A Certain Magic Read Free Page A

you are about to be catapulted into the nobility are definitely not made in heaven.”
    “Oh,” she said, “you cannot be so cynical, Piers. You would hate a marriage that did not bring you companionship.”
    “Would I?” he said, his eyes twinkling at her. “I think not. It seems I need a breeder. Don’t look so shocked, Allie—you are not a miss from the schoolroom. I need a dozen sons so that Bingamen Hall will be in no danger of reverting to someone with even more removes to his relationship than mine.”
    “As if you cared for titles and property,” she said scornfully. “You have Westhaven Park and a vast fortune besides.”
    He laughed. “But one becomes public property when one is in danger of taking on a title,” he said. “At least, one becomes one’s mama’s property. She is vastly impressed with my new status, Allie, and quite insistent that I give up my widowed state. I will have to choose a sweet young thing, someone who can breed for me for the next twenty years or so. I am bound to find someone this spring. The city is positively bursting at the seams with them.”
    “Piers!”Alice scolded.
    “Oh, have no fear,” he said. “I shall treat her well, Allie, once I have made her Mrs. Westhaven with the carrot of becoming Lady Berringer dangling in front of her nose. I always treated Harriet well.”
    “Yes, you did,” she agreed.
    He uncrossed his ankles and stood up abruptly. “Apart from the small matter that I killed her,” he said.
    Alice rose, too, and set a hand on his arm. “No,” she said. “I thought you had long ago put such a nonsensical idea behind you. Of course you did not kill her. Many women die in childbed, Piers. It is a fact of our existence.”
    “Well,” he said. “It was my child that killed her, was it not? I was not aware that she was sleeping with anyone else.”
    “Nonsense!” she said. “You must not start doing this again. Web is no longer here to deal with you. Is it because you are thinking of marrying again? And having children again?”
    He laughed. “When I have a dozen sons and half a dozen daughters,” he said, “will you come and nurse them when they fall sick with measles or influenza or ill-nature Allie?”
    “Goodness,” she said, horrified. “Of course I will not. I will not be their aunt and will owe them no attention at all.”
    “No, you won’t, will you?” he said regretfully. “But if I fall sick of bad temper from having so many bawling infants around me, will you come and nurse me, Allie?”
    “Not at all,” she said. “You will have a wife to perform that office. I shall merely write you a letter to tell you that it serves you right.”
    “Will you?” he said. “How unkind of you. You need not order your carriage, Allie. I brought the curricle, guessing that you would be on your way to Portman Square. I will drive you there as soon as you have put on your bonnet. You must not let Bruce and your sister-in-law or those children monopolize your time, by the way. I demand some of it. I shall take you to the theater, and drive you about London. I need some sensible companionship occasionally.”
    “If you wish to impress some sweet young thing,” she said, “you will not wish to be seen with me.”
    “Oh, you are quite out there,” he said. “They are already falling all over themselves, you know, not to mention their mamas. It would quite go to my head, Allie, if the same females had not almost ignored me just five months ago.”
    “I shall fetch my bonnet,” Alice said.

Chapter 2
    DURING the afternoon of the same day in another part of London, a post chaise was setting down two weary travelers outside a handsome town house on Russell Square. Though two servants hurried immediately down the steps in order to unload their baggage and carry it inside, the master of this house did not stand on ceremony or think it beneath his dignity to run down the steps himself, despite his