The Marriage Wager by Jane Ashford

dealing with the old man’s rules and lectures. Together, they would rout him! Robin grinned in anticipation. He would show him that his son was not a child, but a grown man, who must be treated accordingly.
    “You find something amusing in that?” demanded his father, not at all pleased by the exposure of his ignorance.
    “No, Father,” replied Robin dutifully. There was no need to wrangle now. He would save his energy until Emma was on the scene. And then they would see something! Suppressing another grin, Robin rose and bid his father good night.

Four
    At nine o’clock the next morning, Colin Wareham once again knocked on the door of Arabella Tarrant’s small house in an unfashionable corner of London. The baron was immaculately turned out in sleek buff pantaloons and a long-tailed coat of olive green superfine. His tall Hessian boots gleamed like mirrors, and his black hair was brushed into a perfect Brutus. When a maidservant opened the door and ushered him in, he walked calmly to the drawing room and positioned himself beside the fireplace, his handsome face utterly composed.
    Colin had spent a good part of the night thinking over the events that had swept through his life in the last few days. Alone, in the calm serenity of his own library, he had examined his motives and behavior in light of the very sensible question Emma had asked him. And he was now satisfied that he understood why he was contemplating a match that almost every person of his acquaintance saw as insane.
    He could understand that it might appear, from the outside, to be an ill-considered, impulsive mistake. But that was not the case at all. It had become clear to him in the early hours of the morning that instinct—that sudden comprehensive knowledge all good military commanders learned to trust—had led him to this decision. He hadn’t seen it himself at first. He had been diverted by… irrelevancies. But fulfilling his duty by wedding a woman like Emma was exactly the ticket.
    She had asked him for the reasons he wished to marry her, and he would give them to her. He had prepared very carefully for this meeting, and he was determined that it would go exactly as he had planned. He would not succumb to emotion; he would not let Emma’s vibrant beauty divert him. He would make such a compelling case that she had to agree.
    It was all very simple, he told himself as he waited for her to appear. At a very young age, Emma had been overcome by a false infatuation and drawn into a disastrous match. She feared marriage as a trap, even though the situation was completely different now. He must appeal to her formidable intellect and her scrupulous principles before she would allow herself to give in.
    Arabella Tarrant entered the room. “She does not wish to come down,” she told him. “She says you have nothing further to discuss.”
    A spark of annoyance ignited in Colin. Ruthlessly, he suppressed it. “Please inform Lady Tarrant that that is not the case,” he said civilly.
    “I don’t think—”
    “Please,” he repeated in a tone that brooked no argument.
    Looking doubtful, Arabella went out.
    He was in complete control here, Colin told himself. There would be no outbursts, no unfortunate slips that would cause her to bolt. With studied casualness, he laid his arm along the mantelpiece, forcing his fingers to relax. He took a deep breath.
    A few moments later, Arabella reappeared. “She won’t come down,” she informed him uneasily. “She said…”
    “Yes?” prompted Colin when she fell silent.
    “Er…”
    “What the dev—that is, please tell me what she said.”
    “She said if you did not go, she would send Ferik to throw you out,” blurted Arabella on one long breath.
    “Did she indeed?” Dispassionately, Colin noted that his hand had balled into a fist. He consciously relaxed it again. “Tell her,” he said, his voice clipped, “that I rather think I could hold my own with Ferik. But in any case, should he injure