The Naked Viscount by Sally Mackenzie Read Free Book Online Page B

need an heir immediately. Not now. Not this year.” He’d taken a deep breath. He was a grown man. The aunts could not force him into parson’s mousetrap. “I have plenty of time for such things.”
    â€œYou don’t know that,” Louisa said. “You could step outside this afternoon and be run down by a carriage.”
    â€œThank you for the warning, Aunt Louisa, but I’ve managed to navigate London’s highways and byways successfully so far.”
    â€œIt’s only a matter of time; London’s traffic is dreadful.”
    â€œYes, well, gruesome considerations aside, you still can’t shilly-shally any longer,” Gertrude said. “You’re past thirty, aren’t you?” She’d looked down her nose at him—a good trick as he was a half a foot taller than she.
    â€œAh…”
    â€œYou’re thirty-three, Edmund,” Louisa said.
    â€œExactly.” Gertrude nodded. “We gave you an extra three years. I wanted to have this discussion on your thirtieth birthday, but Winifred persuaded me to wait.”
    Thank God for small favors.
    â€œWhere is Winifred?” He’d try anything to change the subject.
    Aunt Gertrude just stared at him. “Away. Now about your marriage.”
    â€œAunt Gertrude, I do not wish to discuss marriage.”
    â€œYou must discuss it. There is no time to waste.”
    â€œGertrude is right, Edmund.” Cordelia had put a hand on his arm. “You know it took your grandpapa more than a dozen years to get an heir. And your papa, though fortunate to have you so quickly, had no other sons.”
    Gertrude’d snorted. “Well, there’s no secret why that was. I never understood why he married Dorcas. She was such a milk-and-water miss.”
    Louisa laughed. “It was crystal clear why he married the girl—he had no choice. He was caught with his breeches down, literally. And as it turned out, she was increasing with Edmund here.”
    â€œAnd she was very beautiful,” Cordelia said.
    â€œIf you like china dolls.” From her tone, it was clear Louisa did not.
    Ah, yes, Motton thought, shaking his head to dispel the memory of the aunts’ arrival, his father and his mother. He took another swallow of brandy. Theirs had been a marriage made in hell, not heaven. His father had been pushed up the church aisle just as the aunts seemed determined to push him.
    He’d be damned if he ever let himself be trapped the way his father had been—though that had been partly his randy papa’s fault. If the man hadn’t always been ruled by his cock…
    He took another swallow of brandy. His cock had been rather insistent over in Widmore’s study just now. He hadn’t done Miss Parker-Roth permanent damage, but if word did get out, she’d be as compromised as if he had.
    Surely she wouldn’t tell Winifred—that had to have been an empty threat.
    Damn it all, he did not want a marriage like his parents’. He would rather have his title revert to the Crown. Papa had lived in Town, drinking and whoring; Mama had languished in the country, quacking her imagined ills with pills and potions. When Motton was sixteen, Papa died of apoplexy in his current mistress’s bed, and then Mama took a touch too much laudanum to finally end her ills, real and imagined. No, he’d have no part of that kind of marriage.
    He ran his hand through his hair. Why did he keep picturing a certain annoying neighbor? Hell, when Winifred had been listing all the young ladies of the ton, he’d been thinking only of Miss Parker-Roth. Winifred had mentioned her, but in passing—and he’d had to bite his tongue to rectify that oversight.
    Was he completely mad? That would have been like waving a red flag inches from a bull’s face.
    He’d been amongst the ton too much recently—he was acting out of character. First he’d agreed to Ardley’s