No Marriage of Convenience (14 page)

Mason laughed. “Then we can be quite unfashionable together.” He reached over and picked up one of her papers. “What is this?”

She reached over to take it out of his hands, and when she did, their fingers touched ever so briefly.

But it was enough. Enough to drive him to venture a gaze into her eyes and wish that so many things in his life were different.

That he could follow his passions like his ancestors had so many times—for now he understood why they could let their desires get in the way of good sense.

For a moment, he swore he saw the same fire of recognition in her eyes—until she tugged the paper away from him and snapped, “Nothing of any importance, my lord.”

“Mason,” he corrected, in the face of her sudden vehemence. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had snapped at him like that. Few people ever spoke their mind to him anymore, and certainly not since he’d gained his title. “I would like it if you called me Mason.”

She glanced up. “What?”

“I think if you are going to bark at me like that, you might as well use my Christian name,” he said.

“I’m sorry if I got a bit high-handed,” she said. “Aggie says I have an artistic temperament.”

“That would be a polite way of describing it,” Mason told her.

“I would hardly call it a temper.”

“No, you’re right there,” he agreed. “Temper would hardly begin to describe it.”

She glanced over at him. “Oh, you are teasing me, my lord.” She buried the paper into the pile with the rest of her collection of scraps and scribblings.

“Mason,” he repeated.

“Huh?”

“Call me Mason.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I can.”

He sat up straight. “Whyever not?”

“Well, look at you,” she said, waving her hand at him as if that was answer enough.

“And what is wrong with me?”

“Nothing,” she said.

For some strange reason, he sensed her answer went beyond this discussion. And even more odd, that idea pleased him.

She sighed. “You’re an earl. It would hardly be proper for me to call you by your Christian name.”

“But we’re related now,” he said.

“Only in Cousin Felicity’s estimation,” she said. “And that is hardly a recommendation.”

“What if it is my wish,” he said.

“Your wish or your command?” she asked.

He was glad to see the twinkle back in her eyes. “If I must, I command it. But I would rather that you gave it freely.”

“Now you sound like Geoffroi, the hero in our play,” she said. She arose from the floor. Taking a step back, she made a low curtsey, worthy of a presentation at court. “If my lord commands it, then I, just the mere daughter of a woodcutter must humbly comply.”

He nodded in acceptance of her tribute. “Are you?” he asked.

“Am I what?”

“The daughter of a woodcutter.”

She laughed, but there didn’t seem to be much humor in her voice this time. “No. It is just my role in our play.
When you said that about commands, it just reminded me of the play, and then I answered from the third act.” She shrugged. “Rather silly, I suppose.”

He shook his head. “Not at all.”

Their gazes locked, and Mason felt once again the pull that left him aching to be closer to her.

She looked away first. “I also wanted to thank you.”

“What for?” he said.

“For saving my life. I would have died if you hadn’t come along.” She bit her lip, a shy, sweet gesture.

He rose from the floor. “How would the heroine in your play have thanked her hero?” he asked, once again surprised by the light teasing tone in his voice. He was sounding more and more like Freddie with each passing minute.

Her eyes sparkled. “The heroine would be overwrought, beside herself with love and appreciation.”

“And what would she say?”

“She wouldn’t say anything,” Riley told him, edging a bit closer to him. “She’d just go to him. And then she’d—”

He looked down at her, standing almost within his grasp. He knew he shouldn’t, but there was a magic in the air leading him astray, a siren’s call. “And she’d—?”

Riley blushed. “She’d kiss him.”

Once again that impetuous Ashlin nature took over. All of a sudden he found himself catching her in his arms and pulling her close. She didn’t fight him or protest, just looked up at him with those mysterious green eyes of hers—so innocent and so filled with fire.

He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, reawakening the fire that had started the first time he’d done this.

For a while they just kissed in the silence of the library, with the low crackle of the fire the only other sound, that
is, except for the soft sighs that escaped her lips as he pulled her closer.

