Temptation Has Green Eyes Read Free Page B

Max’s side. His mother should have her house back.
    With Russell’s fortune, starting with the no doubt generous settlement that would come with Sophia, he could do it. Restore the parts that had suffered during his time as owner and give it back to her.
    And he wanted to give his sister something more than she had now. Poppy deserved better. Because she was a single female, she had to live with her mother, which meant sharing the peripatetic life the dowager Lady Devereaux led these days.
    Poppy should have a proper London season with the clothes to match. But when a lace petticoat cost more than a ship’s captain could earn in half a year, that was difficult. Had been difficult.
    Now Max could afford it, but he still needed a chaperone for Poppy. Somebody like—a wife.
    He kept coming back to the inevitable topic. The walk only served to firm his resolve, which Russell probably knew since he kept quiet for most of it. A good businessman knew when to keep his tongue between his teeth.
    They halted outside the office. Did he go in or not? Would he accept this agreement?
    He had no choice.
    Russell had dropped his daughter on Max like a woodcutter felling an oak tree.
    “In principle, I agree to both your propositions,” he said as calmly as he could. “Shall we?” Courteously he let the older man enter the building first and followed up the narrow stairway leading to the busy solicitor’s office, the clerk with half a dozen quills stuck in his hair waving them on with only a small bow of acknowledgement.
    All through the discussion of the various documents that put the agreement in place, Max’s mind kept drifting elsewhere. Every time he hit upon an objection to the marriage, a reasonable solution popped into his mind.
    Now he’d regained his fortune, women would start chasing him. He’d seen it happen to other men. Now his turn had arrived. Some mysterious scent, like trailing a corpse for the hounds affected men of title, wealth, and enough youth not to repel. No, forget the last one, Max had seen eighty-year-old dukes fall for the wiles of a twenty-year-old woman.
    Hell and damnation, he’d never had this difficulty making up his mind.
    Yes, damn it, he’d do it. He nodded when Mr. Fisk hesitated. “Go on. I daresay the marriage settlement is here?”
    His own man of business shot him a startled look. Max gave him a beatific smile in return. The original contract agreed upon, they settled to discussing the marriage contract and its ramifications.
    So Sophia was four-and-twenty? He had thought her younger. That changed his perspective on his colleague’s proposal because he’d never been in favor of marrying chits straight out of the schoolroom. He’d never had the luxury of a childhood or the customary Grand Tour that young men of his status generally undertook before settling into what passed for ordinary life. Max had little in common with the brats he’d been introduced to and found more conducive conversation with older women, who’d seen a little more and expected a lot less.
    He had to force himself to concentrate on the signing. He never signed a contract without reading it through just before he signed, in case the other party had tried to slip something in, hoping he wouldn’t notice. He always noticed.
    Today he could have been signing his soul away to the devil. He tried, but couldn’t concentrate.
    He hovered his pen over the other contract, the one binding him for life to a woman he hardly knew. And had a brainwave. “I cannot sign this without the other party present.”
    “Of course,” Russell said smoothly. “But we can have it ready for Sophia to sign. You can sign your part now.”
    Max tested the proposal, considered the aspects of tying himself to someone for life. If the personal association didn’t work, they would always have the business one.
    When Max made a decision, he didn’t delay. He preferred to see the matter through swiftly and efficiently. As far as he was