No Marriage of Convenience (2 page)

London, 1798

“C
ousin Felicity, my brother had the business sense of a pelican,” Mason St. Clair, the new Earl of Ashlin said, waving his hand over his littered desk. “Look at these. Bills for carriages. Bills for horses. I’ve looked in our stables. We have no horses. And we have no carriages. From what I can surmise, as quickly as Freddie bought these extravagances, he gambled them away.”

Mason’s announcement hardly seemed to upset his elderly relative, who sat primly on the settee in the corner of his study.

“Frederick always said life was just a dice toss away. Perhaps you should take up gambling.” She nodded sagely, as if she’d recited gospel.

He picked up several sheets of paper and shook them at his cousin. “That’s exactly what got us into this situation. That and Freddie’s ill-advised investments. I never knew anyone who could throw so much money at such nonsense. Gold mines in Italy, Chinese inventions, and of all things, a theatre!” The Earl shook his head. “Only my brother would invest in some tawdry play on Brydge Street.”

“Really, my dear, you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” she sniffled. A day never passed that Cousin Felicity didn’t find something to cry about, especially when it came to Frederick. “My poor Caro and dear Frederick have only been…been…gone now…” Cousin Felicity faltered, unable to continue. With a shaky hand, she reached for her ever near lacy handkerchief and dramatically blew into it. She glanced up at him, her blue eyes misting, making her look frail beyond her fifty-odd years.

Mason sighed. “Yes, I know the last seven months have been terribly difficult for you and the girls. But weeping all the time does not solve the problems at hand. The bill collectors are becoming quite insistent, Cousin. If we don’t find a way to satisfy some of the more pressing debts…we’ll be out on the street.”

“Pish posh, my boy,” Cousin Felicity declared most decidedly, her bout of tears forgotten as she settled back into the elegant settee and reached for her embroidery. “You are the Earl of Ashlin. They wouldn’t dare cast us out. Honorable debts are always overlooked.” She leaned forward in a confidential manner. “Frederick informed me thusly whenever my dressmaker became rude or insistent about my account.”

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Cousin Felicity, but debts are never overlooked, honorable or not.”

“But Frederick said—”

He held up his hand to stop her from spouting another litany of Frederickisms. Even Mason had his limits with the saintly accomplishments and nonsensical witticisms his cousin attributed daily to his deceased brother.

“Really, Mason, you always tended toward exaggeration as a child. I would have thought you’d have outgrown that by now. Our situation can hardly be as bad as you say.”

“I don’t see how it could be any worse.”

“If that is the case, you could secure quite a tidy fortune by marrying Miss Pindar,” she began deliberately. “She’s just come out of mourning for her father, and from what I hear, she’s exceedingly well off. Yes, that would be the perfect solution.” She went back to selecting a thread.

Mason leaned over the mounds of paper and gave his cousin what he hoped was a censuring look.

Marry Miss Pindar?

He’d rather suffer transportation to Botany Bay. The girl embodied every vapid, silly pretension he detested. Besides, he’d never considered himself the marrying type, having been happy until now to live out a bachelor existence.

But if Cousin Felicity wanted to deal out marriage cards, he had one of his own.

“Cousin Felicity, why don’t you marry Lord Chilton?”

Cousin Felicity turned a rosy shade at the mention of her twenty-year romance with the reluctant baron. “I wouldn’t find that convenient right now.” She took on a renewed interest in her silks.

Mason knew that what she was really saying was that she hadn’t been asked. Not once in all these years. Oh, he hadn’t meant to embarrass her about her hesitant beau, but he found it the only way to stop her from pushing this proposed marriage to the cloying and wealthy Miss Pindar. And with Cousin Felicity temporarily quieted, he could get back to the accounts at hand.

“My heavens,” Cousin Felicity said, interrupting his tally of the greengrocer’s bill. “Have you considered the girls’ dowries? You could borrow against those accounts.”

Mason shook his head. He should have known Cousin Felicity never gave up easily. “Frederick drained them
years ago,” he told her. “Even Caroline’s dower lands are mortgaged to the rooftops.”

