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СКАЧАТЬ wisdom I imparted to you two nights ago.”

      Was it only two nights ago? Ashton mused. It felt like months. He had not gotten much sleep since then, haunted by dreams of a woman with odd-colored eyes and knotted up with unquenched lust. Worse, he was starting to see Penelope everywhere. He was sure he had seen her pale face in an attic window as he had left Clarissa’s home yesterday, but that was impossible. Clarissa would have no reason to hide the daughter of a marquis in her attic.

      “Which great wisdom was that?” he asked Brant.

      “About waiting before you asked for Clarissa’s fair hand, before making it all official.”

      “But I did heed that advice. I had to keep my meeting with her brother, but I kept the talk very vague, more of an official request to court his sister. The most basic and formal first step. Foolish really because it is time I married and the family coffers definitely need an infusion of funds.”

      “Well, either you were not vague enough or someone willfully misunderstood you.”

      Ashton cautiously accepted the paper Brant handed him, wondering why he had not noticed his friend carrying it. He really needed a few nights of good sleep, Ashton decided. He was getting as blind and as absentminded as his ancient grandfather had been. Ashton had been young when the old man had died, wandering off one night onto the moors to drown in a bog. He felt as if he was drowning in an emotional bog, one that was making him question his every decision.

      The paper was folded open to a section listing betrothals, marriages, births, and deaths. It took only a quick glance over the various announcements to find what had brought Brant to his home at such an early hour. Featured quite prominently and filled with a tactless listing of his ancestry and prospects was the announcement of his betrothal to Lady Clarissa Hutton-Moore. Ashton felt his breakfast turn into a seething ball of acid in his belly. He had been trapped.

      “I never asked her,” he muttered. “No dear, would you do me the honor. No ring.”

      Brant filled a cup with coffee and frowned. “Bad ton, then. Yet what can you do?”

      “Nothing, I suppose.” Ashton continued to stare at the notice and had the fleeting thought that it would be better placed beneath the obituaries. “My courtship of Clarissa, my marked interest in her, has been very public and an announcement has been anticipated. It was always my plan. I but faltered for a moment.”

      Faltered was a weak word to describe the turmoil that had beset him since that night at Mrs. Cratchitt’s, he thought with a sigh. To say he had fallen on his face would be a better way to describe it. That night he had gone out with his friends fully accepting his future with Clarissa and had come back dreading it to the very depths of his soul. He had not been given time to regain his balance and good sense. Ashton frowned, suddenly wondering if Clarissa’s brother, perhaps even Clarissa herself, had sensed the change in him and acted quickly to stop him from walking away. Despite his hesitation of the moment, that would not have happened.

      “Scented your change of heart,” Brant said, echoing Ashton’s thoughts.

      “Possibly, but it was only a brief change. I would have wrestled it back onto the path of necessity. My mind was still set on the betrothal. To be honest, my heart was never involved anyway.”

      “Did not think so. Clarissa is beautiful, a perfect gem of the ton, but I never saw anything there that would bestir you much at all.”

      “Ah, but there was her dowry and the fact that I would not have to snuff all the candles in order to beget an heir on her.”

      Brant grimaced. “But you will have to build up the fire in the bedchamber ere you crawl beneath the sheets or you will be chilled to the bone.”

      “So you think her lacking in passion, too?” Ashton asked.

      “The kind that can warm a man who looks for more than scratching an itch? Most assuredly.”

      “And you think I look for more, do you?”

      Brant smiled, but there was a tinge of sadness in the expression. “In the end, most of us do. We just rarely find it. We turn to money and appropriate bloodlines instead, and then spend the rest of our lives trying to find that warmth elsewhere. Thought I had found it once,” he added in a soft voice.

      “It proved false?” Ashton felt certain he knew exactly when Brant had suffered his disappointment for there had been a distinct hardening in the man a little over a year ago.

      “I am not sure. She was a vicar’s daughter.”

      “I suspect your mother was chagrined,” Ashton murmured.

      “A mild word for dear Mama’s reaction to my choice. She was absolutely enraged, especially when the match she thought I should make was lost to her and her chosen candidate was snatched up by another. My chosen one had a very small dowry and was but the child of the youngest son of a minor baron. I was determined to have her, my pretty Faith. But she disappeared. Her father said she had run off with a soldier.”

      “Do you believe that?”

      “Some days, no, but most of the time, yes. Her father is a respected man, a vicar well known for his piety. I find it hard to believe he would lie to me or not search far and wide for his daughter if she had just disappeared. So I decided that, if one cannot trust a pious vicar’s daughter named Faith, what hope is there? I will, at some point, find a suitable girl who makes Mama happy and grunt over her until she breeds me a brood of heirs and spares, all the while keeping a mistress to satisfy my less dignified needs.”

      Ashton felt a chill go down his spine and not because of Brant’s bleak portrayal of his future. In his head he could hear Penelope say, Someone died in this bed. Poor Faith. He firmly told himself not to be a superstitious fool. It helped only a little, as did reminding himself that Faith was not such an uncommon name, and even if Penelope could sense such things, it did not mean she had seen Brant’s Faith.

      He forced his wandering mind back to the subject at hand—his newly announced betrothal to Clarissa. “That is a dark and dismal future,” he said, not completely referring to Brant’s last statement.

      “As titled gentlemen, burdened with history, duty, and far too many dependents, it is a future we all face.” Brant spread honey on his toasted bread. “Are you going to even complain about the Hutton-Moores’ presumption?”

      “Some. A few cutting remarks as I give Clarissa a ring. Mayhap I will purchase one, letting the fact that I did not adorn her delicate white hand with the famed Radmoor emerald speak for itself. I believe I am angry enough to deliver that insult. Although it is little more than a tightly trapped man’s last howl of defiance.”

      “An excellent idea, however. It will be interesting to see how she explains that to all who will rush to gawk at her ring. Myself, I would no longer trust her any further than I could spit.”

      “Oh, I am not sure I trusted her that much even before this trickery. I trust her brother even less. I cannot really say why, just instinct.”

      “God’s tears, Ashton, if that is so, why are you going to marry the chit?”

      “Because she was the only one with a hefty dowry who would look with any favor upon a nearly penniless viscount who has too many people living off his meager and rapidly diminishing funds. And one who carries the taint of a licentious СКАЧАТЬ