Page 5 of The Best Husband Money Can Buy

Perhaps, but he was coherent, and it spoke well for his basic good nature that he could be polite to an unexpected visitor when he probably felt like Vulcan’s hammer was pounding on his skull. She turned to the valet, who had been hovering by the door. “Please make a pot of strong coffee for Lord Verlaine.”

Years of teaching had given her some skill at persuading the recalcitrant. Very soon she and Anthony were sitting in the tiny kitchen with a pot of coffee on the table between them. Not the best setting for evaluating a potential husband, but at least the kitchen was private.

Anthony had taken the chair by the wall and promptly slumped against the white-washed plaster, three-quarters asleep. She put a steaming mug of coffee in his hand. Eyes closed, he took a deep swallow, his Adam’s apple moving. After a second draft, he sighed and opened his eyes. “Miss Stone.”

“Emma,” she said shyly. “After all, we are cousins, and you have known me since I was in the nursery.”

“Very well, Emma.” He drank more coffee. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

She hesitated, then decided on bluntness. It was her chief talent. “I had heard you were in dire financial straits. On the verge of losing Canfield, in fact.”

His expression turning to granite. “Our relationship is nowhere near close enough for you to speak of such matters. I’ll thank you to leave now.”

She swallowed hard. Angry, he was formidable. “I’m sorry. I know that was impertinent. I only ask because…perhaps I can help.”

“No one can help!” he snapped. “In three days, the mortgages will come due and the property will be taken from me. For two years, ever since my father died, I’ve been trying to pay off his damned debts, and now it’s too late.”

Her eyes widened. Anthony’s father had been a charming, amiable fellow, but she remembered whispers that he was a gamester. “So your gambling has been an attempt to earn enough to pay off the mortgages.”

Anthony’s eyes narrowed. “How the devil did you know that? Even my best friends have assumed that I was playing only for sport.”

She shrugged, unable to explain. “An educated guess.”

He poured more coffee and added milk, his expression haggard. Desolate, even. “I needed forty thousand pounds. I’d managed to accumulate half that. There was no chance of borrowing more—believe me, I’d tried. My father’s history of gambling made the banks consider me a poor risk. With only a few days until foreclosure, I had to throw caution to the winds.” His eyes closed with pain. “Yesterday I bet the whole amount on a single game, double or nothing. If I’d won, Canfield would have been saved.”

There was a hushed silence before she said the obvious. “But you didn’t win.”

His mouth twisted. “The cards were against me. The Deity, if there is one, apparently didn’t want to see me remain a landowner.”

“So you are not a gamester by temperament,” she said thoughtfully.

“Believe me, if Canfield was secure, I’d never pick up another deck of cards in my life,” he said bitterly. “My father did enough gambling for both of us.”

She did believe him. Her hands locked around her mug until the knuckles whitened. The worst charge against Anthony was that he was a hopeless gambler, but if that wasn’t true, it changed everything. “Perhaps…perhaps we could help each other. I have just come into an unexpected legacy. I would like to marry and have a family, but as a governess I’ve had no opportunity to meet eligible men.”

She stopped to gather her courage before continuing, “Purely by chance, my solicitor mentioned that your property was on the verge of foreclosure. Since I am in need of a husband and you are in need of a fortune, I…I thought perhaps you might be willing to consider a…a marriage of convenience.”

“What?” His mug, which was halfway to his mouth, slammed down on the table and scalding coffee slopped across his hand. “You want me tomarryyou?”

His appalled expression was worse than a slap in the face. How could she have been so brazen, sostupid,as to suggest that a handsome, fashionable man like him might consider marrying a woman like her?

Face burning, she jumped up and grabbed her cloak from the back of her chair. “It was just a thought, and obviously a bad one. I’m sorry for disturbing you, Anthony. Lord Verlaine.” She turned and bolted toward the kitchen door.

His chair scraped the floor, and in one bound he crossed the kitchen and caught her arm. “Wait! I’m sorry, Emma. I intended no insult.” He turned her to face him. “This is just so…so unexpected.”

Though she was a tall woman, he loomed over her, intimidatingly large. The reality of him was very different from her hazy childhood memories. He was a man now, not a youth. A man who was strong, virile, and forceful. For a woman who’d lived the last decade in a world of women and children, the effect was rather overpowering.

Her gaze went to his unshaved chin. The dark stubble was surprisingly intriguing. She wanted to touch it, discover the texture of those very masculine whiskers.

She wrenched her gaze away. “I’m sorry. It was presumptuous of me to march in like this.”

“Unusual, perhaps, but not presumptuous.” He studied her, his gaze piercing. “I keep wondering if I’m dreaming this whole scene out of a desperate desire to save Canfield.”

“This is no dream,” she said with conviction. He was too vivid, his hand on her arm too warm and strong, for this encounter to be anything but real.

He released her arm and made a courtly gesture toward the table. “Come sit down again, Cousin. You were quite right to say that we must have a serious conversation.”

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