An Enchanted Affair by Barbara Metzger

Author:Barbara Metzger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Untreed Reads Publishing
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

You mean you’re going to let her marry this wastrel?” Findley squawked, as if the hand of doom were closing around his throat.

St. Sevrin’s patience was seconds away from doing just that, but it was the magistrate who answered: “I’m not going to let her do anything. She’s already done it.”

“But, but he’s a ne’er-do-well, just marrying her for the money. He’ll gamble it all away in a sennight and leave her destitute.”

“I doubt even St. Sevrin could go through Neville’s fortune in a sennight.” Pemberton glanced at the papers again. “According to this, Her Grace will have a handsome jointure of her own that the duke can’t touch.”

Findley threw his hands in the air. “Fine, then she’ll waste it herself. Most likely give it all to beggars and orphans, the way she does with whatever money I give her. Can’t even trust her with an allowance, like my Esmé.”

“Tut, tut,” the vicar put in. “There’s nothing wrong with charity, Sir Alfred.”

Pemberton agreed. “She might even manage to do some good with her fortune, Findley, amazing as it might seem to you.”

“Then let her give your blunt away!” Findley yelled, tripping over his own greed. Squire coughed. That was all.

“Well, she don’t know what she’s getting into, then. Her aunt and I kept her insulated from the evils”—a sidelong sneer in the duke’s direction—“of men such as St. Sevrin. Wild to a fault, profligate with money they never earn, careless of their own lives or others’, and as immoral as a band of baboons.”

“Actually, baboons have close-knit families,” Lisanne began, to be shushed by St. Sevrin with a laugh.

“I’ve heard better defenses from a pickpocket caught red-handed.”

Squire wasn’t laughing. “I regret that Sir Alfred does have a point, my dear. I’ve never seen you at the assemblies or tea parties in the neighborhood. You’ve had no London come-out, no exposure whatsoever to young men that I know of.” He ignored Nigel completely. “Are you certain you know what you are doing, marrying a man with His Grace’s lamentable reputation?”

Lisanne looked at her new husband, the lines on his face, the puffiness near his eyes, the brandy glass never far from his hand. She also saw the strong jaw and straight nose. More important, she saw the damp spot near his knee where he’d let Becka rest her drooling chin while he scratched her ears.

“Major Lord Shearingham was a hero,” she said. “General Wellesley trusted him with his plans and his platoons. I can trust the Duke of St. Sevrin no less.”

Kelly, from the back of the room, called out, “Here, here.”

Sloane lifted her hand to his lips and spoke for her ears only: “Thank you, Duchess. I shall do my damnedest to live up to your confidence.”

Squire wasn’t quite satisfied that Lisanne knew what she was in for, taking on a here-and-thereian. “Some women get the deuced romantical notion that a reformed rake makes the best husband. Most likely from that drivel they read. I say the tiger doesn’t change its stripes until it’s a fur rug.

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