Page 7

With considerable effort, Fletcher wrestled his mirth under control. The lovely English rose presently threatening to skewer him obviously didn’t appreciate his laughing at her expense.

Damn, but she was an unexpected, refreshing delight.

When he’d ventured into the gardens two hours ago to tackle some of the unmanageable shrubberies and, more on point, to work off some of the frustration his mother’s endless meddling had caused, his manservant and friend, Leith MacKettrick, had raised his skeptical, grizzled coppery brows.

“Ye dinna mean to tend the grounds yerself, Fletcher?” Leith had asked with a dubious wrinkling of his forehead and downward slant of his mouth.

“Nae, only until ye see to hirin’ the staff.” Fletcher slapped Leith on his broad shoulder. “Ye ken, I prefer the outdoors and bein’ active. Two months of livin’ like a dandified London sot has me as fidgety as a panther in a too-small cage.”

At this very moment, Leith was putting notices at the various agencies and registrar offices for a cook, two maids of all work, a footman-butler, and a groundskeeper. As Fletcher meant to leave London soon, there wasn’t a need to fully staff the house. Those few servants would suffice just fine until he departed.

He congratulated himself on his good fortune that this property had just become available and that it was a goodly distance from his mother’s residence. It was also fortunate that he wasn’t a man who minded getting his hands dirty. He and Leith had spent the early morning hours removing Holland cloths and rearranging furniture to his satisfaction.

A throaty contralto had originally alerted him to his unexpected visitor.

His first sight of this spitfire had been a delightfully turned ankle and trim, pale blue stocking-clad calf swinging over the wall. Naturally, as any tenant worth his salt would do, he’d watched the brazen intruder with avid attention. That well-shaped leg had turned into an even lovelier plump bottom. When she’d wriggled back and forth as she shimmied onto the top stair, his groin had pulled with carnal male appreciation.

At present, color flagging her high cheekbones, her amber-brown eyes flashing gold sparks, and her gorgeous gold-and-bronze-threaded sable hair tumbling around her shoulders and down her back, she looked like a startled garden nymph caught popping uninvited into his grounds.

He glanced downward, half-expecting to find bare feet peeking from beneath the hem of her gown.

Nae, pink toes.

Just sensible black half boots he’d seen earlier as she gracefully scaled the wall with an efficiency that suggested she’d done so many times before.

A most intriguing and peculiarly welcome discovery.

From beneath half-closed eyelids, Fletcher took in her gown and the lusciously rounded curves that the quality fabric gave a tantalizing hint of. Garden nymphs didn’t wear expensive marine-colored gowns either.

Her fierce, determined expression as she wielded the tiny blade caused a surge of admiration. Most Englishwomen would’ve had a fit of histrionics or the vapors upon being so startled. At least, most of the ones he was acquainted with would’ve done. None would’ve dared exit a house without gloves and a bonnet either, as this spitfire had.

Instead, this trespassing little minx with her unbound hair acted as if he were the intruder.

Fletcher had a fairly good notion of who she was—his neighbor, the Duke of Sheffield’s niece by marriage, Rayne Wellbrook. He’d seen her at numerous ton events since he’d arrived in London last April, although they’d never been formally introduced.

In general, he kept well clear of unmarried English misses, particularly innocent debutantes. They all had one thing on their minds. Marriage. No, make that two things—marriage and marrying well, which meant snaring a coveted title.

Fletcher wasn’t opposed to marriage per se—just marriage to a pampered and cossetted Englishwoman. As he was half-English himself, the hypocrisy of his aversion didn’t escape him.

Hopefully, he’d wrap up his business dealings soon and could return to Dumfries in short order. His mother strenuously objected, of course, preferring he remain in London at her beck and call.

So she can bleed more funds from me.

Rather insincere for a woman who had abandoned her husband and children to return to her native England and take up with her equally discontented and spoiled cohorts.

Mother justified her desertion by vowing her gently-bred constitution was too delicate and the Scots too uncivilized for her to remain in Scotland any longer.

Greg, four years Fletcher’s junior, had cried for weeks. Then one day, he simply stopped grieving, and the cheerful little boy he’d been had disappeared as well. Now, at nearly six-and-twenty, he seldom smiled, let alone laughed. He’d become jaded, cold, and somber.

Fletcher’s parents’ union had been an arranged marriage of convenience. After a dozen years of constant complaining, Mother had flown the nest. She’d provided the heir and spare, and her duty was complete. Or so she declared with cold disdain that day she’d climbed into the coach and hadn’t looked back.

That had been eighteen years ago.

In point of fact, Father hadn’t been positive that Florence was his daughter, but Mother had left the almost one-year-old infant behind, nonetheless. At one-and-thirty, Fletcher’s mother had been determined to enjoy the lifestyle her status afforded her and indulge in all the things she had missed by marrying straight out of the schoolroom, a man two-and-twenty years her senior.

Now nearing fifty and still quite beautiful, Rosalind, Duchess of Kincade, was known far and wide for her flamboyant lifestyle, her many, many younger lovers, her penchant for gambling and drinking champagne, and her ridiculous obsession with shoes and bonnets.

The last milliner's bill had Fletcher gnashing his teeth.