No Marriage of Convenience Read Online Free PDF Page A

some Hottentot village in the darkest reaches of Africa, instead of at the intellectual center of England. Before he could stop her, Felicity rushed over to the lady’sservant. “Is it true your tongue was torn from your mouth by the Pasha of Cairo himself?”
    For the first time since the man had entered the room, Mason detected a hint of emotion in Hashim’s grim features. His obsidian eyes glittered with what could have only been described as amusement.
    “Oh, is it true?” Cousin Felicity asked again.
    Hashim opened his mouth and answered Cousin Felicity’s question by allowing her a look past his lips.
    For about two seconds Cousin Felicity peered into the giant man’s mouth, then let out a bloodcurdling scream and promptly collapsed in a dead faint into Hashim’s arms.
    Mason fell back into his seat and wondered how his day could get any worse.
     
    Madame Fontaine, or Riley, as her friends called her, fanned the prostrate woman with her handkerchief, praying the Earl’s cousin would recover from her fright. Hashim had deposited his victim on a red velvet settee, while Lord Ashlin poured the lady a drink from the nearby tray of spirits.
    As she continued her fanning, Riley hoped this little interlude distracted Lord Ashlin from looking too closely at the fine print on their contract.
    That was exactly why she’d trussed herself up in this damned dress—to keep his lordship too busy to do anything other than ogle her—for it certainly wasn’t comfortable being crammed into some infernal corset. And to make matters worse, she was sure she was going to catch her death with the amount of skin she had exposed.
    But Aggie, her long-time partner, had assured her she looked divinely distracting.
    All she knew was that it took a lot less to divert thetradesmen to whom she owed money, so this costume should have guaranteed the Earl’s attention would be beguiled into less of a financial direction.
    He was an Ashlin, after all. Certainly not the dashing man about town Aggie had described, but then again, Aggie hadn’t told her their former indulgent patron was dead.
    She stole another glance at him. There was something different about this man—something Riley wasn’t too sure of—a feeling that left her unsettled.
    “Fashionable” was a description the man would never earn—for he wore his golden brown hair in an old-fashioned queue like some Colonial merchantman. His clothing, a dark coat and plain white shirt and cravat, befitted a local printer, not the Earl of Ashlin.
    And as if all this wasn’t enough to leave her wondering, the man wore spectacles.
    Spectacles on an earl!
    She would never have believed it.
    Despite the fact that he looked more ready to lead them all in prayer or sell them his latest acquisition from some far off port, given his family’s reputation, she would have thought he’d already have tossed her paperwork aside and begged to have a private audience with her.
    Still, she mused, could she be so lucky that his cousin’s fainting spell would distract him from returning to his sharp-eyed perusal of the contract?
    “There, there, Cousin Felicity. Drink it slowly,” Lord Ashlin advised his cousin. He slowly tipped the glass to the lady’s lips.
    The brandy worked immediately as Lord Ashlin’s cousin caught a hold of the glass and tossed down the entire contents in one large gulp—a maneuver that would have made a sailor choke and sputter. Cousin Felicityhowever just sighed and laid back on the settee, her hand resting dramatically over her forehead.
    Riley wondered if the lady had ever been on the stage.
    “My sincerest apologies, my lord,” Riley said, hoping to soothe the man. “Hashim is rather proud of his injury and delights in showing it off.”
    She shot a glare over the Earl’s shoulder squarely at Hashim.
    You needn’t grin so much, you great fool .
    Hashim’s shoulders shrugged slightly. Well, she asked for it .
    When would he learn that sheltered English ladies