His fingers caught the ribbon binding her braid and gently plucked it free so her hair fell loose. She shook her head, sending her hair tumbling over her shoulders in a wild tangle. Her eyes were now hooded in a sultry gaze as she watched him.

His siren, his Boadicea, his Aphrodite. She inflamed him with this madness, this sickness, this curse of being an Ashlin.

“I thought you professors praticed celibacy,” she teased.

He leaned back and smiled at her. “I have, that is, until you came into my life.”

“Oh, go on,” she said. “You expect me to belive that?”

He let go of her and straightened his shoulders. “Yes, because it is the truth. I took my teaching vows very seriously—even after I inherited the title, for I thought then that I would still be able to return to Oxford.”

“But that was months ago. You mean to say you haven’t…well, what I mean is, in all this time, you haven’t…”

“Taken a mistress?” he finished for her. Mason laughed. “Even if I could afford one, I wouldn’t. I’ve never viewed sex the way my brother or father did. I always assumed that it should occur between two people who love each other and who stand on that commitment as a lifelong vow.” He shrugged. “Rather old-fashioned and foolish, I suppose.”

Riley shook her head. “Not at all.” She slanted a shy glance at him. “But with all that said, why are you kissing me? Practice?”

Mason was asking himself the same question. What the devil was he doing, kissing Riley?

“I know,” she said, waving her hand at him before he
could articulate an excuse, even a poor one. “This is an aberration.”

“It’s not that,” he said, wondering how he could explain the way Riley made him feel, and how impossible it all was.

She backed away from him and headed toward the door.

He caught her by the arm. “Don’t leave, Riley. Not yet.” He heard a small sigh slip from her lips.

“I am sorry, milord. You must think me the worst type of Cyprian. But I am not. This was an aberration, and I promise you it won’t happen again.”

As he watched her flee from the room, he realized she was wrong on both counts.

He didn’t think of her as a lightskirt, nor was the evening an aberration.

It was, he suspected, only the beginning.

As he started after her, he heard the crackle of parchment underfoot. Looking down, he realized she’d left her papers. Gathering up the pages, he was about to put them in a stack for her when one of the lines in the text caught his eye.

My Lord Ashlin, your kindness will always be remembered by our family.
It was a line for a character named Aveline.

Obviously this was the play his brother’s money had been squandered to finance—and from which Riley intended to pay them back.

Apparently, financing a play also gave a patron the added benefit of having a character named after him.

No wonder Freddie had given Riley so much money. The idea of being immortalized as a romantic hero would have been far too much of a temptation for his vain and frivolous brother to pass up.

Suddenly it occurred to him that he’d never asked what the play was about—something rather important, he gauged, considering his family’s future rested in these words.

Since he doubted Riley would want to see any more of him this night, after his second blunder into her private affairs, he caught up the loose pages, out of order as they were, and settled down in the comfortable high-backed chair near the fireplace to decipher the story.

None of it made sense at first, considering most of it had annotations and deletions and cross-references to other scenes. Obviously the play Riley seemed so confident about was still a work in progress.

Something she had neglected to tell him.

From what he could tell, the heroine, “poor, lost Aveline,” was being forced to marry the “despicable and aged Lord Tamworth,” while at the same time she pined for her lost love, the “beloved and faithful Geoffroi.”

“Romantic drivel,” he muttered, after scanning the first few pages.

But as he continued to piece together the story, he found himself caught up in Aveline’s adventure. So much so that when he got to the next to the last page where Aveline was making a long declaration to her beloved, he found himself clinging to her every word. Especially when it appeared she was about to confess the truth amongst all the play’s deceptions.

I am not the woodcutter’s daughter; in truth I am—

Mason flipped the page to find the answer, but realized the one he held was the last. His gaze quickly scanned the room to see if there were any more pages to be had. As he was about to give up, he spied a bit of white sticking out from beneath the secretary that sat on the other side of the room.

He sprang from his chair, crossing the room quickly, and dropped to his hands and knees, reaching and stretching for the last elusive piece of the puzzle.