Cousin Felicity looked aghast as the reality of their situation finally sank in. “Whatever shall we do?” True to form, the elderly lady finally gave way to a full bout of weeping. “Take my poor pin money. I also have some set aside…. It is yours, my dear boy. Take it with my best wishes,” she said between sobs.

“No, please, Cousin Felicity,” Mason said, getting up from the desk and sitting beside her. He couldn’t take her small allowance, besides the fact that it probably wouldn’t even begin to cover their bare necessities. But perhaps now she’d be willing to discuss the economies he’d been trying to explain to her earlier when she’d come into his study to badger him about firing their French chef. “You know how I feel about tears.”

“But the girls…” she wailed. “How will they ever hope to find husbands without dowries?”

Mason groaned. Not this husband subject again. It was worse than discussing his order that she cease her weekly visits to the dressmaker.

“Oh, Mason, this is a disaster. I’ll not say another word about the way you cast out dear Henri, for the girls must have husbands. I will forgo whatever necessities I must, for I’ve promised them all brilliant matches.”

“Cousin Felicity, you should never have made them such a vow.” He lowered his voice, and though he felt guilty saying it, he uttered the words both he and Cousin Felicity knew were true. “There isn’t enough gold in all of England to entice a man to marry one of those girls.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then just as quickly shut it.

While Frederick and Caro had held society in their thrall with their wit and grace, the likeable and handsome
pair had passed none of their amiable traits on to their children.

Cousin Felicity glanced at the door, then back at Mason before she too lowered her voice. “Oh, I’ll grant you they are a bit on the ungainly side, but that’s just because Caro neglected their schooling.” She sighed. “I don’t like to gossip, but I always thought it scandalous that she wouldn’t entertain the notion of seeing the girls brought out. I’m afraid Caro felt that having daughters out in society would call attention to the fact that she wasn’t a newly arrived Original herself.” Cousin Felicity picked at a loose thread on her needlework. “Certainly, with a bit of time and help, I think Louisa may show some real promise. And Beatrice and Margaret need only the right guidance to bring out their true talents.”

Mason nearly laughed, too afraid to ask her what those talents were. Though he loved his nieces in spite of their faults, what his cousin proposed would take time and cost a great deal of money.

Two things they didn’t have.

As Cousin Felicity offered up names of tutors and ideas for economies, Mason glanced over at the mountain of debts on his desk and considered his next course of action.

When he’d received Cousin Felicity’s note seven months ago informing him of his brother’s and sister-in-law’s deaths in a yachting accident, he’d left his fellowship at Oxford fully intending to settle the family estates, see his nieces and cousin established comfortably, and then return to the college before the fall sessions started.

But since then he’d done nothing but try to unravel the tangled Ashlin estates. First working with the solicitors, and then enduring the visits by creditors.

The visits. Oh, how he dreaded them.

So sorry, my lord. If I could trouble you for just a moment, ’tis the matter of this debt.

I hate to speak of such things, my lord, but I was wondering when you could see to this bill.

Lately their creditors had become less polite and more to the point.

My lord, without some sort of consideration or payment, I’m afraid I’ll have to…

Mason knew what they would have to do. His nieces and cousin wouldn’t have anything left, even their shifts and stockings were part of unpaid accounts.

And up until a few weeks ago, he’d been inclined to let everything be taken away, sell whatever was left, and retreat back to Oxford. There he would make the best life he could for his family and forget he’d ever been made heir to the Ashlin legacy of debt and wastrel ways.

That was until, late one night, he’d stumbled across a tattered volume on his family history in the library upstairs. In his desire to separate himself from every tawdry thing his recent forebears represented, he’d never taken the time to realize his father and Frederick were nothing like their illustrious ancestors.

Ashlins had fought beside their kings in the Crusades and been consulted in matters of state during the reign of Henry Tudor. Ashlins had sailed as privateers under a grant by Good Queen Bess. Ashlins had helped Charles II regain his throne.

Instead of being known for gambling debts, endless strings of mistresses, and other dubious endeavors and scandals, the Ashlin name, Mason discovered, had once been associated with honor, their sacrifices for King and country revered. It was the reason the very square they lived on was named after them.

