Julia Justiss - The Earl's Inconvenient Wife

‘Yes, we would,’ Gifford said. ‘We’d be figuring out a way to rein you in before you organised an expedition to the Maghreb or India, like Lady Hester Stanhope.’

‘Riding camels or wading in the Ganges.’ With a beaming smile, Temper nodded. ‘I like that prospect far better than wading through the swamp of a Season.’

‘Well you might, but don’t get your hopes up,’ Christopher warned. ‘You know Papa.’

Despite her bold assertion, Temper knew as well as Christopher how dim were her chances of success. ‘I do,’ she acknowledged with a sigh. ‘I’ll be lucky if he even acknowledges I’ve entered the room, much less deigns to talk with me. At least he’s unlikely to bellow at me or throw things. With all the sabres and cutlasses and daggers he’s in the process of cataloguing now, that’s reassuring. Well, I’m off to pin him down and try my luck.’

‘If I leave before you get finished, let me know what happens,’ Christopher said. ‘I’ll be happy to return for another strategy session.’ Planting a kiss on her forehead, he gave her a little push. ‘You better go now, so you won’t miss saying goodbye to Pru.’

‘You’re right,’ Temper said, glancing at the mantel clock. ‘Aunt Gussie could arrive at any minute. Very well—I’m off to the lion’s den!’ Blowing the others a kiss, she walked out—feeling Gifford Newell’s gaze following her as almost like a burn on her shoulders.

Gifford Myles Newell, younger son of the Earl of Fensworth, watched his best friend’s sister walk gracefully out of the room. Just when had she changed from a bubbly, vivacious little girl into this stunning beauty?

A beauty, he had to admit, who raised most unbrotherly feelings in him. Sighing, he fought to suppress the arousal she seemed always to spark in him of late.

Unfortunately, one could not seduce the virginal sister of one’s best friend, no matter how much her face and voluptuous figure reminded one of the most irresistible of Cyprians. And though she made an interesting and amusing companion—one never knew what she would say or do next, except one could count on it not being conventional—when he married, he would need a mature, elegant, serene lady to manage his household and preside with tact and diplomacy over the political dinners at which so much of the business of government was conducted. Not a hoyden who blurted out whatever she was thinking, heedless of the consequences.

Sadly, when he did marry, he’d probably have to give up the association that had enlivened his life since the day he’d met her when she was six. He chuckled, remembering the rock she’d tossed and he’d had to duck as he entered the back garden at Brook Street, her explaining as she apologised that she’d thought he was the bad man who’d just made her mama cry.

Her body might be the stuff of a man’s erotic dreams, but she was still very much that impulsive, tempestuous child. A mature, elegant, serene wife would be a useful addition to his Parliamentary career, but he would miss the rough-and-tumble exchange of ideas, the sheer delight of talking with Temperance, never knowing where her lively mind or her unexpected reactions would take one next.

He wished the man who did end up wedding her good luck trying to control that fireball of uninhibited energy! Regardless of her childish protests that she never intended to marry, she almost inevitably would. There was no other occupation available for a gently bred female and he sincerely doubted her father, Lord Vraux, would release her dowry so his daughter could go trekking about the world, alone. How would she support herself, if she didn’t marry?

She was too outspoken to become anyone’s paid companion and no wife with eyes in her head would engage a woman who looked like Temperance Lattimar to instruct her children, unless her sons were very young and her husband a diplomat permanently posted at the back of beyond.

Fortunately, figuring out how to control Temperance Lattimar wouldn’t be his problem. Until the day some other poor man assumed that responsibility—or until he bowed to the inevitable, gave in to his mother’s ceaseless haranguing and found a wealthy wife to remove the burden of his upkeep from the family finances—he would simply enjoy the novelty of her company.

And keep his attraction to her firmly under control.

He looked up to find both Christopher and Gregory staring at him. Feeling his face heat, he said, ‘She’s still as much a handful as she was at six, isn’t she?’

Gregory and Christopher both sighed. ‘Pru will do what she must to fit in, but I’m uneasy about Temper,’ Christopher said. ‘That’s one female who should have been born a man.’

Suppressing his body’s instinctive protest at that heresy, Gifford said, ‘I would love to see her on the floor of the house, ripping into the Tories who natter on about how disruptive to Caribbean commerce a slavery ban would be.’

‘She would be magnificent,’ Christopher agreed. ‘But since female suffrage is unlikely to occur in her lifetime, we had better be thinking of some other options. I don’t think she’s going to have much luck squeezing any money out of Vraux.’

Knowing how much tension existed between Christopher and the legal, if not biological, father who had ignored him all his life, Gifford said, ‘Probably not. But I’d love to be the parlour maid dusting outside the library door when she tries to talk him into letting her equip a caravan to journey to the pyramids!’

* * *

As it turned out, Christopher had left, but Gifford was just striding down the hallway towards the front door when Temper, with an exasperated expression, descended the stairs from the library that was Lord Vraux’s private domain.

‘I take it the response wasn’t positive.’

She let out a frustrated huff. ‘As I feared, he barely noticed I’d entered the room. You know how he is when he’s in the midst of cataloguing his latest acquisitions! I stationed myself right in front of him and waved my hands until he finally looked at me, with that little frown he has when he’s interrupted. In any event, he listened in silence and then motioned me away.’

Gifford knew from Gregory’s descriptions how averse the baron was to being touched. Still, it must hurt his children that their father seemed unable to give—or receive—any sign of affection.

‘Did he say...anything? Or just go back to cataloguing?’

She shook her head in disgust. ‘He said I needed to have a Season so I could “get married and be protected”. That women need to be protected. I couldn’t help myself—I had to ask if that was why he’d married Mama. But he didn’t respond, just returned his attention to the display table and picked up the next dagger.’ She blew out a breath. ‘Rather made me wish I could have picked up a dagger!’

Despite the baron’s staggering wealth, which meant Gregory had never, as Giff had when they were at school together, gone hungry or had to get his clothes patched instead of ordering new ones, Gifford had always felt sorry for the Lattimar children. Possessed of a mother who, though loving, had made herself such a byword that her daughters’ acceptance in society had been compromised, and a father who acted as if they didn’t exist.

‘I’m glad you didn’t grab a dagger,’ he said lightly, trying to ease her disappointment. ‘The news that you’d stabbed your father, coming on top of the scandal of the duel, would further complicate your debut.’

She gave a wry chuckle. ‘Thank you, Giff, for trying to cheer me up. I guess I shall be cursed with a Season after all. But I can’t bear thinking about it right now, so please don’t summon Gregory and call another strategy session just yet.’