Finally his fingers were able to draw the page into his greedy grasp, but much to his ire, the page was nothing more than the cover sheet to the script.

Still, the words emblazoned across it took him by surprise.

The Envious Moon
—
A Dramatic Comedy Presented by the Players of the Queen’s Gate Theatre…by R. Fontaine
.

Riley? Riley had written this play?

Mason sat back on his heels, holding the page up to the light to see if he had read it correctly.

Even on the second glance, and a third, just to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him, her name remained as the author.

Mason shook his head.

This woman he’d assumed to be no more than another spoiled pampered London feline, this renowned mistress to King and country, not only lived in the attic of her tumbledown theatre, wore reworked clothing until it was threadbare, and managed her company of misfits through long hours of hard work—but she also managed to write her own plays.

As he looked down at the notes scribbled in the margins and the crossed out and cross-referenced lines covering the pages, he realized how little he’d truly known of the woman he’d asked to move into his house and into his family’s lives.

And even more startling was how much he wanted to know her.

In the wee hours of the morning, Del sauntered into his mother’s sitting room. He strode across the floor to where she sat at a small table opposite his uncle, the Duke of Everton, playing piquet.

“Hello, Mother,” he said, leaning over her shoulder and giving her a sloppy buss on the cheek. “Winning?”

“Of course,” she snapped, pointing at the pile of coins before her.

Del knew his mother cheated, but had never dared broach the subject. Besides, she was always happiest when she was beating some hapless player at her favorite card game.

“Your Grace,” he said, bowing to his respected relative.

“Delander,” his uncle said, laying down his cards. “Your mother was just telling me you’ve decided to get married. About time.”

Del grinned. “And to a veritable angel, as fair as a rose in the morning, as innocent as a—” He couldn’t think of anything innocent enough, so he finished by saying, “Well, you get my meaning.”

“That’s all very well, Allister,” his mother snapped, obviously unhappy about having her winning hand interrupted, “but your uncle and I are having quite a time placing the girl. You say she is a relative of Lord Ashlin’s?”

“Yes. Miss Riley St. Clair. She’s just come in from the country.”

“Whereabouts?” his uncle asked.

Del shrugged. “I never thought to ask.”

This didn’t please the Dowager in the least. “I don’t see how this girl is connected to them. Can you, George?” she asked her brother.

The Duke shook his head. “Never heard of her before and I thought I knew all the St. Clair relations, though
they are a strange lot—has anyone ever determined how Lady Felicity fits in?”

“That nitwit?” the Dowager said. “She’s no more a St. Clair than Biggers is my twin sister,” she said, nodding at her long-suffering abigail who sat nodding by the fireplace. “She’s a Dalrymple, related through their mother’s side. And a distant one at that. But we weren’t discussing her, we are talking about this Riley person. I find it quite vexing that her connection isn’t all that clear. Mark my words, I will not sanction any marriage, Allister, until we have this straightened out.”

“Then why not do it yourself, Mother?” Del suggested, taking a cake from the plate. “Why not call on the lady yourself? Tomorrow. I promise you will be as enchanted as I am—and you won’t care a whit about where she fits in on the St. Clair family tree. She’s a veritable paragon of virtue.”

“Harumph!” the lady said. “We’ll see about that.”

“I think I might join you, Josephine,” the Duke said. “It’s been a long time since I met a paragon.”

M
ason arose the next morning at the same time he always did, and went about his daily rituals with the same precision which had always regulated his adult life.

He dipped his hands into the washbowl and splashed the icy water over his face and stubbled chin.

Order…rules…discipline, he told himself, as he reached for his shaving soap and razor, were the distinctions of an honorable and civilized gentleman.

Kissing actresses was not.

In the light of day, last night appeared as a startling lapse of judgment. Therefore, he intended to put some principles back into his life immediately. First thing, he’d make it clear to Riley that they, as adults, should be able to maintain a proper relationship.

How hard could that be? he asked himself.

