Mad About the Earl Read Online Free PDF Page B

the other side of the desk and fingered his chin. “Malby will kick up the Devil of a fuss. He won’t let go of her fortune too easily.”
    He shook his head. “No, I’m inclined to agree to Malby’s demands. Can’t be too long before the old goat kicks the bucket; then your sister will be free.” He shifted in his chair to unfob his snuffbox. “Of course, if you could see your way clear to wedding Lady Rosamund…”
    That took only a moment to sink in. Griffin shot to his feet. “You bastard,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “You are blackmailing me.”
    DeVere rose also and met his gaze squarely. “Blackmail? I am reminding you of your obligations to a gently bred lady, sir! That I should have to enforce those obligations makes you the bastard, not me. But mark me well, Griffin, it will be no skin off my nose to get your sister off my hands and into Malby’s bed. Indeed, it would put me to a vast deal of trouble to renege on the arrangement. But I’ll do it if it means you’ll take Lady Rosamund to wife.”
    He paused. “So. Which is it to be?”
    Griffin clenched his jaw so hard, he thought it might crack. DeVere wasn’t cruel, but he was bloody-minded, sometimes to the point of cutting off his nose to spite his face.
    Damn the old earl for not making Griffin Jacks’s guardian! DeVere was only a distant cousin, and he didn’t give a fig about the girl. He didn’t care about anyone in this benighted family, did he? All he cared about was increasing the wealth and standing of the deVeres.
    It was a profound source of disgruntlement to Oliver, Lord deVere, that his branch of the family hadn’t advanced beyond the title of baron. Like so many of his hot-tempered ancestors, deVere could never stay on the right side of the reigning sovereign long enough to climb any higher in the peerage.
    After a prolonged pause, Griffin spoke. “Let me understand you. If I agree to marry Lady Rosamund as soon as may be, you will set my sister free of that nauseating betrothal?”
    DeVere grunted. “That’s right.”
    “I want Jacks to have a season,” said Griffin. “I want full approval of a list of candidates, and she will have her pick among them. My sister must marry, but she will not be made miserable. Not if I have any say in it.”
    DeVere held up a warning finger. “There’ll be no silly romantical notions planted in the chit’s head, d’ye hear me?”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Griffin grimly.
    His chest eased a little at the prospect of seeing Jacks again. “I’ll open the town house. Do the thing properly. I won’t have that Warrington witch playing chaperone, mind. And that chinless whelp of a son of hers will not go near my sister again.”
    If he let Lady Warrington chaperone Jacks, the grasping harridan would do her best to scuttle the girl’s prospects with the ton.
    Come to think of it, Jacks might not need any help in that direction.…
    “From what I’ve seen of her, the chit is likely to be recalcitrant,” said deVere, as if echoing Griffin’s thoughts. “And she’s a graceless wench, besides.” He shook his head. “The season doesn’t start for a couple of months yet. You have a lot of work to do in the meantime.”
    DeVere didn’t know the half of it. He could just imagine what his sister would have to say about the prospect of a London debut.
    But if he could see her settled and content, he would be well pleased.
    Of course, the price he would pay for his sister’s happiness was his own abject humiliation, but she would never know that. No one would ever know how much it cost him to take Lady Rosamund Westruther as wife.
    Truly, it amazed him that the Westruthers had let matters get this far. Despite his and Rosamund’s disastrous first meeting three years ago, Lady Rosamund had not fled Pendon Place then and there. The formal betrothal had proceeded, regardless of Griffin’s objections.
    His grandfather had been mightily amused at the disparity between