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

me…”
    The rest of this speech was lost as her tears choked off her ability to make coherent speech. Lord Marcham took out his handkerchief and impatiently thrust it at his fiancée.
    “You don’t wish to marry me, do you?” he demanded.
    She shook her head, dabbing her eyes.
    “No…nor I you. I don’t wish to offend you, my lady, but I don’t think we’d suit.”
    “No,” she whispered, forlornly staring out at the Silverwoods’ garden, shrouded in darkness but for the lanterns that were strung prettily across the paths.
    “Was it your parents who spread this abroad?”
    She nodded.
    “But why me?” he asked. “There are any number of eligible men in this county who would make you a much more suitable husband than me. I wouldn’t let any daughter of mine marry a man like me, Earldom or no.”
    “You are of noble birth and good family. You are also extremely rich. Father’s estate is mortgaged to the hilt. We are not as well off as we appear.”
    “I see,” replied Lord Marcham. “A woman who wants my money to save the family estate. Now where have I heard that before?”
    She blinked at him. “My lord?”
    “Never mind. You will begin this evening. You will tell everyone that our engagement is at an end,” replied Lord Marcham, pacing back and forth across the terrace. “You may tell them that I played fast and loose with your affections if you wish it. Make me the cause, I care not. All I want is that this engagement between us is at an end.”
    “I cannot, my lord. Please don’t ask it of me,” she cried, grasping his arm.
    “You can and you will.”
    “But you don’t know Mama. She has set her heart on seeing us wed,” said Lady Emily. “She will be so terribly displeased.”
    “Bullies you, does she? I thought as much,” said his lordship grimly.
    The lady sniffed into the handkerchief. “She will be so very angry with me.”
    Lord Marcham bit back the retort that sprang to his lips which went something along the lines of recommending that she developed a backbone. But he didn’t say it and controlled his temper with an effort. In another man, her tears might have provoked sympathy or the desire to comfort the fragile young woman in his arms. But his lordship was unmoved, irritated even, and he wondered how he had ever believed that this woman would make him a suitable wife.
    “What are we to do?” she asked mournfully.
    He ran a hand through his hair. “I am not going to marry you, my lady.”
    “Oh…I know that, my lord. And I don’t want to marry you either.”
    “Do you have any other relatives?” he asked. “An aunt perhaps? Someone who will stand up to your mother?”
    “My Aunt Croft is just as frightened of Mama as I am. But my grandmother is every bit as forthright as Mama. She’s her mother, you know, and lives in Harrogate.”
    “Capital,” replied his lordship. “Write to your grandmother and ask her if you may stay with her.”
    Lady Emily swallowed hard. “I haven’t seen her since I was fifteen.”
    “Even better. Write and tell her how you miss her or some such thing and wangle an invitation to visit.”
    “But Mama will never agree to it.”
    “Your Mama will never know about it,” said the earl. “I will escort you there myself.”
    “Oh, would you?” she breathed. “Dear Lord Marcham, you have been so excessively kind to me.”
    “No, I haven’t,” he replied bluntly. “I am being kind to myself, as always.”
    “Sir?” she asked, a blank expression in her face.
    “Never mind. What you need, my girl, is a husband.”
    “But I thought you just said―?”
    “Not me ,” he said impatiently, rolling his eyes. “You need to escape from the controlling influence of your mother.”
    “Oh, yes,” cried Lady Emily, clapping her hands together.
    “You need to be mistress of your own establishment and to do that you need a husband.”
    A silence greeted this remark. “But, sir…who?”
    “I don’t know…Is there no-one for whom you