A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World by Jo Beverley Read Free Book Online Page A

replotting his course. “Then I regret I’ll have to sell Fancy Free in order to purchase a stallion of quality.”
     
    “Put her up for auction? Not the way to treat such a horse.”
     
    “I agree, but I’ve less need of a fine mare than I have of a fine stallion. If you were to pay her value…”
     
    The earl pinched his heavy lower lip. “Cash is damned hard to come by these days, Dracy. You must know that. The war, the prices. Things are bad all around.” He pushed out of his chair and went to the decanter. “One of my younger sons has proven expensive.”
     
    He waved the bottle at Dracy, but he declined, wondering where this was leading.
     
    The earl sat down again. “I could sell some unentailed land, but it’s a wicked thing to sell land. Wicked. A betrayal of our ancestors who gathered it.”
     
    “I agree, sir,” Dracy said, thinking of the unentailed land Ceddie had sold, but also trying to anticipate what was coming.
     
    Lieutenant Arthur Perriam, RN’s gambling debts were no surprise, nor was the earl’s opinion about the sacred trust of land. Both had been part of his calculations. Hernescroft was steering a careful course of his own, however, and Dracy didn’t like the fact that he had no idea what it was.
     
    “I have another exchange to propose.”
     
    “Yes, sir?”
     
    Hernescroft drank. Delaying?
     
    “A different kind of filly, but worth more than Fancy Free. Much more.”
     
    Dracy chose to be merely attentive.
     
    “My daughter.”
     
    “Your
daughter
?”
     
    “Herportion’s twelve thousand. You could buy a herd of stallions for that. You’ll have to sign settlements for a widow’s jointure of two thousand a year and give her generous pin money, but the twelve thousand will be yours, cash in hand, upon your wedding day. It’s a more than fair exchange.”
     
    “It is indeed,” Dracy said, feeling as if he’d been navigating a tricky shore and been ambushed by a dense fog.
     
    “I’m speaking of my youngest girl, Lady Maybury. A widow, but ripe to marry again.”
     
    Titian hair.
     
    Laughing, minxish beauty.
     
    Wicked, wanton doxy.
     
    Attached to that lady the word “ripe” was alarming, and this offer was astounding. He was no match for an earl’s well-dowried daughter.
     
    “You’ll have heard of her,” the earl prompted.
     
    “She was pointed out to me at the race.”
     
    “Devil take the chit!” the earl exploded. “Dressed in breeches to boot. I’ll give Pranksworth a piece of my mind for bringing her, but he’ll say she’d have come anyway. Headstrong, headstrong. But,” he added quickly, “not leather-mouthed and no true vice in her.”
     
    The fog had parted a little, but only to reveal jagged rocks.
     
    “Not an attractive package,” Dracy said, remembering his pity of the man who had to tame her.
     
    Surprisingly, the earl laughed. “Is she not? Then why are half the men in England drooling after her? That’s my problem, Dracy. She plans to marry again. Only natural at twenty.”
     
    “Twenty!” Dracy exclaimed. He’d imagined such a sinful jade to be much older.
     
    “Married her off at sixteen. Maybury was well known to us and had just come into his earldom. He was onlynineteen, but his mother and guardians were keen to see him wedlocked before he reached his majority and married a doxy.”
     
    Dracy kept the obvious comment to himself.
     
    “Couldn’t manage her, of course. Encouraged her in folly, if the truth is told. The fool liked her causing talk. Lady May, the beau monde dubbed her, but we thought she’d settle once she had children. That didn’t happen, and then there was the Vance affair.”
     
    “Vance?”
     
    “Sir Charnley Vance,” the earl said. “The one who killed Maybury in a duel. You’ll have heard of that?”
     
    “Only a snippet, at the race.” Dracy had the distinct impression that Hernescroft wished he’d not mentioned it.
     
    “Ah, well, overseas when it happened, I