How to Marry a Highlander by Katharine Ashe

Author:Katharine Ashe [Ashe, Katharine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Regency, Historical Romance, Fiction
ISBN: 9780062273932
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-07-29T21:00:00+00:00

Teresa ferried her new friends from London drawing room to drawing room, using her every connection (including silly Aunt Hortensia) to put them in the way of gentlemen and mothers of eligible bachelors. Occasionally gratifying but more often dispiriting, these adventures were followed by visits to the bookshop and the confectioner’s for ices to cheer everybody up.

“Ye canna blame yerself, Teresa,” Una said. “’Tis the way o’ the world. No gentleman wants a leddy without a fine marriage portion lest she be a beauty.”

“I beg to disagree, my lady,” Tobias said. “Some gentlemen value a fine temperament and intelligence in a bride over other considerations.”

“Gentlemen like you, Toby,” Teresa said. “Won’t you invite some of your new friends from the War Office to join us on our next outing?”

“Perhaps we should ask Lady Una if she would like that,” he said.

“I should, thank ye.” She smiled.

Optimistic plans aside, Teresa’s distress over her failure to find suitable husbands for the earl’s sisters grew daily. Surprisingly, she found some relief from that distress in the regular company of the earl himself. He escorted them to take in the sculptures at the museum and on another day to the Tower of London. He hired a box at the theater, and a drive or ride with him and one or two of his sisters in the park during the quiet morning hours became habitual.

She was, however, not once alone in his company and he did not show any desire to see her alone. She longed to renew the embrace he had given her after Lady B’s ball and had every confidence that he wished quite the opposite. He could not have escaped that moment more swiftly, leaving her lips tingling and fantasies flying.

At the end of the wager’s second sennight, during which the Eads ladies met a total of three new gentlemen—a pair of octogenarians at the museum and Mr. Smythe, Tobias’s new friend from the War Office—she managed to find Diantha at home one afternoon both awake and alert.

“Please, Di, will you finally tell me about Lord Eads?”

“He has done crimes,” her friend said firmly.

“He wouldn’t be the only one in this room,” her husband muttered from behind his news journal. Wyn lowered the paper to cast his wife a slanted look. Diantha rolled her eyes at him.

“Crimes?” Teresa said. “As in acts that a criminal commits?”

Diantha nodded ominously.

Teresa felt shaky. This she had not expected. “When?”

“Years ago,” Wyn supplied.

“T, I simply cannot like this program,” Diantha repeated for the hundredth time in the fortnight. “Why can’t you fix your interest on a gentleman with a less dangerous past? There are plenty to be found about town.”

“Come now, my dear,” her husband said gently. “A man should always be given a second chance, shouldn’t he?”

They shared a private, expressive look that left Teresa feeling peculiarly achy.

“Eads is fortunate to have won your admiration, Teresa,” Wyn said. “I only hope he is worthy of it.”

“Would you like it if we invited him and his sisters to dinner, T?” Diantha said hesitantly.

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