Lady at Last by Annabelle Anders

Author:Annabelle Anders
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Annabelle Anders
Published: 2019-04-20T16:00:00+00:00

“So, you say she sacked you without references. You say she did not allow you any severance pay.” Hugh was strangely relieved to be dealing with this scoundrel. He’d not found any comfort in seeing his mother. And he was even less enthusiastic to be contemplating the oddities of his newly betrothed. “But she did not send the magistrate after you since she’d already discovered and reclaimed the money you were attempting to embezzle. Do you not think that was rather benevolent of her?”

Periwinkle was not to be cowed, however, “You are the master of Augusta Heights, and we had an agreement. I’ve given my life for that estate and then some baron’s daughter takes it upon herself to have me physically removed? I’ll not have it, my lord.” He stuck out his chest and lifted his chin. “I am Matthew Periwinkle, and I’ll not have my good reputation as a steward slandered by Miss Penelope Crone or anyone else.”

“I’m afraid, my good sir,” Hugh said, suddenly tired from the day’s events and eager to send the steward off, “that you were the person to ruin your reputation, not myself and most definitely not Miss Crone.”

And then the man’s faced took on a deviousness Hugh hadn’t seen before. “Ah, my lord, but Miss Crone has been equally as careless with her own reputation, would you not agree?”

Although lounging in the deep leather chair upon which he sat, Hugh suddenly came to be completely alert. He did not respond with questions as the man surely expected. He merely waited for Periwinkle to explain himself. People like him never failed in this regard.

“A lady.” The man would have spat on the floor, Hugh was quite certain, if he’d been in the room with anyone but himself. “What would all of those nabobs have to say if they’d come to know that the lady stayed in residence with a single gentleman overnight, with no companion or nothing.”

“She had a chaperone,” Hugh stated casually. Thank Heavens she’d had Rose with her. “Nothing inappropriate about her visit.”

“Maybe not that particular visit, perhaps.” The little man drew out his silence for as long as he possibly could, in utter hopes of putting Hugh on edge even further, before at last revealing his hand. “Call me old fashioned, perhaps, but ain’t it somewhat frowned upon for an unmarried lady of the ton to get herself into such an interesting condition?”

An interesting condition… what?

And then it all began to make sense. The fainting, the dizzy spells, the fullness of her…

Her sudden, inexplicable desire to marry him.

It could not be. But…

Why him?

What had happened to the man who’d fathered her child?

Rage replaced the sorrow and tiredness within him.

God damn that woman! She’d been going to use him! She’d been planning on going so far as to actually pass another man’s child off as his heir! As these thoughts coiled around inside of him, he realized that the foiled steward was watching him for a reaction.

“Don’t know where you got such an outlandish idea.

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