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Category: Romance
Description: Clea Bradford is a striking creature with her sun-kissed hair and incredibly long legs, but definitely not in vogue. Her Aunt, Lady Floss Dearborn is determined to ensure that the girl's entrance to the ton is greeted with respect. She achieves her purpose, but it is by announcing Clea's fake engagement to an aristocrat who is better suited for her. But lurking behind every corner is Lord Ranulf, a man driven by vengeance. He mistakenly assumes the bohemian is her aunt and plans to exact his revenge for an unsubstantiated rumor of a wrong committed against his relative, Floss's deceased husband. Everywhere Clea turns, Ranulf is right behind her. But his searing hatred is beginning to melt beneath Clea's piercing gaze. Now, rather than burning with revenge, his heart is scorching with passion.
eBook Publisher: E-Reads, 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2003

21 Reader Ratings:

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Words: 47838
Reading time: 136-191 min.

One

The earl, bored and embattled, sought refuge in his library after dinner.

It was not enough. He had scarcely begun to sip at the excellent brandy brought to him by a silently commiserating butler when the door was flung open and the dowager countess thrust herself into the room. Mama makes her entrance like a ship under full sail, her son thought disparagingly, observing the tasteless, overblown series of flounces and ruffles that clothed her massive figure. Her fat face was flushed with overindulgence and annoyance; her small dark eyes reminded the man of a malicious pug dog she owned and cosseted.

She was already talking as she entered the library, continuing the harangue she had been delivering all during dinner.

"I make no excuse for invading your book room, Glendon! I am sure you have had quite long enough to enjoy your brandy in solitude. As I was saying in the dining room, I still cannot believe it! That ridiculous Dearborn female actually coming up to London for a season! She's written to old Lady Bowser, who used to know her mama, announcing the date of her arrival -- fishing for attention, of course! She'll probably try to capitalize on the fact that your papa knew her husband, and seek to wheedle and cajole me into sponsoring her in the ton -- as though she were a debutante!" She sniggered nastily.

The earl put down his brandy glass regretfully and faced his mama. "Did I not understand you to say that Lady Dearborn was a widow?"

"Of course she is" -- the countess sniffed -- "and as absurd in that role as she was as Dearborn's wife! She's at least thirty years younger than he was, and a fluff-head into the bargain! Why a man of George Dearborn's notorious tastes ever came to marry her, a chit out of the schoolroom, I shall never know!"

"Her dowry?" suggested the earl cynically. He knew little and cared less about the gossip rife among his mama's cronies at Glendon Hall, having thankfully spent the whole of his adult life in his London town house, leaving it to travel on the Continent or to seek refuge in his hunting lodge when his redoubtable mama descended upon London for one of her rare visits. He had never liked Glendon Hall, considering his ancestral mansion to be ugly, drafty, and hideously uncomfortable, but his chief reason for avoiding it had been the fact that his mama preferred to live there, where she was the unquestioned leader of county society.

It seemed, however, that since she had come up to London especially to launch a campaign against this wretched Dearborn woman, he was doomed to hear more boring details about this female who was the immediate object of the countess's querulous resentment. "A plump dowry can sweeten even the sourest chit -- or so I am told."

"Dowry!" Lady Glendon was sneering. "Florence Grey's father was as poor as a church mouse -- although he always turned up at every reception and ball in the county--"

Her son, recognizing a name, interrupted her, his dark eyes alert with interest for once. "Grey? Wasn't he that good-looking fellow with the pretty wife I met at the Hunt Ball the year--"

His mother interrupted bitterly in her turn. "The year you came into the title and decided to establish yourself in London? Yes. You were just down from Oxford, and barely waited to attend your papa's funeral before you left the Hall."

The earl ignored her attack. "Grey seemed a pleasant fellow. Their daughter married Dearborn? But surely he was older than Grey! The girl must have been young enough to be his daughter!"

"You are not going to tell me you disapprove of a prudent marriage among persons of our class, Glendon?" sneered his mama, and then continued, "But of course! You must do so, since you yourself have never married. Totally selfish! Utterly irresponsible! And since you are the last of the line, the name will die with you! Well, at least your papa and I shall not be there to witness the shameful dwindling off of the Glendons."

"Oh, you are indestructible, my dear mama," grated the earl. "I am convinced you will live to attend my funeral -- and have something suitably cutting to say upon that occasion." His dark eyes were fierce with controlled bitterness as he regarded the woman who had been more antagonist than mother all his life.

His mama, much pleased at having got through the normally imperturbable front her son presented, returned to the attack with fresh vigor.

"Sir George Dearborn had enough respect for his name to wish to marry a girl young enough to give him a healthy son," she informed the earl. "And Larry Grey knew he could never find another man of our class willing to take the chit without a dowry. He married Florence off to Dearborn the year after you left home--"

"I have a very comfortable home, Mama," retorted her son, "as you seem to believe every year when you come to visit me." Such long visits, his acid smile implied.

