A Christmas Promise Read Online Free PDF Page A

detail in a moment. But two points are not in the written agreement and are important to me. I will have your word on them as a gentleman.”
    “And the two points are?” The earl spoke quietly. The blood was beating through his temples rather as if someone had placed a clock there.
    “The marriage must be consummated,” Mr. Transome said, smiling apologetically. “On your wedding night, my lord. I want to die without the fear in my mind that perhaps at some future date there will be some suggestion that my daughter has not been a proper wife to you.”
    “An agreement is an agreement,” the earl said. “I would allow no such thing to happen, sir.”
    “Nevertheless.” Mr. Transome continued to smile. “I will have your word, my lord.”
    “Your daughter will become my wife in every sense of the word on our wedding night,” the earl said curtly. “And the other point?”
    “You will live in the same house as my daughter for at least the first year of your marriage,” Mr. Transome said. “I will not be alive to hold you to your word on that, my lord, but I know how much honor means to a gentleman. I know you will keep your word once it is given.”
    There was a lengthy pause. “You have my word,” the earl said quietly at last. “Are you all right, sir?”
    “Just a spasm.” Mr. Transome held up one staying hand while the other was spread over his stomach. “If you would be so good as to have my lawyer brought in now, my lord, he will go over the details with you while I sit here. It should not take long.”
    The earl reached out and pulled the bell rope.
    “You have made me a happy man,” Mr. Transome said.
    The earl said nothing but merely nodded to his butler when the door opened so that the man who had waited in the hall might be admitted.
    Half an hour later it was all done. The Earl of Falloden had affixed his signature to the marriage agreement after having paid very little attention to the explanations made by the lawyer. If it was to be done, it would be done, and to the devil with the details, he thought. They were thoroughly distasteful to him. Only one thing caught his notice. Mr. Transome’s fortune, of which he was to receive half on his marriage to Miss Eleanor Transome, was many times larger than he had dreamed. Even the half of it would make him one of the wealthiest gentlemen in England.
    Mr. Transome got slowly to his feet when it was all over. There was a stoop to his body that had not been there the day before or that morning when he had arrived. He extended a hand to the earl.
    “You will not regret this day’s dealings, my lord,” he said. “And you will come to realize that my daughter is a greater treasure than the other riches that will become yours on your wedding day.”
    After a brief hesitation, the Earl of Falloden placed his hand in the thin one stretched out to him.
    “I will expect you to call this afternoon, then, to make your formal offer to my daughter?” Mr. Transome asked.
    The earl bowed.
    And that was that. Two minutes later he was alone in the salon, staring down at his copy of the agreement. Within a week he was to be married to a girl he had not yet seen. To a cit’s daughter. To a loud and vulgar creature, if she did indeed turn out to be Bertie’s cit. And for the basest of all reasons. He was marrying her for her money and she was marrying him for his title and his position in the
ton.
He smiled arctically. The girl would soon discover that it was not so easy to break into the ranks of his class. Though perhaps she would not notice. She probably did not have a sensitive bone in her body.
    Within a week he was to bed the girl and to live with her for a full year thereafter. So much for his plans to leave her in town while he went into the country for Christmas with Bertie and whoever else he had invited when in his cups the night before. But even without the promise, by Christmas she would be entirely dependent upon him for protection. Her father