jones, do you think, for her to change her mind? Within an hour of arriving, or is thirty minutes a better guess?”
