Maria sniffed. “You deserved it, and you know it.” She turned to Annabel with a wide smile. “I daresay you’d have done the same if Jarret had tried to have you arrested.”
“Oh, I would have aimed somewhere lower than his throat.”
Everyone burst into laughter.
“You’re right, Jarret,” Oliver said, clapping him on the shoulder. “She fits in with our family splendidly.”
Suddenly George entered the drawing room, having just arrived home from school.
“There you are, my boy,” Jarret said. “I’ve got some news I think you’ll like.” He ignored the elbow Annabel dug into his ribs. “Looks like you’re going to have a brother or a sister after all.”
“That’s fantastic!” George cried, looking genuinely happy to hear it.
Jarret happened to glance at Minerva and saw a quick flash of envy cross her face. It confirmed for him a decision he’d been vacillating over ever since the day he proposed to Annabel—whether he should tell his siblings that they needn’t worry about Gran’s ultimatum anymore, because he meant to support them with the brewery.
One thing had held him back. Oliver had once said that they’d been sleepwalking since their parents’ deaths, and sometimes he wondered if Oliver might be right. Minerva in particular had shut herself off from the world.
If Jarret believed for one moment that she could truly be happy alone, writing her books, he would have supported her decision and fought Gran tooth and nail for her. But he began to think that wasn’t really what she wanted. Her books seemed as much a way of hiding from life and happiness as his gambling had been.
He wanted better for her. For all of them. Especially now that he had it himself. And though he wouldn’t have chosen Gran’s methods to force the issue, he was willing to let things ride and see what happened. He knew his sister would never marry without love. So if she and the others were willing to risk losing Gran’s fortune to remain unmarried, then so be it: he would support them. But there was no need to tell them that yet.
“Are you sure that your wife is breeding, old boy?” Gabe asked Jarret, eyes twinkling. “You’ve only been married six weeks. It’s rather early to know a thing like that, isn’t it?”
Damn. He should have done some mathematics before he opened his mouth. Annabel was going to kill him.
“Oh, hush up, you rascal,” Gran barked at Gabe as she came toward them. “This is my first great-grandchild. I don’t give a damn which side of the blanket it was conceived upon.”
Oliver laughed. “Actually, it’s not your first great-grandchild. As it happens, Maria and I are also expecting a child. And I can assure you it will arrive before Jarret’s.”
“Oh, Lord,” Maria said with a conspiratorial glance at Annabel, “now they’re going to make it into some sort of competition.”
“Better them than me,” Gabe said.
“Your time is coming,” Jarret said, meaning it for a warning to Minerva, as well. “Gran has already said she isn’t relenting.”
“No, I am not,” Gran said. “But enough about that. This news calls for a toast.”
She and Oliver wandered off, discussing which ancient wine to fetch from the cellar. Celia drew Maria into a discussion about renovations to Halstead Hall’s old nursery, and George went to tell Gabe about the new rig he’d seen on his way home from school.
As Jarret gazed on his family, affection welled up to choke him. He slid his arm about Annabel’s waist. “They’re quite a rambunctious bunch, aren’t they?”
“Yes.” She shot him a minxish smile. “And I snagged the best one of the lot.”
He brushed a kiss to her hair. “Sorry if I embarrassed you by announcing the baby at such an early date.”
“It’s all right. They would have figured it out once the child was born.” She paused. “You are happy about the baby, aren’t you?”
“Very happy.”
It was true. He ought to be terrified. One more person relying on him, one more person he might care for, who could be taken away from him by a fickle twist of Fate.
But in the past few weeks with Annabel, he’d come to realize that he’d had everything wrong. Life wasn’t for lamenting what you’d lost. It was for enjoying what you had, for however long you got to have it. While it was always terrible to lose those precious to you, it was far more terrible never to have had them at all.
So as his family laughed and toasted and shared their joy, he thanked whatever Fate had allowed him to have this moment, these people, this woman at his side. It was finally his time. And it was good.
Author’s Note
Brewing was a time-honored profession for women in England (alewives and brewsters), so I thought it might be fun to have a heroine who enjoyed that particular profession. Plumtree Brewery and Lake Ale are my inventions, but beyond that, all the details about the brewery business are taken straight out of history. India Pale Ale really did come about as a result of transporting October brews to India. And the Burton brewery business did get a huge boost from the clash between the East India Company and Hodgson’s brewery over his unwise business practices and his attempts to cut out the captains of the ships. Allsopp and Bass made a fortune by taking advantage of that conflict and of the unique water of Burton, which has salts that improve the brewing process. Bass is still around today.
The alligator at the Daventry market came right out of an account I read of an English town market in this period. I embellished it a little, but I couldn’t resist throwing an alligator into my story!
Turn the page
for a special look at
the next delightful romance in
The Hellions of Halstead Hall series
HOW TO WOO A RELUCTANT LADY
featuring the beautiful and independent
Lady Minerva Sharpe
by New York Times bestselling author
Sabrina Jeffries
Coming soon from Pocket Books
To Giles Masters’s great surprise, Lady Minerva Sharpe burst into laughter. “You? As my husband? Are you out of your mind?”
