Engagement of Convenience. Georgie Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ the cut was unflattering and her hair, which was still fastened in the simple braided bun at the nape of her neck, did nothing to improve her features.

      ‘If only I were pretty enough to catch Simon without my money.’ She sighed and then dismissed the ridiculous notion. ‘I might as well wish for gold to fall from the sky.’

      Pulling out the bun, she brushed out her hair. A man like Simon couldn’t resist the allure of money and she’d parade herself in front of him like a fat cow at market. Dignity be damned. She had to have Cable Grange for if she ended her days as a spinster aunt, she’d do it on her terms in her own house.

      * * *

      ‘I never thought I’d see Melinda again.’ James smacked the cue stick hard against the white ball, sending it skipping over the slate, off the table and across the library’s wood floor.

      George picked it up, laying it back on the table. ‘You aren’t still chewing on that, are you? Let it go. No good can come of it.’

      ‘Except an estate. I wasn’t planning it—I couldn’t have planned it—yet here it is, in my lap. I only have to wait for the bailiff to act, then I’ll watch them go and be done with it.’ Revenge coiled inside him with unnerving force. Even in the days after Melinda betrayed him, he hadn’t felt this much hate, but things were different then. His naval career had stretched out before him to blunt the disappointment and at sea he’d been too focused on succeeding and surviving to dwell on lost love. Now, with his career a shattered heap, his whole life crushed and bruised with it, there seemed nothing to distract him from old wounds. He flexed his left hand, cursing the dull pain. How he hated it and the way it made him hate everything.

      George shook his head. ‘That’s not the Jim I remember.’

      ‘A lot of things changed last year.’

      ‘No, you just think they have. Look to the future. Don’t concern yourself with some past offence that no longer matters.’

      ‘You think it doesn’t matter?’

      ‘I think Rowan did you a favour, showed you who she really was before she leg-shackled you.’ George leaned across the table and took a shot, scoring another point. ‘Of course it’s your decision and Cable Grange will suit you, but you’ll need something more or you’ll be bored in a fortnight.’

      ‘You thinking running an estate won’t be enough?’ He reached for his glass of brandy sitting on the edge of the table.

      ‘Not for a man like you. You need adventure and what better adventure than marriage?’ George announced.

      James stopped drinking mid-sip. ‘Marriage?’

      ‘Yes, marriage.’ George hooked his thumbs in his coat, quite pleased with himself.

      ‘What new scheme are you planning?’ He didn’t trust George’s happy manner.

      ‘Scheme? I never scheme.’

      ‘Never scheme?’ James laughed. ‘What was all that business with the rum in Jamaica?’

      ‘Merely an investment.’

      ‘And the plantation owner’s wife in Barbados?’

      ‘One could hardly fault me for such an escapade.’

      ‘Except the escapade’s husband.’

      George shrugged, unrepentant. ‘You’re a man of your own mind. I never forced you to participate in the rum venture or follow me to the plantation.’

      ‘I followed you to save your hide and keep her husband from running you through.’

      ‘Perhaps.’ George fingered his cue stick, then levelled it at James. ‘But you went along with the other ventures because you wanted to, making a handsome profit on more than one occasion if I remember correctly.’

      ‘Yes, I have a great deal of my current fortune to thank you for.’

      ‘So why distrust me now?’

      It wasn’t George he distrusted. It was himself. He hadn’t seen Miss Howard since returning from Daringford, but following George through Knollwood, he kept searching for her in every room, hoping she might appear. Her presence touched a place deep inside him he thought destroyed with his career and the feeling left him wary and unsettled. One woman had already preyed on the weakness of his youth. He couldn’t allow another to take advantage of his ruined life.

      George fixed him with a stern, superior officer’s stare. ‘Seriously, Jim, you had a bad run last year, but you can’t live in the past. You’re young, full of possibility. You need a good woman by your side.’

      ‘I suppose you have someone in mind? Your little Artemis, perhaps?’

      George leaned towards James, the glint of mischief in his eyes. James knew this expression all too well. How many times had he followed it into a tavern, or the heat of battle? ‘Now that you mention it, perhaps Julia is just the kind of woman you need. Sizeable inheritance. Brother in Parliament. Adept at running an estate. She’s a good match.’

      James shook his head as he readied his cue stick. Is this what his life had come to? Discussing marriage over a billiard table? Country life must be very dull to lead an old salt like George to such a pastime. ‘Interesting suggestion—however, it has two flaws.’

      ‘And they are?’

      ‘One, I have no desire to marry, which you well know.’

      ‘At the moment, yes, but there’s always the future.’

      ‘And two, your Artemis doesn’t like me.’

      ‘Of course she likes you. She’s just an awkward girl. Spent too much time in the country, odd relatives and all that.’

      ‘Odd indeed.’ James hit the cue ball and it sailed past the red ball. ‘I see a great deal of Paul in his sister.’

      ‘There you are with the past again. Forget it. Paul was young. You were young and both of you stupid.’

      ‘I’d hardly say stupid.’

      ‘Stubborn, then, if you like. You’d be surprised to see him now.’

      ‘“Surprised” is not the word. Does your Artemis know I wrote to the Admiralty against Paul’s promotion?’

      ‘I didn’t see the need to inform her and I suggest you don’t either if you wish to have a pleasant visit. You don’t want to be on the wrong end of my niece’s temper.’

      As if I needed the warning. ‘You don’t think she’ll find out?’

      ‘He’s off at sea and you’re here, not likely to meet.’

      James had to admire George’s devil-may-care attitude. Here was a man who always believed everything would work out swimmingly and somehow for him it always did. What James wouldn’t give for even a small measure of George’s optimism, but the last year had left him anything but optimistic. The long days of his recovery followed by the even longer days of stalking СКАЧАТЬ