No Marriage of Convenience Read Free Page B

up, he found Belton entering the study. The family butler for two generations, Belton remained the stalwart defender of the house. As a child, Mason had thought Belton old. Looking at the crusty butler today, he wagered the man to be in his seventies, an age when others were confined to their chairs complaining of gout. The only evidence that the butler had aged in the last twenty years was a smattering of gray hair at his temples.
    “Yes, Belton, what is it?”
    “My lord, there is a person who wishes to see you,” the butler announced, a slight Scottish burr tingeing his words and giving away his Highland origins.
    Mason knew when Belton’s speech slipped from anything other than his normally upper crust London tones, it meant another bill collector had arrived. Belton possessed an unholy disdain for those in trade, and an even worse attitude toward those who expected their bills to be paid. And it always came out in his accent.
    “Send him in,” Mason said, rising to his feet and returning to his chair behind Frederick’s imposing mahogany desk.
    “As you wish, my lord.” Belton nodded, then exited the room.
    Mason turned to his cousin, who was getting up to leave. “Fleeing before the storm?”
    “I have no wits for these matters, my boy. Truly it isbest if you handle these people.” She began retrieving her discarded bits of silk and clippings.
    Mason saw through her haste. “No, stay. I insist. It could be your dressmaker, after all.”
    When she ignored him further, continuing to gather her jumble of belongings with even greater speed, Mason realized he was on to something.
    “Is that a new gown?” He didn’t need to hear her answer, for her own guilty features convicted her on the spot. “I hope that went on Lord Chilton’s account, and not mine.”
    Cousin Felicity opened her mouth to protest such a gross impropriety, but before she could utter a word, Belton admitted their unwanted guest. If Cousin Felicity had been gaping like a freshly hooked salmon, her mouth opened even further at the sight of a woman entering the study, a spectacle far more welcome than the weasel-eyed bill collector Mason had expected.
    Suddenly realizing his lapse in manners, he bounded to his feet.
    Though he knew his cousin was far too near-sighted to really see the woman, even a blind man would have had a hard time missing the vibrant green of the woman’s gown or the rich glitter of silver embroidery decorating the fabric.
    Having reviewed enough bills lately for women’s clothing and toiletries, he knew the woman before him was a walking fortune. Her wide-brimmed straw hat, powdered and curled wig, and frothy silk gown alone would fetch enough gold to ward off the worst of his creditors.
    Mason’s gut tightened as his imagination suddenly envisioned just that, this creature stripped of her finery and standing before him clad in only her shift.
    It wasn’t that difficult to picture, as he glanced for alingering moment at her low-cut bodice where her full breasts threatened to spill out.
    Eh gads , he was starting to think like Frederick.
    So he tried to study her as a professor would, as a theory or hypothesis to ponder.
    His classical training told him she had the figure of a Venus and the grace of a Diana. But mythology studies hadn’t prepared him for the way his breath stopped in his throat.
    Cousin Felicity’s gasp brought his attention back up to the entrance of the room where, ducking through the door, a man with Eastern features followed the lady.
    This additional guest wore a tall red silk turban, which only added to his great height and breadth. Stretched across his nearly bare, muscled chest he wore an open, richly embroidered tunic which fell to his knees and contrasted sharply with his wide-legged striped trousers. Tucked in a black leather belt circling the man’s waist glittered a wicked Saracen blade.
    Whatever untoward thoughts Mason had amassed about the lady, they cooled somewhat with one dark