The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) by Norma Darcy

that you hadn’t noticed.”
    “I’m not pretending anything of the sort,” replied the earl smiling. “I merely point out that you seem unduly hypnotised by her…er…natural assets.”
    “And you’re not?” demanded Mr. Edridge.
    “ I am able to remember her name at any rate,” countered Lord Marcham with a smile.
    “Which is?”
    “Miss Annabel Crosbie.”
    “Lord…they’re almost worth getting hitched for.”
    “Almost,” agreed the earl, “but not quite.”
    “So speaks the rake.”
    His lordship smiled. “I retired from that game quite some time ago. Didn’t you know?”
    “Well that’s what they say to be sure. But no-one believes it. Julius told me and I could scarcely stop laughing.”
    “It’s true,” the earl protested.
    “Have you tired of women? The thrill of the chase? The chance of a kiss behind a husband’s back? Don’t you miss the excitement?”
    “Not in the least,” replied his lordship, “and I don’t miss being thrown naked out of a lady’s bedchamber when her philandering husband returns unexpectedly to town either. That I can quite happily live without.”
    Mr. Edridge grinned. “I heard about that.”
    Lord Marcham sighed as if in pain. “ Everyone heard about it. I was climbing out of a bedroom window in nothing but my breeches. I don’t think there was a soul in London who did not hear about it.”
    “Were you foxed?”
    “Extremely.”
    Thomas laughed. “Poor March. And was she worth it?”
    His lordship shrugged. “It was enjoyable enough while it lasted.”
    “So where’s the problem?”
    “There is no problem.”
    “Then why have you announced your retirement?”
    “Because it’s no longer enough…not any more. Not for me, anyway.” Marcham looked away. Why had he given it up? Because he was bored. Because a pretty face, despite what Miss Blakelow might think, was agreeable enough, but when a woman could not hold a conversation with him, or give as good as she got, or make him laugh, his ardour rapidly cooled. He had begun to question his life; his days filled with the business of running his estates and his evenings with no more taxing a subject on his mind than which coat to wear to dinner. Something was missing. He was lonely.
    “But you cannot expect me to believe that you have vowed to a life of celibacy ?” said Mr. Edridge.
    The earl looked at his friend as if he had developed a second head. “Now, Tom, you are stretching the realms of possibility too far.”
    His friend grinned. “Then how?”
    “Marriage, dear boy. I am of a mind to get myself a biddable wife who will see to my every whim.”
    Mr. Edridge looked taken aback. “Marriage? But I thought you just said you didn’t want to be engaged?”
    “Tom, you numbskull, I said I don’t wish to be engaged to Lady Emily. It is not the fact that I am engaged, but the woman to whom I am affianced and the manner in which it came about that irks me.”
    “Yes, but…marriage? You?”
    Lord Marcham sipped his champagne. “One must provide an heir Tom, and I only know one way of doing that.”
    “But you’ll be bored―I’ll lay you odds that you tire of matrimony within a month.”
    “Possibly, but I plan to take extreme care in my choice.”
    “Lord,” breathed Mr. Edridge.
    The earl looked amused. “I was thinking of Jane Bridlington. What say you to her?”
    Mr. Edridge blinked at him and his eyes sought the trim form of Miss Bridlington. “Well, she’s pretty enough I suppose and if you like her, March…but don’t you find her a trifle…dull? How you could prefer her to Lady Emily, I don’t know.”
    Lord Marcham’s amusement grew at his friend’s studied air of indifference. “I thought you were fond of her.”
    Mr. Edridge shrugged nonchalantly as his eyes settled on the young lady in question. “I am fond of her. We enjoyed a little flirtation…of a sort. She grew clingy though. Stuck to me like a leech. Be careful there, March, the parents will have you up