Having finished shaving, he got dressed and went downstairs to his breakfast, which he always took at nine. Halfway down the stairs, he recalled a line from Riley’s play, the words dancing like a Freddie-ism through his righteous demeanor.

For life, dear Aveline, is a constant delight, an unend
ing surprise, if only you take the chances offered.

The line held a tempting appeal. Not unlike Riley herself. Well, perhaps he might take some chances—that is, as soon as he’d gotten his life and family in order.

Mason realized later he should have known better than to tempt fate by lapsing, albeit minutely, into his brother’s way of thinking.

Even as he came down the stairs the aroma of coffee tantalized his nose, something so beyond the realm of their frugal economies, he came to an abrupt halt.

“Cousin Felicity,” he muttered under his breath. This was her way of getting back at him for his firing their French chef and hiring Mrs. McConneghy in his place. The stout Scottish woman might not know how to glaze an ostrich, but she did know how to squeeze their meager budget to feed the entire household—a budget which didn’t include coffee.

“My lord,” Belton said, coming out of the servant’s doorway. “I need to discuss a matter of—”

“—Not now,” Mason told him.

“But my lord, I must speak to you about certain persons,” Belton said, following in Mason’s angry wake.

Having come down to the ground floor and nearly upon the dining room, more rich aromas wafted toward him. Mason inhaled the forbidden bounty. “Is that bacon
and
sausages I smell?”

Belton sighed. “Yes, my lord.”

From within the dining room, it sounded as if a celebration were taking place rather than his usual quiet morning repast with the paper. Above the din, he heard Cousin Felicity happily nattering on about the prior evening’s gossip.

“Allow me, my lord,” Belton said, pushing open the door.

Isn’t this what you just wished for, little brother
? Freddie’s voice chided him.
An opportunity to try something new.

“Not if it beggars us,” he muttered back.

Belton’s white brows shot up. “Pardon, my lord?”

“Nothing, Belton.” Mason set his jaw and entered the dining room just as the clock on the mantel struck nine.

Everyone in the room, save him, burst into laughter. At the table, Cousin Felicity extended her hand to none other than Riley’s partner Aggie and said, “I told you, Mr. Pettibone. At precisely nine o’clock his lordship would enter, so I have won our wager. Lord Ashlin is the most predictable man in all of London.”

Predictable?
Mason bristled at her tone. She made him sound like some stodgy don. It didn’t help that Riley had said the exact same thing about his clothes last night.

“I am hardly predictable, Cousin,” he said.

He didn’t like the way his pronouncement was met with ringing feminine laughter from his usual lie-a-bed nieces.

“Uncle Mason,” Beatrice said, between choking bouts of laughter, “You make Belton look slipshod.”

Her sisters joined in adding their giggles to the clamor.

“He arises at quarter past eight every morning,” Louisa began telling Mr. Pettibone. “Not on the hour or half past, but precisely quarter past eight.”

Beatrice nodded. “Breakfast and his paper at nine.”

Maggie joined into the chorus. “Accounts at ten.”

“House report from Belton at half past eleven.”

“Consult with Mrs. McConneghy at noon.”

“Leave the house at quarter ’til one,” Maggie said.

“To avoid the creditors who arrive at two,” Bea added in a whispered aside.

“What you do, Uncle,” Maggie said, “from then until you return at four is a mystery to us.”

Bea nodded. “Four-thirty we take tea in Mother’s parlor and you tell us how bad the accounts you reviewed at ten are and how we can no longer waste money on unnecessary expenditures.”

Louisa leaned across the table and said in a loud whisper to Mr. Pettibone, “Can you explain to our Uncle that there are no unnecessary expenditures?”

Egads, when they laid his days out like that, he sounded worse than predictable. Like one of those old scholars at Merton College who the young students used to set their pocket watches by each day as they doddered across the greens at the appointed hours like the hands on a clock.

Well, he was certainly nothing like that. Yes, he kept a daily regiment, though it was hardly the rigid schedule they described. More of an ordered series of events, a daily means of conducting oneself that kept the chaos they brought to his life at bay.

