Her Beguiling Butler Read Online Free PDF Page B

to Ranford?”
    She arched a long brow. “I did not wish either man.”
    What good instincts.
    She lifted her china cup to her lips and sipped. “There was another offer. My father never told me from whom. Sometimes, I think my third suitor might have been a better match than either Harold or Robert.”
    I dare say he was. Though he had no idea of that at the time.
    “Why did your father choose Ranford?”
    She inhaled. “The usual reason. He had more title than any of the others who were interested in taking me on. The more immediate reason was that my father wished to be rid of me. After my brother died at Waterloo in June, all the life drained out of my father. He drank more. He drank all day, every day until he could not stand and could not remember conversations at dinner nor much else. He wanted no responsibility for a young woman in her debut year. Too much expense. Too much fuss. And then there was the mourning for Jerome that sapped all life from him.”
    A silence stretched out between them.
    Finnley recalled her brother Jerome. In appearance, he’d been the masculine version of Alicia. Tall, comely, with a profusion of bright blond hair and a ready grin, Jerome Wells was an excellent cavalryman. Good with a sword, expert with a horse, Jerome rode like a heathen from the depths of hell. When he fell from cannon shot, he did so next to Finnley. He himself lay on the ground, grazed in the shoulder a second previously by a French cuirassier with a bad aim of his pistol.
    She shifted in the bed. “I loved my father, but he gave me away to a man he did not know. A man who did not please me. Not in any way.”
    “Did Ranford hurt you?” The words tumbled from Finnley’s lips before he knew what he was about.
    “Did he lay hands on me?” She rolled a shoulder, not taking any offense at his intrusion to her privacy. “Not in any way that was unusual, no. But not in any way that was, shall we say, affectionate?”
    The cur. How could he not see the glory of this woman? How she deserved delicate and careful loving. “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be. I’m not. Wasn’t ever. You see Ranford had other women. Other pleasures. Some of them dark, I suspect. He married me for the dowry. Handsome as it was. He was in debt, you see.”
    “It seems so many men are,” he said, sympathizing with her. My father was one. His greed killed my mother, ruined our estate.
    “And they seek a woman’s dowry to come to their rescue.” She sighed. “Ranford was no different. He coveted money. For his trollops. For his tailors. I’m shocked that my jointure is intact. It’s five thousand pounds, not a small sum, and it remains, thank god, undiminished by his mishandling. In fact, my solicitor told me the other day that I may have other income coming to me. A barony of writ with a title long in abeyance. No one has traced the ancestry until now and I may prove to be the only heir. By writ, you see, the title can pass to a female and if so, I may earn an income from the lands.”
    A sizable sum from what I understand.
    “Of course, I expect nothing. The estate lawyers have taken their cases to Chancery, but I will wait quietly here for news. I am quite done with fighting. My days with Ranford exhausted me and now I am ready to enjoy life.”
    “You deserve that.”
    She gave him a benevolent smile. “Odd, isn’t it? That I hear of some grand inheritance which may come to me now, after all those years with Ranford, all the painful months with my father after Jerome died.”
    Finnley agreed. Her father was inconsolable at his son’s loss.
    “Ironic, almost,” she said with winsomeness. “My father for all intents and purposes sold me to the highest bidder. Yet Ranford played a nasty trick on my father. On me, too. Did you know, Finnley, that Ranford laid a bet at White’s with two other men that he would win my hand by tricking my father into it?”
    “Yes.” Finnley steeled himself not to shout his outrage. The fact that