The Viscount Needs a Wife by Jo Beverley Read Free Book Online

command. Instead, the Regent was hiding in Brighton, surrendering to grief over his daughter’s death, and the government seemed paralyzed by his absence.
    The situation could explode at any moment, and Braydon needed to be on hand in London, but damned duty tied him here. It was months since his predecessor died, and things had slid awry. Some of the paperwork was in disarray, possibly in order to obscure errors and even theft. Money was certainly unaccounted for. In addition, he hadto handle the fifth viscount’s mother, the dowager Lady Dauntry, and his difficult daughter, Isabella.
    He was learning his new trade and beginning to put things straight, but accounts, documents, and land management were one thing; difficult females were another. It was only natural that the dowager Lady Dauntry was in deep grief over the loss of her son and grandson, and Isabella mourned the loss of her father and brother. He understood why they both resented the stranger who’d taken over their home and could throw them out on a whim. Facts were facts, however. They were all stuck in this mess and nothing could change it. He’d pinned his hopes of sanity on a quick marriage to a sensible widow—a woman like the excellent Ruth Lulworth. Clearly opposites attracted. Had he somehow offended the gods that they thwarted him at every turn?
    Pale Beauchamp Abbey was his ball and chain, but it was a handsome house. It had been well designed and well built nearly two hundred years ago, in a simple style that had probably been based on the Queen’s House in Greenwich, which was a notable work by Inigo Jones.
    The gardens in front had a similar old-fashioned formality, and there, walking three small white dogs along a white gravel path, was Isabella, in deepest black. She was still in her mourning period, but she and her grandmother dripped with black and jet as a blatant reproach to cruel fate—that is, him.
    He carried on to the stables and put Ivor in the hands of Baker, his groom. Nearly all the servants here were from the fifth viscount’s time, so he appreciated the few of his own.
    â€œAny problems?” he asked quietly. He’d been away for only six hours, but anything was possible.
    â€œNothing to speak of, milord. A Lord Nunseath paid acall. Happened to be passing by, he said. From fifteen miles away.”
    A remarkable number of gentry and aristocracy did that, and Dauntry was glad to have missed one. They properly welcomed him to his new elevation, but they all bore invitations from their ladies, and most mentioned available daughters with handsome dowries, charming accomplishments, or both. He should have sought a bride from among those, but such a lady would not have welcomed a hasty wooing, nor her husband’s intention to leave her in command here and live mostly in Town. In addition, she would have brought entanglements.
    The visiting gentlemen all sounded out his politics, trying to discover what side he’d be on in national and especially local matters. Some had requested financial support for this good cause and that. Braydon would pour out guineas to be rid of them, but he’d detected local politics behind some causes, and a few seemed like outright fraud. It wasn’t in his nature to ignore that. A wife without local connections had seemed to be a good idea.
    He entered the house by the back door that lay close to his office, first entering the room used by his secretary. Worseley rose to hand him a message from the parsonage. As feared, it told him that Mrs. Cateril had arrived.
    â€œAnything else of importance?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    Braydon put the letter in his pocket as he progressed to the front hall, considering what to do about the widow. He could write to say she would not suit. She’d know why. But that brought problems of its own.
    As he crossed the hall toward the staircase, Isabella entered by the front door. The little white dogs yapped the alarm as if