Cousin Felicity turned to Mr. Pettibone. “He isn’t at all like his brother. Freddie was such a gadabout, and so impulsive.”

“Then I see you take after the late Earl, my dear lady,” Mr. Pettibone said, his voice a mixture of Irish charm and something else Mason couldn’t quite put a finger on. “For I find you the most unpredictable and enchanting woman in all of London.”

Mason stared in shock as Cousin Felicity’s cheeks turned the most rosy shade of pink.

What had come over the women in this house? First Bea, now Cousin Felicity.

The aging rogue kissed her fingers again. “I swear your youthful face reminds me of my beloved and long departed Rosalinde. It breaks my heart, it does.” He let go of her hand with a dramatic sigh, and gazed for a moment longer than was proper into her worshipful gaze.

“Uh, hum.” Mason cleared his throat. Schedule or not, whatever nonsense was going on between Cousin Felicity and this Mr. Pettibone needed to be put to a halt. He made a note to discuss these irregularities with Riley between his morning meeting with Belton and the cook.

“Cousin, as I was about to say when I came in—”

“—Oh, Mason, why aren’t you eating?” Cousin Felicity waved at the plates of food. “Your breakfast is growing cold, and you know how you prefer it hot.”

He took a deep breath. Did his cousin have to make him sound like some old man? He could well imagine what Riley would add to his cousin’s description. Thankfully, she wasn’t in the room.

“I will not eat one bite of any of this,” he said, unwilling to step into the room and give any credence to this outrageous display. “I will have an explanation as to the meaning of this.”

“It is only breakfast, Mason,” she replied. “It’s been so long since we had a decent one it’s no wonder you don’t recognize it. Sit down and have a cup of coffee. You can’t imagine how wonderful it is after all these months of
economies
.”

She said the word as if it were as bitter as the mug of chocolate she was also savoring.

Chocolate and coffee? Had they all gone mad?

He’d be at his books until well past his meeting with Belton to get this straightened out, and then the rest of his day would be spent trying to make up his sched—

Mason halted that self-incriminating line of thought.

Cousin Felicity continued buttering her toast. “Mason is quite strict about matters of
economy
,” she told Mr. Pettibone.

It was the kind of response Freddie would have made.

Still, he had to admit the smell of coffee, a luxury they
could ill afford, as well as a nice plate of almond rolls lent a heavenly and enticing aroma to the room.

He took another deep breath and reminded himself of his earlier resolve—this is what happened when one allowed temptation into one’s midst.

And he included actresses on that list.

Cousin Felicity drew in a deep breath. “Heavenly,” she uttered. “Why, I can’t remember the last time we had such a breakfast!” She reached for one of the rolls.

Even as her fingers touched the illicit bounty, Mason said, “Cousin, not one bite. They all go back. The coffee, the rolls, all of it. I said we would have economies in this household, and we will have them whether you like it or not.”

“But Mason—” Cousin Felicity protested, disregarding his order and taking a roll. “I didn’t purchase any of this.”

“Then who is responsible for these extravagances?” he asked.

“Let me guess,” a voice behind him said.

He turned to find Riley standing just behind him, and alongside her, Hashim. She nodded slightly and then continued into the room as if she were the lady of the house.

Hashim followed, taking his place behind her chair.

He didn’t have to wonder long how much she’d heard of his cousin and nieces’ discussion as to his habits as if he were some dithering dowager, for she motioned for him to take his place and said, “Please, Lord Ashlin, have breakfast. I would hate to be the cause of your schedule becoming undermined.”

Her appearance this morning was a far cry from her tousled gown and missing stockings of last night. In place of his warrior queen walked a modest, demure lady, her hair simply dressed, and wearing a quaint muslin gown that one would expect on a visiting country cousin. Albeit
one with a Saracen bodyguard trailing after her.

After Hashim poured her coffee, Riley turned to her partner. “Aggie, whatever are you doing here? My note said rehearsals were not to begin until eleven.”

