Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1)(45)

At the kitchen entrance, he dismounted and reached to help her down. Looping the horses’s reins over the iron rail, he opened the door, took her hand and led her inside. He’d spent most of the afternoon rehearsing a speech about marriage and money and a future they might build together. But as he escorted her through the scullery and up the servants’ back stairs to the first floor and the pink marble foyer, he felt lost. His mind went blank.

“Oh, my,” she exclaimed as she turned in a circle to view his ancestors whose portraits hung in the massive hall. “My relatives are not so many.”

“And not so dour, I’d bet.” He hurried to the butler’s closet, found two candles in holders and lit them with a flint.

She lifted her taper to illuminate one painting and pointed toward one male peacock in vermilion velvet doublet and black codpiece. “Who is this gentleman?”

“Ah, Randy Roderick Ash. No gentleman at all. A courtier to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. A spy for the Crown. A seducer of many women. Father of too many children, all illegitimate but one.”

“Good for the family,” she said with humor. “And who is this lady?”

“The fourth marchioness, Lady Ann Ash. A terror they say. Ruled her husband with an iron hand, saved the estate from the clutches of Oliver Cromwell and bore her husband ten children.”

“A lioness. Was she never Duchess of Seton?”

“The marquessate was given as a land grant separate from the duchy. The estate has remained in the family as the support of the marquess, run separately.”

“So, this house is really yours?” She seemed surprised.

“It has always belonged to the next marquess of Chelton upon his twenty-first birthday. Along with the sixteen thousand acres of rich farmland. Half as grand as many in this county, but good soil.”

“Does that mean you are self-supporting?”

Good God. The things she asked. Thank heaven he had answers. Sound ones. “Slightly. We have hopes for a good harvest this season. But bad weather has taken its toll.” He paused.

She tipped her head. “And what else has?”

“Over the past few years, I’ve poured most of my winnings at the tables into new plows, younger horses and new seed. But I’m not as skillful a gambler as I thought. What I’ve contributed has meant some improvement.” But it needs more. And damned if I want to marry and use my wife’s money to make it so.

“Pinkie tells me his own estate fails to produce what it did even last year. You are not alone in your predicament.”

He stared at her. Pinkie would want her dowry to shore up his failing income. The bugger.

She caught sight of something in the parlor. “Might we go in there?”

He nodded, pleased she diverted the conversation, while he searched for a way to move the conversation to his main goal.

“Whose is that?” she asked when she stood beneath the massive silver sword crossed with a straight saber.

“My grandfather’s sword on the left. He fought with Wellington and took the saber on the right from a French Cuirassier whom he relieved of his life. He insisted my father become expert at fencing and so my father bade me learn the same value of a good thrust and parry.”

“I’m glad you need not use it.”

He put a hand to his heart, pained. “But if you should, I am prepared.”

“I’m impressed. My relatives are an even more ragtag bunch. My father comes from the wharves of Dublin. My mother was born to poor farmers in Baltimore. The fights they fought were to eat and stay alive.”

“And done very well, I’d say.”

“My father has. I’ve no claim to ingenuity.” She waved a dismissive hand and walked toward a landscape painting of courtiers at the hunt. “Do you track game?”

“Shooting parties. Yes, we do. Have you gone to any since you’re here in England?”

She shook her head. “I’d love to be invited.”

“Really?” That stunned him.

“Quite.” She looked up at him over her shoulder. Her abundant hair curled over her ears in enticing tendrils and her mouth was open, ripe with humor. “I’m a very good shot.”

“A good horsewoman and an excellent marksman. I must remember that.”

“But you’d hunt with me? Even if I bagged more grouse?”

Her teasing had him laughing. He put his own candle down on the table behind her and took hers from her to set aside as well. When he returned to her, she melted against him. Her lips parted. Her breasts bore into him. She was all warmth and sensual woman. He enveloped her, the wealth of her a raw temptation to his desire to remain a gentleman.

She went up on her toes and brushed her lips on his. “Say you’d hunt with me.”

“Not for years and years,” he heard himself saying as his lips sizzled with the lure of her own on his. “I’d have better things to do with you.”

Horrid man that he was, he scooped her up and found the settee, his legs weak as a baby’s from wanting her. He sent his hands into her hair, the heavy silk alluring to his fingertips. She wiggled, her efforts to sink into him spiking his cock to ribald heights.

She placed her mouth on his, a full kiss, mad in its appeal.

He bent over her, smoothing her hair back over her ear, admiring the beauty in his arms and warning himself…warning himself to remain in control.