So in the faint light of dawn, as he’d finished the last
page of the heroic testimonial, Mason knew there was only one thing to do.

Keep the family from being mired any further in scandal and return the name of Ashlin to its place of honor.

A sharp rap at the door brought Mason out of his silent musings and stopped Cousin Felicity’s prattling about potential husbands for the girls.

Looking up, he found Belton entering the study. The family butler for two generations, Belton remained the stalwart defender of the house. As a child, Mason had thought Belton old. Looking at the crusty butler today, he wagered the man to be in his seventies, an age when others were confined to their chairs complaining of gout. The only evidence that the butler had aged in the last twenty years was a smattering of gray hair at his temples.

“Yes, Belton, what is it?”

“My lord, there is a
person
who wishes to see you,” the butler announced, a slight Scottish burr tingeing his words and giving away his Highland origins.

Mason knew when Belton’s speech slipped from anything other than his normally upper crust London tones, it meant another bill collector had arrived. Belton possessed an unholy disdain for those in trade, and an even worse attitude toward those who expected their bills to be paid. And it always came out in his accent.

“Send him in,” Mason said, rising to his feet and returning to his chair behind Frederick’s imposing mahogany desk.

“As you wish, my lord.” Belton nodded, then exited the room.

Mason turned to his cousin, who was getting up to leave. “Fleeing before the storm?”

“I have no wits for these matters, my boy. Truly it is
best if you handle these people.” She began retrieving her discarded bits of silk and clippings.

Mason saw through her haste. “No, stay. I insist. It could be your dressmaker, after all.”

When she ignored him further, continuing to gather her jumble of belongings with even greater speed, Mason realized he was on to something.

“Is that a new gown?” He didn’t need to hear her answer, for her own guilty features convicted her on the spot. “I hope that went on Lord Chilton’s account, and not mine.”

Cousin Felicity opened her mouth to protest such a gross impropriety, but before she could utter a word, Belton admitted their unwanted guest. If Cousin Felicity had been gaping like a freshly hooked salmon, her mouth opened even further at the sight of a woman entering the study, a spectacle far more welcome than the weasel-eyed bill collector Mason had expected.

Suddenly realizing his lapse in manners, he bounded to his feet.

Though he knew his cousin was far too near-sighted to really see the woman, even a blind man would have had a hard time missing the vibrant green of the woman’s gown or the rich glitter of silver embroidery decorating the fabric.

Having reviewed enough bills lately for women’s clothing and toiletries, he knew the woman before him was a walking fortune. Her wide-brimmed straw hat, powdered and curled wig, and frothy silk gown alone would fetch enough gold to ward off the worst of his creditors.

Mason’s gut tightened as his imagination suddenly envisioned just that, this creature stripped of her finery and standing before him clad in only her shift.

It wasn’t that difficult to picture, as he glanced for a
lingering moment at her low-cut bodice where her full breasts threatened to spill out.

Eh gads
, he was starting to think like Frederick.

So he tried to study her as a professor would, as a theory or hypothesis to ponder.

His classical training told him she had the figure of a Venus and the grace of a Diana. But mythology studies hadn’t prepared him for the way his breath stopped in his throat.

Cousin Felicity’s gasp brought his attention back up to the entrance of the room where, ducking through the door, a man with Eastern features followed the lady.

This additional guest wore a tall red silk turban, which only added to his great height and breadth. Stretched across his nearly bare, muscled chest he wore an open, richly embroidered tunic which fell to his knees and contrasted sharply with his wide-legged striped trousers. Tucked in a black leather belt circling the man’s waist glittered a wicked Saracen blade.

Whatever untoward thoughts Mason had amassed about the lady, they cooled somewhat with one dark look from her protector. The man’s features were unholy indeed, sharp boned and fierce, not unlike those of some of the infidel warriors Mason had read about in his studies of the Crusades. Like his twelfth-century predecessors, this man looked as though he would enjoy gutting everyone in the room just for the sword practice.