The Viscount Always Knocks Twice (Heart of Enquiry Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

you didn’t listen to me, I’m bloody doomed! Why should I have to marry some nitwit because you didn’t do the right thing?” Wick’s high cheekbones reddened. “Why am I the one who must suffer in all of this?”
    Richard could scarce credit his brother’s twisted reasoning. Nor the fact that Wick believed that he was the only one to face unpleasant consequences. Richard had dismantled his stables, the breeding program he’d spent years building. All that remained, that he could not bring himself to auction off at Tattersall’s with the rest, was his personal mount Aiolos.
    He was not a sentimental man, but he hadn’t been able to part with the Thoroughbred. Guilt panged. Now the old boy was trapped in stables as dilapidated as Richard’s own lodgings, their exhilarating gallops through the countryside curtailed to sedate trots in Hyde Park.
    “Your debt is your own failing—not mine,” Richard said quietly. “You had choices other than marriage. Years ago, I offered to purchase you a commission or set you up in a respectable profession.” With Wick’s easy charm, good looks, and ready wit, he could have been anything he wanted. “But you refused.”
    “Can you honestly see me marching to the drum? Or preaching some sermon or mucking about in the courts? I’m a gentleman .”
    “You’ll be a dead gentleman if you don’t pay Garrity off soon. And this time, brother,” Richard said flatly, “I cannot help you.”
    Wick said nothing, his expression mulish, yet his hand trembled as he reached for his teacup. Fear stiffened his normally indolent posture. Richard pressed his advantage home.
    “There’s still time to remedy the situation. Turbett and his daughter will be at a house party in Hertfordshire two weeks hence. He’s secured us invitations as well. He’s willing to give you a final chance to come up to scratch.”
    “Secured us invitations?” Sarcasm dripped from Wick’s words. “He’s in trade, for Christ’s sake. I sincerely doubt we’d aspire to attend an event thrown by one of his mercantile cronies.”
    “Nonetheless, we will be going.” As much as Richard detested house parties, he would go to secure Wickham’s future. And, he thought with resignation, to deal with his own. He might have staved off disaster, but the estate would need more income to ensure its long-term health.
    “The host of the party, Billings, is a wealthy banker. He has a daughter,” he said.
    Wick’s expression lost its surly cast, and for an instant, he resembled the younger brother Richard had always known.
    “Never say you are considering matrimony?” Wick’s brows shot toward his hairline. “You, whose portrait currently appears next to the word ‘bachelorhood’ in the dictionary? You, who once said you’d rather clean all the stables in the kingdom than be leg-shackled to a female?”
    After the fiascoes with Miss Belton and Lady Keane, Richard had sworn off respectable females. That business had taken place years ago, however. He was no longer a greenling who expected a lady to want to marry him for any reason other than his title. Marriage for him would be a bloodless exchange: her money for his status. He’d lead by example and teach Wick that courtship could be a pragmatic endeavor free of sentimental complications.
    “One does what one needs must,” he said severely.
    “God’s blood, I do believe you are serious,” Wick breathed.
    “I am. So you see, brother, we’re in this together.”
    Wickham shrugged, but at least he offered no further argument. Richard took the other’s acquiescence as a good sign, and it renewed his resolve to see Wick settled. He would personally deal with any obstacles to his sibling’s future contentment—which meant that a certain troublesome miss had better stay out of his way.

Chapter Three
     
    Guilt, Violet discovered to her dismay, had a way of disrupting one’s concentration. God knew that she didn’t need further intrusions upon her focus,