He hadn’t expected wild enthusiasm, but incredulity wasn’t what he’d been aiming for, either. “Quite possibly.”
It was the God’s honest truth. He’d spent the entire journey over here rehearsing what he would say, how he would approach Minerva, how he could intimidate her into stopping this nonsense of putting him in her books. Then he’d reached the gates of Halstead Hall and seen the line of prospective suitors there in answer to her advertisement for a husband. That’s when it had dawned on him that the best solution was the simplest.
Make her his wife. That way he could control her and her “fiction.” She would never damage her own husband’s future—she was too practical for that. And she had to marry anyway, if she and her siblings were to gain their inheritance.
A few years ago, the idea of marrying Minerva might have thrown him into a bachelor panic, but with the upturn in his career, he realized that he would have to settle down with a wife soon—especially if he became King’s Counsel.
And if he must have a wife, it might as well be one he desired. Minerva certainly qualified, no matter how she tried to hide her allure. Today she wore a fashionable morning gown of printed green muslin with a number of fussy flounces about the hem, those hideous puffy sleeves that had become so popular, and a bodice that went right up to her chin.
Every feminine curve had been buried beneath furbelows and padded sleeves and lace edgings, and it didn’t matter one whit. He already knew that her figure was lushly feminine. Thanks to the many evening gowns he’d seen her in, he could imagine it as clearly as if she were naked. And just the thought of taking her to bed made his blood quicken and his good sense vanish. Truth was, she did something extraordinary to him every time he saw her.
But God help him if she ever guessed it. Reading her books had offered him a peek inside her fathomless brain, so he knew she was clever enough to wrap him entirely about her finger if he e
ver allowed it.
“As if I would marry a scoundrel like you,” she informed him with a minxish look that grated on his nerves. “Are you daft?”
“I believe we’ve already established that I’m halfway to being a Bedlamite. But humor me anyway.” Apparently she wasn’t clever enough to see that marriage to him was her only viable choice. He would have to correct that. “You ought to leap at the chance to marry a scoundrel, given how much you enjoy writing about them.”
She eyed him as if he really were a Bedlamite. “It’s not the same. You make an excellent villain in my books precisely because you would make a wretched husband. You don’t fit any of my criteria for a suitable spouse.”
“Criteria? Ah yes, the line of interviewees outside. You must have drummed up some questions for your prospective spouses.” He glanced about the room, spotted a stack of paper atop a red lacquered table, and strode over.
When he picked up the sheaf of paper, she hurried over. “Give me that!”
He held her off with one hand while he scanned the first page. “Let me see.… Ah, yes. Question One: ‘Have you ever been married before?’ That one’s easy. No.”
“Because no woman would have you,” she said dryly.
“That probably had something to do with it, along with the fact that I never offered for anyone. Question Two: ‘Describe your ideal wife.’” His gaze trailed leisurely over Minerva. “About five foot seven, golden brown hair, green eyes, with a bosom that would make a man weep and a bottom that—”
“Giles!” she protested, hot color filling her cheeks as she crossed her arms over that bosom.
He grinned. “Suffice it to say, she’s quite beautiful.”
The brief satisfaction in her eyes told him that Minerva wasn’t as lacking in feminine vanity as she liked to imply. “I wasn’t speaking of physical appearances. I wanted a description of their ideal wife’s character.”
“I see. Well then, my ideal wife is an unpredictable hellion, with a penchant for getting into trouble and speaking her mind.”
“Sounds dangerous.” Her lips twitched. “And utterly unsuitable for a man who likes to keep secrets.”
“Good point.” Except that her unsuitability was precisely the thing that intrigued him. She was wrong for him in every way. And that only made him want her more.
Besides, he could handle Minerva. He was probably the only man in England who could.
He read on. “Question Three: ‘What domestic duties will you expect your wife to perform?’” He laughed. “Are you looking for some indication of the frequency with which your applicant would wish you to share his bed? Or a description of the acts he would wish you to ‘perform’?”
She blushed prettily. “Those are not the sort of duties I meant, and you know it.”
“It’s the only sort of duty that matters to those louts out there,” he said coldly. “Since they intend to hire plenty of servants with your fortune, they need only focus on the essentials of having a wife. For them, those essentials are obvious.”
“But not for you? You haven’t answered the question, after all.”
“Whatever your ‘domestic duties,’ I’m sure you can handle them.”
She glared at him. “It’s whether I want to that’s in question.”
Leaving that alone for the moment, he turned back to her list. “Question Four: ‘How do you feel about having your wife write novels?’” He snorted. “Did you honestly expect anyone to answer this truthfully with you breathing down their necks?”
“Not everyone is as devious as you.”
“Forgive me. I didn’t realize you were expecting a procession of saints this morning.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just for amusement’s sake, what would be your honest answer?”
He shrugged. “I have no objection to my wife writing novels as long as they’re not about me.”
