In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) Read Free

to know that, did he? It gave him one more incentive to agree to her plan.
    She always had a plan, and several alternates should unfortunate circumstances prevail. Mary rather thought she had Captain Cooper’s full attention now. He glared at her with one bloodshot blue eye.
    “Go on,” he barked, in much the tone he’d probably used to command his troops in the Transvaal.
    “It’s simple, really. My client is in need of a handsome, cultured gentleman to pose as her husband during the Christmas holidays at one of the premiere country houses in England. Rosemont. In Kent. Have you heard of it? It was featured in the December 1900 issue of
The English Illustrated Magazine
.”
    “I’m afraid I wasn’t in the country at the time to read any society magazines, Mrs. Evensong,” the captain said dryly.
    “Of course you weren’t. I know you were serving honorably in Africa. I simply mention it because it is a very grand property and it will be a privilege to call it home for a month.”
    “Till death do us part, or just thirty days? Why does this girl need a fake husband?”
    “She has had some difficulty with her family. It seemed a good idea to her at the time to invent a husband.” Privately, Mary thought that Louisa Stratton had been just a little too madcap for comfort, but one couldn’t undo the past unless one was very clever. Which Mary was. Over the years, she’d rescued several young ladies from their ill-advised activities and no one was the wiser.
    Cooper rubbed his stubbled chin. “How much?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “What’s the pay? I have family, too.”
    Mary Evensong knew. Two older brothers, their wives, and their numerous offspring, most of them working in one of George Alexander’s pottery works. Cooper would likely be employed on the factory floor beside them had not Mr. Alexander plucked him off it when he was a lad of twelve and sent him to school. George Alexander had seen promise in young Charlie Cooper, and Mrs. Evensong squinted at him to try to do the same. Mr. Alexander was a perspicacious gentleman, with a finger in many pies and a fortune that was not to be sneezed at.
    She quoted the price she and Miss Stratton had agreed upon. Captain Cooper turned the color of the dingy shirt on the floor.
    “For a
month
? Are you serious?”
    Ah, that made him get up and start pacing about the room in an agitated fashion. He must have been quite handsome marching about in his uniform—it was a pity that Maximillian Norwich was an effete art connoisseur and not a soldier.
    “Perfectly. The Evensong Agency has been in business since 1888. We have never broken our word once,” Mary said, lying just the tiniest bit. “There will be a proper wardrobe for you, too. One cannot go to a house like Rosemont in a celluloid collar.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out the business card of a discreet tailor and handed it to the captain when he shuffled by her. Mr. Smythe could give any haberdasher on Jermyn Street a run for their money for quality at less than half the price. “You have an appointment at noon tomorrow. I shall escort you. And I must have your promise. You will give up your drink. Maximillian Norwich would never swill cheap gin.”
    “Who?”
    “Did I not mention that is the name of my client’s imaginary husband? You shall have to answer to it.”
    Charles Cooper’s weathered face broke out into a grin. His teeth were remarkably good for a man of the lower classes. “Mrs. Evensong, for the amount of money your idiot client is paying me, I would answer to Fido. Max it is.”
    Miss Stratton might insist on
Maximillian
—she’d seemed especially enamored of the name—but Mary did not want to press her luck. There was a great deal to be done in the next few days and a cheerful Charles Cooper was far superior to the morose man she’d first encountered.
    In fact, perhaps she should help him pack his few belongings and offer him the spare room on Mount Street. She and