No Marriage of Convenience by Elizabeth Boyle Read Free Book Online Page A

said it plainly.
    He found her tolerably pretty .
    A pox and a bother. As if she cared what the likes of Lord Ashlin thought about her.
    Riley pushed her fingers up beneath her wig and scratched at her scalp. The towering horsehair contraption always gave her a headache. Not that Aggie’s diatribe wasn’t contributing a fair share to the pounding between her temples.
    She tipped her head toward him. “Help me out of this, would you please?”
    “Oh, of course, my love.” His great speech forgotten, Aggie sat down beside her and began unpinning the wig ever so gently, so as not to pull her own hair beneath it.“Whyever does Lord Ashlin want you to tutor his nieces in acting?”
    “Not acting. He wants me to prepare his nieces for the Marriage Mart. In exchange, he’s willing not to foreclose.”
    Satisfied that all the pins were out, Aggie gently lifted the wig off her head and stared at her as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.
    “You teaching them—” His shoulders convulsed. He clutched the chaise for support as he bent over in laughter. “Oh, this is too delicious.” He slumped over and continued to quake and howl until great streams of tears ran down his powdered cheeks. “Tell me, whatever possessed you to agree to such a ludicrous idea? I mean, you, of all people, teaching young girls the art of husband hunting.”
    “I hardly see the humor in all this. I saved our company from ruin. Besides, you’re the one who likes to quote the Observer ’s description of me all the time—‘an enthralling and engaging lady who held the audience’s enraptured attentions with her enticing and beguiling manners.’” Riley plucked at her lacy sleeves.
    Of all the people to be thrilled for them, Aggie should be thanking the stars that she had snatched them once again off the steps of debtor’s prison.
    “Yes, they did say that, Riley my love. But that is when you act. Offstage is another matter.”
    “Obviously, I know something about attracting men.”
    “Harumph! That’s a fine bit of nonsense if ever I heard any,” he declared, flouncing back into his seat at his dressing table. “Everything you learned, you learned from me. You may attract them, but you repel them just as quickly. This entire idea is foolish.”
    Riley couldn’t agree more, but she wasn’t about to tell Aggie that. “Well, if you don’t like it, you have no oneto blame but yourself. You came up with all that flimflam about me being the incarnation of Aphrodite—whatever that means. And it was you who insisted on spreading those tales that I am the distant daughter of Cleopatra, rescued from a pasha’s lascivious clutches and carried fevered and sickened through the desert by my faithful servant!” she said, nodding toward Hashim. “You’ve got the male half of London delirious to know my ‘Eastern secrets’ and the female half either secretly curious or appalled that I am allowed out in public.”
    Aggie made a failed attempt to look contrite. “That ‘flimflam,’ as you call it, has made our every production since Anthony and Cleopatra a sell-out!”
    “That’s fine now, but the Earl’s addlepated cousin insisted that with tutoring from a living goddess —” Riley paused and shuddered. Aphrodite’s Envy, indeed! “These girls would be betrothed before they made their debuts.”
    “And when are these little angels making their tender entrée into society?”
    “The night we open.”
    Aggie looked as if he’d not only drunk from Romeo’s vial of poison, but impaled himself on Juliet’s dagger as well. “But that’s only a month away and we’ve just started rehearsals.”
    Riley frowned at her best friend. “Don’t you think I’m well aware of that? I told you we should never have borrowed so much money from one person.”
    “Well, who would have thought a vital young man like Freddie St. Clair would go and stick his spoon in the wall? Why, he and his charming wife were the toast of London. I remember the