A Gamble on Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

was examining him with narrowed eyes and
considerable skepticism, as if she had fully expected someone who
had just crawled up out of the gutter. Did she think he had made
his fortune selling pasties from a barrow?
    Thomas, nobody’s fool, had made a condition
for his attendance at this most unusual confrontation. Miss Trevor
would be told only what she needed to know. Mr. Lanning was a Cit
of acceptable fortune with no country estate. His business
interests were in London, where he could be expected to spend a
goodly portion of his time. At this preliminary, and highly shaky,
stage of their negotiations, this was quite enough information for
Miss Aurelia Trevor.
    The silence was becoming oppressive. Mr.
Lanning leaned back in his chair, stretched out his long legs
beneath the conference table and drawled, “I understand you are in
need of a dragonslayer, Miss Trevor.”
    Drat the man! She should have spoken first, of course. It was she, Aurelia
Trevor, who had a position, however unorthodox, to offer. She was
the employer; he, the supplicant.
    “ If I had control of my finances,”
Aurelia informed Mr. Lanning in glacial tones, “I would not need a
dragonslayer.” Mr. Lanning examined her with such leisurely
impertinence, Aurelia felt her skin begin to heat. Desperately, she
hoped she was not blushing.
    “ You are what—seventeen?” he
inquired.
    “ Twenty!”
    “ Ah!”
    To Aurelia, Thomas Lanning’s raised eyebrow
was as good as a red flag to a bull. “I reach my majority in a
week’s time,” she declared from between clenched teeth, “but little
good it will do me without the funds to run the estate. “If I were
a boy—”
    “ If you were a boy, you would still
have a guardian, and marriage would not be the least bit of
help.”
    True. But she would never acknowledge it.
    Aurelia forced herself to examine Mr.
Lanning with the same leisurely intensity he had turned on her. But
she was a newcomer to the game. Her fingers and toes seemed to
freeze into ice, while her insides swirled into scorching flames.
Her mind threatened to panic. She had trusted Sir Gilbert to find a
man who met all her qualifications. (Well . . . possibly she had
had a few qualms.) But this .
. . this confident Cit with his almost insolent manner . . . this
too-perfect imitation of a London gentleman, with an accent as
pure, if perhaps more precise, than Aurelia’s own . . . No, no, no!
This was not at all what she had imagined.
    He was the epitome of every woman’s
dreams.
    He was terrifying.
    And he was laughing at her. From the lofty
height of male superiority and what must be close to ten more years
on earth, this Cit—beneath his bland, maddeningly quizzical
façade—was amused. Relia’s temper and the Trevor family pride
surged through her, sweeping away both maidenly fears and female
flutterings. She was Miss Aurelia Trevor of Pevensey Park, Kent,
and she had a task to complete. A husband to find. Who was Mr.
Thomas Lanning to find her amusing? His only advantage was that
while she might find this experience unique, Mr. Lanning must be
quite accustomed to offering his services for hire!
    Miss Trevor squared her shoulders,
folded her hands on the shining surface of the conference table.
“Pevensey Park comprises some five thousand acres,” she informed
him. “In addition to a fine park, we grow wheat and hops. Our sheep
are the finest merinos. Our dairy farm, in addition to fulfilling
our own needs, supplies milk to much of Tunbridge Wells. Most of
the produce from our market gardens—vegetables, fruit, and
flowers—goes all the way to London.” Miss Trevor looked Mr. Lanning
straight in the eye. “Since Pevensey Park is a business —though most landowners eschew such a
title—I am willing to consider a man of business as
my—ah—dragonslayer.”
    With satisfaction, Aurelia noted that, as she
talked, a quiver of emotion had shaken Mr. Lanning’s bland
expression. He had not known Pevensey Park was one of the