The Misguided Matchmaker Read Free Page B

take but a fortnight
or so, and since this whole scheme with your brother hinges on it, I’d advise
you to think twice before you turn it down.”
    Tristan
gritted his teeth. He didn’t like the implied threat in Harcourt’s words, but he
had no choice; for his family’s sake, he had to listen.
    Harcourt
leaned his elbows on the desk and tented his fingers. “It’s like this. My
daughter, Madelaine, is living in Lyon with her maternal grandfather, a
Frenchie count, but the old tartar sent word he’s dying and he doesn’t want
Maddy left alone when he sticks his spoon in the wall. Well, neither do I , so I want you to go get her. I’ll send you to Calais in
one of my brigs, and my captain will wait there while you see Maddy safely from
Lyon—a task that should be relatively easy for a man with your background.”
    Tristan
gave a noncommittal grunt, deciding it prudent to hear the rest of this cit’s
demands before he made any promise.
    Harcourt
then turned to Garth. “Which brings us to the second term in our proposed
contract, my lord. What I want from you in exchange for saving your bacon is a
written promise that once Maddy gets here, you’ll make her your countess.”
    The
faint, hopeful color that had bloomed in Garth’s face for a few moments receded
like the tide vacating a beach, leaving him as pale and gray as a piece of
sun-bleached driftwood. “You want me to mar-marry your daughter? I have never
met your daughter.”
    “Of
course you haven’t. Haven’t seen her myself for fifteen years. Her mother went
haring back to France, with Maddy in tow, once she found the titled biddies of
the London ton wouldn’t give a common merchant’s wife the time of day.
I’d but one ship then, which I captained myself, so I hadn’t the wherewithal to
do anything about it. The situation is different now. I’m a rich man and I’m
determined no door in London, including that of Carlton House, will ever be
closed in Maddy’s face. And if spending a fortune to see a title tacked onto
her name is what it takes to ensure that, then so be it.”
    Harcourt
pounded his fist on the desk with such force his inkwell skipped to within an
inch of the edge. The sound drove through Tristan’s aching head like a team and
four. Only by sheer willpower did he keep from moaning aloud.
    He
could see Garth was beyond worrying about appearances. Eyes closed, he pressed
his shaking fingers to his temples, as if the combination of Harcourt’s bizarre
proposition and the after-effects of too much brandy had pushed him beyond his
limits.
    Harcourt
waved the stack of vowels before Garth’s nose. “Take my offer, my lord. Or
leave it and suffer the consequences. You may be the pick of the litter, but
you’re not the only impoverished nobleman in England.”
    Garth
groaned.
    “How
many men in your situation get the chance to put their affairs in order and
take on a fine strapping wife to boot?”
    “Strapping?”
Garth echoed faintly. His eyes were closed and his complexion had taken on an
oddly bilious tinge.
    Tristan
eyed his whey-faced brother nervously, but Harcourt didn’t appear to notice
that anything was amiss. “So then, what do you say lad?” he demanded in a
hearty baritone that reverberated through the small room like a clanging gong.
“Is it agreed then—a fortune for a leg shackle?”
    Garth
cast one pathetic glance in Tristan’s direction. His eyes held the furtive look
of a fox that, trapped by hounds, knows his fate is sealed. “Agreed,” he said
in a strangled voice and as Tristan watched in horror, the Fifth Earl of Rand
fell forward onto his knees beside Caleb Harcourt’s desk and, clutching his
high-crowned beaver like a basin, cast up his accounts.
     
    Madelaine
Harcourt had no way of knowing if the person pounding on the door of her
grandfather’s small house was friend or foe—a fellow Royalist come to help care
for the dying aristocrat or a Bonapartist bent on revenge toward the emperor’s
most