“Wait until then to see that you were settled in? I think not! Besides, I had an epiphany regarding the second act around midnight, so I had to come see you straightaway—though I got a bit sidetracked on my way here.”

Riley groaned. “How much did you lose?”

Mason shot her a sideways glance.

“How much, Aggie?” Riley repeated.

“I am insulted, my love,” the man replied. “I won. Quite handily. And since it is altogether rude to arrive empty handed when one is flush, I thought to repay our esteemed patron for his kindness in extending to you his protection. A poor fare, this,” he said, waving his hand over the laden table, “but well fought and won by the turn of a card.” He glanced over at Mason, who still stood in the doorway. “Do you gamble, my lord?”

“No,” Mason told him.

Aggie shook his head. “Are you sure you are an Ashlin?”

“Aggie!” Riley said.

Mr. Pettibone turned his disbelieving features back to Riley. “Can we be sure?”

At this Riley groaned. “Yes, I’m quite positive.”

He shot her an aggrieved look. “I ask only because the man confesses a displeasure for cards, and that, my lord, is a keen loss, for you have the look of a worthy opponent.”

“I prefer not to gamble with a fortune I do not possess,” Mason told him. Not with some measure of reluctance, he finally took his seat at the breakfast table. He nodded to
Aggie. “I, uh, thank you for sharing your own winnings with my family.”

Aggie rose and made an elegant bow. “At your service always, my lord.” He passed Mason the plate of almond rolls. “How could I doubt your parentage, sir? For now I see the elegant cast of the Ashlin brow and the sharp wit of your intellect. I would have known you were Freddie’s brother anywhere. If I’d seen you in the bazaars of Baghdad or the far reaches of that dark continent, Africa, I would have known you, sir, to be an Ashlin.”

That, Mason knew, was laying it on more than a little thick, but before he could respond, Cousin Felicity said, “Mr. Pettibone—”

“—Agamemnon, my dear Miss Felicity. Please call me Agamemnon.”

“Agamemnon,” she tittered. “Have you been to those places?”

He settled back into the chair beside her. “What places?”

“Baghdad or Africa?” Cousin Felicity’s eyes shone with excitement.

“Baghdad and Africa,” he sighed. “Such places of wonder! Excitement and danger at every turn.”

Riley choked on her chocolate, and when all eyes turned on her, she raised her napkin to her lips and coughed.

“So you have been there?” Cousin Felicity persisted.

“Well, been there? Actually, no,” the man said. “But the stories I can tell you, the stories I have heard, would lead you to believe that I have been there.”

The lady sighed with delight. “And I have never even been to Kent.”

“No!” Aggie said. “Why, I’d have sworn with your con
tinental flair and sense of style I’d seen you gracing the courts of Louis or Charles or Catherine.”

“Oh, Agamemnon,” Cousin Felicity said. “Really? Truly?”

“You would be their glittering star. Why, the courts of Europe—” the man began to say, looking as if he was about to tell the largest tale ever cast up in the Ashlin dining room.

And Mason knew for a fact that Freddie had spun some large ones.

“Aggie,” Riley interrupted, “you said something about the second act?”

Effectively diverted, the man stopped his unlikely dissertation and went on to another subject close to his heart. “Ah yes! The second act. I was borne away on pure inspiration.”

“The second act?” Mason interrupted, feeling quite the stranger at his own table. “What did you change?”

“That terrible scene with the woodcutter and Geoffroi. My inspiration came while I was playing piquet—”

Riley cringed. “You weren’t playing
piquet
?”

Mason didn’t miss the accusation in her voice, and wondered if perhaps the Queen’s Gate’s financial woes weren’t a problem of covering her partner’s gambling losses, rather than the mysterious accidents she’d claimed.

It certainly made more sense, he reasoned, and resolved to look into it immediately.

“Riley, such an unpardonable use of brows. You’ll be wrinkled as Hortense before the year is out if you continue in that manner.” Aggie turned back to Cousin Felicity. “Now, where was I?”