Counting on a Countess: The most outrageous Regency romance of 2019 that fans of Vanity Fair and Poldark will adore. Eva Leigh

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СКАЧАТЬ the ballroom. Langdon kept pace with him, and together they skirted the edge of the guests making their way through the complex patterns of a country dance.

      The women dancing all looked at him as he walked, but the moment he caught their gazes, he found something else to attract his interest—the twinkling chandeliers or the vases of hothouse roses positioned at the perimeter of the chamber.

      “You’re doing it again,” Langdon observed. “Dismissing girls left and right as though you’re deciding what waistcoat to wear.” He grinned at a willowy blonde widow, who sent him an inviting smile. Yet he continued to walk beside Kit as they made a circuit around the ballroom.

      “It cannot be helped,” Kit answered. He nodded his head toward different young ladies in the chamber. “Her laugh is too abrasive. That one’s as shy as a fawn. She’ll spend all my blunt and leave me foundering in even greater debt.”

      That last shortcoming was one he couldn’t permit. He needed Lord Somerby’s money to make his plans for the future come to fruition.

      After learning about the matrimonial condition of Somerby’s will, Kit had immediately gone to Lady Walford, the ton’s most accomplished gossip. He’d informed her—in strictest confidence—of his intention to marry within a month. She had agreed to hold his confidence, and by the following morning, everyone in Society knew that Lord Blakemere had given up his dissolute ways in order to secure himself a wife and fortune.

      “Here I am,” he grumbled lowly. “A titled man about to possess a considerable fortune, healthy, young, reasonably attractive—”

      “Reasonably,” Langdon noted drily.

      Kit shot him a quelling look. There had been a time not so long ago when he’d been full of good humor and jests, never wasting an opportunity for droll banter. But his sense of humor had disappeared the longer he was in the marriage market.

      “And I cannot locate one woman who’d make for a suitable wife,” he continued. He didn’t understand himself or his mystifying impulse to find fault with each female to cross his path. None of them seemed quite right.

      “I blame Somerby,” Langdon said. “God rest his soul. If he hadn’t gone on about what a sterling marriage he’d had and how he was utterly devoted to his late wife, you wouldn’t have such lofty ideals about what constitutes matrimony.”

      “Don’t be an ass,” Kit answered at once. “I know what marriage is supposed to be.” His own parents esteemed each other, just as any aristocratic couple should, and behaved accordingly in public and in private. The love Lord Somerby had felt for his dear Elizabeth was highly unusual, almost gauche in its effusiveness. Love was not part of genteel alliances.

      Neither was fidelity. Kit knew the concept existed in theory, but he’d never practiced it—nor did he want to. Sharing a bed with just a single person for the duration of one’s life seemed both impossible and terrifically dull.

      And searching for someone he could love . . . That was nigh impossible. For a number of reasons. You didn’t just bump into a young woman at a ball and realize that she was your soul mate. It was ridiculous to think that he might entertain such a thought.

      Duty was for wives. Passion for mistresses. And love . . . Love was a dream as elusive as peace.

      As he said this, a comely blonde nearby smiled at him. He felt a rise of hope as he returned the smile. But then he observed the whitening of her knuckles as she clutched her fan.

       Too desperate.

      Kit bit back a growl of frustration as he glanced away. At this rate, he’d be lucky to marry a drunk donkey.

      “You’re not precisely the ideal potential husband.” Langdon smirked.

      “I’ll have money, won’t I?” Kit demanded hotly. “They gave me an earldom. What more could a girl ask for?” His could feel his pleasure garden slipping from his grasp, and the obstacle in his path was himself.

      Langdon sent him a wry glance. “Oh, not much. Only temperance, fidelity, and fiscal responsibility.”

      “Bah,” Kit scoffed. “Who needs such a dullard?”

      “Most women of marriageable age,” Langdon replied.

      It would have been better if Kit had never been given the opportunity to inherit any amount of money. He could exist in the same pleasure-filled haze he always did, dreaming his dreams but without the expectation of fulfilling them.

      “I’ve been haunting every ball, tea, and soiree,” Kit muttered, fighting frustration and despair. “To no avail.”

      “A sticky conundrum,” Langdon agreed. He yawned into his hand. “There’s a reason why I avoid these dull assemblies. A decided lack of nudity.” He glanced around the ballroom and made a scoffing sound. “I’m off to the theater. Come with me?”

      Kit longed to leave, finding society balls as interesting as a sermon about dirt. But . . . “Got to stay here. No future brides wait for me in the demimondaines’ theater boxes.”

      His friend nodded in acknowledgment. “When you tire of your hunt, you know where to find me.”

      Kit gave him a distracted wave as he strode away, too busy brooding over his predicament to pay much attention to Langdon’s departure. They’d see each other on the morrow, anyway, at White’s. Ever since Kit returned from the War, he and Langdon had met at the club and then gone out every night—with a few exceptions—wringing excitement and diversion from London’s most disreputable attractions.

      He’d done his best to avoid those attractions these past three weeks. He’d been so respectable, it fair turned his stomach. But his sacrifice was in vain. He was as brideless as he’d been at the beginning of those three weeks.

      Frustrated, impatient, Kit muttered a curse and started for the card room at the other end of the chamber. He wouldn’t find a wife there, amidst the games of vingt-et-un and loo, since the amusements were set up primarily for men and married women. But at least it would help relieve a fraction of the tension that knotted his muscles and made him grit his teeth.

      Distracted as he was, his head tucked low, his gaze fixed on the parquet floor, he didn’t see the young woman in his path until it was almost too late. They nearly collided, but he pulled himself up just before smacking into her.

      “Excuse me, miss,” he exclaimed.

      The girl spoke with a distinct Cornish accent. “No harm done, sir.” She smiled at him.

      Her smile set off fires throughout his body. She fairly glowed with vibrancy.

      Kit didn’t recognize her, and he wouldn’t have forgotten meeting a girl with such vividly red hair—coppery and bright beneath the light of the chandelier—and he had a fierce need to see it loose about her shoulders. He was drawn in by her wide-set, light brown eyes, slightly tilted at the corners. Her full, rose-hued lips stirred a need in him, baffling in its swiftness.

      She had an elfin look, with a long, sleek form. The neckline of her pale green gown highlighted her modest but well-formed bosom, and his hands twitched with the desire to know the feel of her. Though the pink in her cheeks alluded to a life spent frequently out of doors, he easily imagined the same flush СКАЧАТЬ