Yankee Earl Read Online Free PDF Page B

to see that there was no way out. How would the lad take it? Would the old man have to move his last chess piece onto the board, the one he had concealed until now? And if so, would it work?
           The marquess could not be certain. Jason gave every appearance of adjusting to the lifestyle of a peer. He had the address of an earl, no doubt of it. He was intelligent enough to manage all the vast holdings and titles to which he was now heir. But he was also headstrong and so damnably…American. No matter that by an accident of fate he'd been born here in England.
           Just then Harleigh interrupted, as if echoing his troubling ruminations. “I must confess I still have reservations about this match, George. My gel is dead set against it, and you know how headstrong she is.”
           Cargrave smiled. “I was just thinking the same thing about my grandson. They will both come up to scratch, never fear. Rachel may be no conventional miss, but she will settle Jason down.”
           Harleigh harrumphed nervously. “Yes, but who will first settle her down? Heaven knows, I've had no luck in that direction,” he added with a sigh.
           “They shall settle each other down, of course.” The old marquess' eyes, usually so cold and penetrating, took on a warm glow for a moment as he remembered his life with Mathilda, his marchioness. Twenty years and still I miss her.
           “Where the deuce do you think that grandson of yours could have gotten off to? Must be a quarter hour since we dispatched Winters to fetch him,” Hugh said, still not reassured about their plans.
           Cargrave shrugged with studied casualness. “Saw him from the balcony earlier, dancing with some baron's daughter. Can't have gotten far.”
           “Are you certain it was wise not to inform him until now? I know how impetuous these Americans can be. He was raised in the colonies.”
           The marquess waved his cigar dismissively. “I know the lad. If he had time to brood on it, he might hatch some nervy scheme to thwart me. He's awake on every suit, no doubt of that. Which is why I have handled matters this way. Once he realizes the announcement will be tonight—and we introduce him to your beautiful daughter, he will have to go along.”
           “Rachel may be a striking young woman, but I say again, she can be…difficult,” the viscount replied, repressing a shudder as he remembered the porcelain-smashing, furniture-bashing scene she had created back at Harleigh Hall when he'd first informed her of the betrothal.
           The marquess knew about Rachel Fairchild's famous temper and penchant for riding astride across the countryside. The gel had spirit to match his grandson's. If only the young fools would see it. “Have no fear, my friend. Jason shall deal famously with her.”
           Harleigh sighed. “I certainly hope he can handle her. Lud, I have never had any luck. My younger gels were both biddable. You know Rachel is not.”
           “All the better. Jason likes nothing so much as a good challenge.”
           The two men sat in the library, a magnificent mahogany-paneled room lined with bookshelves which stretched to the top of the fourteen-foot ceiling. Cargrave studied his old friend over the rim of a Waterford brandy snifter. Mercifully, like himself, Harleigh had spawned far better looking offspring than either of them had a right to expect. While Cargrave was tall with a great beak of a Roman nose and deep-set eyes, Harleigh was slight of figure, pop-eyed and stooped with age in spite of being over a decade younger than the marquess. Ah, but Jason and Rachel were tall and strong, long of leg and fair of visage. What splendid children they would have!
           As if reading Cargrave's thought, Harleigh raised his glass in a toast. “To the next generation of Beaumonts and Fairchilds!”
           “Hear, hear,” Cargrave