His mama ignored this unworthy thrust and continued her tale with avid relish. "Florence Grey was unsuitable as a wife, of course. I could have told Sir George that if he had asked me! So young, barely out of the schoolroom, and so totty-headed that everyone, even the rector, called her Floss. Not Lady George, or even Lady Dearborn, but Lady Floss! It was no more than Sir George deserved, marrying such a silly chit! And of course there wasn't a son."

The earl frowned. He had no liking for the sort of nasty gossip that delighted his mama, but this particular story piqued his interest. He could not recall ever having met the girl Florence, but he had met and liked her handsome, pleasant father and her charming mother. In fact, if he had stayed at Glendon Hall, he would most likely have become good friends with them, for all they were twenty years older than he. They had been the most interesting and agreeable of the social group in which his parents had moved. So he did have an interest, however slight, in the fate that had befallen their only child.

"She -- Florence -- did not present Dearborn with an heir?"

"No," announced the countess with relish. "There was a good deal of talk about it, of course--"

"Of course," her son agreed blandly.

His mama ignored his sarcasm. "Nearly everyone said it was probably something lacking in the girl, since Sir George had a reputation as a womanizer and had several by-blows."

"I beg you will spare my blushes, Mama," begged the earl, making a prim mouth, although his dark eyes were bright with mockery.

"When Sir George died last year, they had been married for seven years, and Florence had not yet presented her husband with the son he wanted," the countess said triumphantly.

"Dearborn must have been close to sixty, and the girl couldn't have been more than eighteen when they married," he said slowly, distaste evident in his tone.

"What has that to say to anything?" challenged his mama. "They could have had a child."

"And I suppose the gossips of both sexes were busy blaming the wretched young wife," said the earl. "Where were her parents?"

"Grey was killed in an accident a few months after Sir George married Florence; Mrs. Grey languished after his death, didn't seem to wish to continue living. Sir George sent her off to some cousins of hers in Ireland. I believe she died there several years ago."

What a comfort for the child-bride, thought the earl grimly. The more he heard about this poor little female, the more a slow resentment grew within him. And then he shrugged, frowning. What had he to do with some wretched young widow who was probably relieved to be free at last of the domination of the insensitive Sir George? -- He had been a heavy-set, red-faced, boring brute who didn't bother to wash his hands before sitting down to the table, as the earl recalled from the one dinner party they had both attended before he had left for London.

His mama was continuing her tirade. "And now the creature has the brass to announce that she is coming to London for the Season," she sneered. "It's plain she hopes to snare herself a husband now that her year of mourning is over."

"I wish her luck," the earl observed mildly. "I should think she deserves some, do you not?" He paused, seized by a most unpleasant idea. "You do not have matchmaking in mind, do you, dear Mama?"

His mother's startled expression relieved him of that particular suspicion.

"Matchmaking, Glendon?" she repeated shrilly. "With that creature?" She grimaced with disgust. "It is the last thing I should wish for! No matter how deeply I deplore your laxity in fulfilling your obligation to your name and station, I should never permit you to make such a gross mésalliance. No, there are many suitable girls, maidens of good family and suitable fortune, among whom you must choose this season, Glendon." Catching his frown of annoyance, she went on, "Your man-at-law agreed completely with me when I spoke to him this afternoon, Michael. I advise you to consult with him fairly soon. You have dallied long enough."

For a long moment, Michael Glendon did not permit himself to speak, lest he shout at this interfering, overbearing, intrusive busybody he was forced to acknowledge as his mama. He and his man-at-law were forever straightening out the unfortunate results of her meddling. Why would she never learn that he was an adult of thirty, the Earl of Glendon, more than capable of running his own life and his estates? If she had ever shown even one tiny jot of real affection for her only child, he would have put up with her eternal interference in his affairs with good grace, but she had never cared for another human being in all her life. She had made that abundantly clear. So the earl stared at her now, and even the countess's self-assurance wavered under that icy glare. She opened her mouth to protest and was silenced by his arrogantly uplifted hand.

"If you are prudent, Mama, you will leave off further discussion of this very personal matter. In fact, I believe it is time we said good night."

He rose, his powerful, well-exercised body towering over her. He executed his most formal bow, then ushered her toward the door. This was opened as if on cue by the butler, Ames. Not for the first time, Glendon wondered if Ames kept one ear to door panels, or if indeed he might be, as the earl had occasionally wondered, a warlock. Ames always seemed to know exactly what was going on, and he was undoubtedly the only person whom the redoubtable countess treated with a modicum of respect.

In total silence, that lady made her exit.

Ames closed the door silently.

The earl exhaled a long sigh and began to consider what friends he had who lived well away from London who were not presently planning to come up for the Season. He did not spare another thought for the youthful widow. She was, of course, no possible concern of his.

Copyright © 1986 by Elizabeth Chater