Patricia Rice Read Online Free PDF Page B

eccentrics, not so soon after being hit with the results of his father’s peculiarities.
    “My betrothed is one of a kind,” he declared boldly. He meant it as a compliment, but his comrades hooted in derision.
    “I saw her skulking around the crypts of St. Andrews just last week,” shouted someone from another corner of the room. “Does Sommersville have any graveyards for her to haunt?”
    So that’s what she’d been about lately. Sighing, Harry figured he’d have to cure her of that propensity. The mother of future dukes did not generally go about exploring crypts, especially in cemeteries behind the old city walls in an area frequented by men, not all of them gentlemen.
    “Lady Christina may explore Sommersville’s graveyard all she likes,” he said, although in his ill humor he preferred to ring her unconventional neck, “but I daresay she won’t have as much time for it once we’re wedded.”
    “And bedded!” Freddie shouted.
    Harry gulped the rest of his brandy and took another. Bedding Christina would certainly curtail her activities, but bedding her was the problem, wasn’t it?
    “Don’t you fear she’ll have witchy daughters who will be as crazy as your old man and will haunt that mausoleum you call a home?”
    Harry flushed and looked for the source of those fighting words, locating a man in rural broadcloth lounging against the fireplace, apparently as foxed as he was. “Basil? What the devil are you doing here?”
    “What, you think I’m not good enough to belong to the same club?”
    “Don’t be an ass, Chumley. You’ve never come to London before.”
    Basil Chumley normally resided in Sussex where their estates ran together. The Chumleys hadn’t the wherewithal to send their son to university or keep him in London, so he and Harry had seen each other only briefly over the past decade or more. The differences in their circumstances had always created an element of competition between them, but Basil had never derided Harry’s family in public.
    Only neighbors like the Chumleys knew of the late duke’s deterioration into senility these past years. Had his head not been spinning, Harry might have called his old chum on it, but he hadn’t the impetus left to question Basil’s spite.
    “The family came up yesterday for my sister’s presentation,” Basil answered. “Seems we arrived just in time to see you tie the knot. I trust the lady’s dowry is large enough to pay for her eccentricities as well as what’s needed back home,” he added with a sneer.
    “My lady will help me right the place,” Harry said stiffly. Knowing he had to take his bride to the absurdity that was his rural home instead of showering her in pleasures tore at his pride. Basil could go to the devil.
    “I wish you well of the witch, then. Even if she brings you a fortune, I’ll wager she tumbles the castle on your head,” Chumley rejoined.
    Considering how Harry’s father and brother had died, this produced an instant’s silence in the drunken camaraderie. Even Basil flinched when he realized how his words sounded.
    Finishing off the brandy, Harry flung the glass at the fireplace. It smashed with a satisfying flare of fire from the dregs of the alcohol. Politely, he bowed to the man he now considered his ex-friend. “Thank you for your kind wishes. I am well aware of the spirit that prompts them, and I heartily return the sentiment.”
    His audience erupted in nervous laughter as he wished Chumley the same fate Basil had expressed for him.
    “I’ve heard you’re a gambling man, Harry. A thousand pounds and my Roman coins against yours that she’ll make you the laughingstock of all London by this time next year,” Chumley shouted over the laughter.
    Chumley’s collection was nearly as good as the one Harry no longer had, but by the same token, he no longer had a thousand pounds. He wasn’t about to admit either in the face of his friends.
    With a shrug, Harry accepted Basil’s challenge. “My