“You say that now,” she said with a quiet seriousness to her voice. “But you might think otherwise when you come home to find that your dinner isn’t on the table because your wife was so swept up in her story that she forgot what time it was. Or when you find her sitting in her dressing gown scribbling madly, while your house goes to rack and ruin about your ears.”
“I can afford servants,” he countered.
“It’s not just that.” She gestured to the list. “Read the next question.”
He glanced down at the paper. “‘What sort of wife do you require?’”
“Any respectable man requires a wife who lives an irreproachable life. Why do you think I haven’t married? Because I can’t live such a life without giving up writing my novels.” She flashed him a sad smile. “And you in particular will require an irreproachable wife if you’re to succeed as a barrister.”
She had a point, but not one he would argue at present. “I’ve already succeeded as a barrister. In any case, I haven’t lived an irreproachable life, so why should I expect my wife to do so?”
Her gaze turned cynical. “Come now, we both know that men can spend their evenings in the stews and their mornings cropsick, and other men just clap them on the back and call them fine fellows. But their wives aren’t allowed to have even a hint of scandal tarnish their good names. They certainly aren’t allowed to write novels for public consumption.” She gave a dramatic shudder. “Why, that smacks of being in trade. Horrors!”
“I already told you—”
“Did you know that my mother was a writer, too?”
Now she’d surprised him. “What did she write?”
“Poetry for children, like that written by Ann and Jane Taylor. She used to read her verses to me, asking my opinion.” A sigh escaped her. “But she stopped after she and Papa argued over her wish to have them published. He said that marchionesses did not publish books. It wasn’t done.” Her voice hardened. “It was fine for him to toss up the skirts of any female who took his fancy, but God forbid Mama should publish a book.”
He tensed. “I am not your father, Minerva.”
“You differ from him only in the fact that you’re unmarried. Safer to keep it that way, don’t you think?”
Damn it, sometimes his life as a scoundrel, meant to disguise his real activities, slapped him right in the face. “Or a man could change.”
“For a woman? In fiction, perhaps, but rarely in life.”
“Says the woman who buries herself in her books,” he snapped. “Your idea of venturing out into life is to surround yourself with your siblings and hold off every eligible gentleman who might come near you.”
Her eyes flashed fire. “Oh, that is so like a man. I’m not jumping to marry you, so I must be a spinster pining away alone in her room writing. I tried venturing out into it today, didn’t I? But my brothers wouldn’t let me.”
“That was merely a ploy and you know it. You were never serious about interviewing gentlemen as husbands. You just wanted to provoke your grandmother into giving up her demands.”
He knew he’d hit on the truth when she paled. “What makes you say that?”
“You advertised it in The Ladies Magazine when you could as easily have managed it privately with more discretion. And you just explained to me how no respectable man wants a woman who writes novels, yet you say you don’t want me because I’m a scoundrel. If you don’t want a scoundrel and you don’t think you can have a respectable gentleman—”
“All right, drat you.” She tipped up her chin. “I have no intention of marrying you or anyone else. Can you blame me?”
“No,” he said sincerely. When she blinked, he added, “But your grandmother has made it perfectly clear that you must take a husband, so you have no choice. You can’t touch your inheritance otherwise, and neither can your siblings. And as long as you have to marry, why not marry me?”
“Is that why you want me as your wife?” she shot back. “Because of the money?”
“If you mean to insult me, you’ll have to try another tack. Money isn’t an issue for me, Minerva.”
“I
doubt that. You’re a second son.”
“And a barrister who is widely sought after for his legal advice, and who charges exorbitant fees. I can afford to keep you in gowns and jewels perfectly well without your grandmother’s money.”
“That very statement shows how little you know me. I don’t care about gowns and jewels—”
“But you care about Gabe and Celia,” he said softly. “And they’ll be left destitute if you don’t marry.”
A troubled expression knit her brow. “I’m working on a plan to change that.”
“This interview idea?” He gave her a mocking smile. “First of all, your brothers are nipping that in the bud as we speak. They’re not about to let their sister marry some stranger off the street. They’re not even going to let you be exposed to such men. Secondly, you know perfectly well that Mrs. Plumtree won’t let your antics sway her from her purpose. You’ll only delay the inevitable.”
“Jarret was able to sway her from her purpose,” Minerva retorted.
“Because he had something to bargain with. You don’t.”
She turned on her heel. “Feel free to leave at any time, Mr. Masters.”
“You know what I don’t see in this list of bloody questions?” Giles bit out, determined to provoke her into dealing with him. “I don’t see any mention of the intimate side of marriage. No questions about what your future husband would expect from you in the bedchamber. Or what you could expect from him.”
She whirled on him. “That would be vulgar.”
“And interviewing gentlemen for the position of husband isn’t? The trouble with you, my dear, is you’ve looked at marriage from every angle except the one that matters.” Tossing her list onto the table, he approached her with determined steps. “How you feel about a man. What he does to you whenever he comes near. Whether he makes your heart race and your body heat. And in that area, I am the perfect husband for you.”
“Really?” she said, her voice deceptively sweet. “Is this the part where you sweep me into your arms and prove how you alone make my heart race and my body heat?”
A Hellion in Her Bed Page 31