When the Marquess Met His Match Read Online Free PDF Page B

handsome as sin and charming as the devil, with blood more blue than any of the New York Knickerbockers who’d looked down their noses at Miss Belinda Hamilton of Cleveland, Ohio.
    Race week at Saratoga was one of the few places where a girl with no background and plenty of money might mingle with those of higher social status. For a girl like Belinda, however, such opportunities had meant little, for she’d been far too shy to take advantage of them.
    When the Seventh Earl of Featherstone, on a tour of the States at the time, had singled her out for his attentions on the verandah of Saratoga’s Grand Union Hotel, it had taken only one fifteen-minute conversation where he did most of the talking for her to fall head over heels in love with him.
    When he’d pulled her into a darkened corner of the garden at a cotillion a scant six weeks after meeting her, his bold manner and sensuous kisses had been the headiest experience of her life. And when, after that brief but passionate courtship, he’d asked her to become the Countess of Featherstone and come live with him in an English castle, he’d presented it as such a romantic, dreamy fairy tale that she’d accepted on the spot without even noticing that his proposal had included no actual declaration of love.
    But he had assured her father that his desire to marry her had nothing to do with her fortune, and her father, never good at facing unpalatable possibilities, had taken him at his word. As for herself, Belinda had been so young, so infatuated with Charles and so enamored with the British aristocracy he represented, that she’d convinced herself of all sorts of romantic tripe about what being his wife and countess would be like.
    Neither she nor her father had known the precarious nature of Featherstone’s finances and how dissolute his character until it was too late. Only after the wedding had she learned of her new husband’s four mortgaged estates, two mistresses, and three hundred thousand pounds of debt. Left with no choice but to honor the marriage agreement, her father had paid off Featherstone’s debts and handed over the rest of her dowry, which his son-in-law had thoroughly enjoyed spending.
    By the time Jeremiah Hamilton lost his fortune, the money from her marriage settlement was gone. Even before then, Charles had abandoned any pretenses of gentleman-like behavior or husbandly regard toward his young American wife. He had also made clear that he had no inclination to provide her with an income of her own.
    Left to her own devices, she’d managed to direct her anger and disillusionment into a very lucrative source of income for herself, but that wasn’t why she’d become a marriage broker.
    Fortune hunters were the bane of any heiress’s existence, and it had become the mission of her life to assist as many young ladies as possible in making wiser choices than she had. She informed American mothers as to the character of young British gentlemen, she advised fathers on how to properly tie up the money, and she did her best to guide marriage-minded American heiresses toward those British gentlemen of good and moral character, the men most likely to bring them not only social acceptance, but also lasting happiness, and she was proud of the fact that nowadays any American girl determined to marry a British lord knew her first call once arriving in London was upon Lady Featherstone of Berkeley Street.
    Her recollections about Featherstone led to an inevitable comparison with Trubridge, and she found their similarities a sobering reminder of her duty. She had to make good on her threat and stop that man, but when she thought of his tawny eyes and devastating smile, she knew it was not going to be easy. There were quite a few heiresses who would happily hand over their hearts and their dowries in exchange for a handsome man with a title in the euphemistic hope their love would be returned.
    Jervis entered the drawing room with a stack of newspapers, but