No Marriage of Convenience Read Free

forward in a confidential manner. “Frederick informed me thusly whenever my dressmaker became rude or insistent about my account.”
    “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Cousin Felicity, but debts are never overlooked, honorable or not.”
    “But Frederick said—”
    He held up his hand to stop her from spouting another litany of Frederickisms. Even Mason had his limits with the saintly accomplishments and nonsensical witticisms his cousin attributed daily to his deceased brother.
    “Really, Mason, you always tended toward exaggeration as a child. I would have thought you’d have outgrown that by now. Our situation can hardly be as bad as you say.”
    “I don’t see how it could be any worse.”
    “If that is the case, you could secure quite a tidy fortune by marrying Miss Pindar,” she began deliberately. “She’s just come out of mourning for her father, and from what I hear, she’s exceedingly well off. Yes, that would be the perfect solution.” She went back to selecting a thread.
    Mason leaned over the mounds of paper and gave his cousin what he hoped was a censuring look.
    Marry Miss Pindar?
    He’d rather suffer transportation to Botany Bay. The girl embodied every vapid, silly pretension he detested. Besides, he’d never considered himself the marrying type, having been happy until now to live out a bachelor existence.
    But if Cousin Felicity wanted to deal out marriage cards, he had one of his own.
    “Cousin Felicity, why don’t you marry Lord Chilton?”
    Cousin Felicity turned a rosy shade at the mention of her twenty-year romance with the reluctant baron. “I wouldn’t find that convenient right now.” She took on a renewed interest in her silks.
    Mason knew that what she was really saying was that she hadn’t been asked. Not once in all these years. Oh, he hadn’t meant to embarrass her about her hesitant beau, but he found it the only way to stop her from pushing this proposed marriage to the cloying and wealthy Miss Pindar. And with Cousin Felicity temporarily quieted, he could get back to the accounts at hand.
    “My heavens,” Cousin Felicity said, interrupting his tally of the greengrocer’s bill. “Have you considered the girls’ dowries? You could borrow against those accounts.”
    Mason shook his head. He should have known Cousin Felicity never gave up easily. “Frederick drained themyears ago,” he told her. “Even Caroline’s dower lands are mortgaged to the rooftops.”
    Cousin Felicity looked aghast as the reality of their situation finally sank in. “Whatever shall we do?” True to form, the elderly lady finally gave way to a full bout of weeping. “Take my poor pin money. I also have some set aside…. It is yours, my dear boy. Take it with my best wishes,” she said between sobs.
    “No, please, Cousin Felicity,” Mason said, getting up from the desk and sitting beside her. He couldn’t take her small allowance, besides the fact that it probably wouldn’t even begin to cover their bare necessities. But perhaps now she’d be willing to discuss the economies he’d been trying to explain to her earlier when she’d come into his study to badger him about firing their French chef. “You know how I feel about tears.”
    “But the girls…” she wailed. “How will they ever hope to find husbands without dowries?”
    Mason groaned. Not this husband subject again. It was worse than discussing his order that she cease her weekly visits to the dressmaker.
    “Oh, Mason, this is a disaster. I’ll not say another word about the way you cast out dear Henri, for the girls must have husbands. I will forgo whatever necessities I must, for I’ve promised them all brilliant matches.”
    “Cousin Felicity, you should never have made them such a vow.” He lowered his voice, and though he felt guilty saying it, he uttered the words both he and Cousin Felicity knew were true. “There isn’t enough gold in all of England to entice a man to marry one of those