tion>
SHE BACKED AWAY A FEW STEPS.
“The nickname…silver squire…is it because of how you look?” Emma blurted out chattily.
“How do I look?” Richard echoed with a smile.
“Your blond hair and gray eyes…”
She rattled off her observation so fast and quietly, she hoped he would dismiss it and change the subject, but his amusement increased.
He teased her very gently.
“You’ve looked at me long enough to notice
I have gray eyes. I’m amazed!”
Emma flushed in earnest.
All she’d intended was a little civil dialogue!
Mary Brendan was born in north London and lived there for nineteen years before marrying and migrating north into Hertfordshire. Always a keen reader of historical romances, she decided to try her hand at writing a Regency novel during her youngest son’s afternoon naps. What began as a lazy lunchtime indulgence soon developed into a highly enjoyable occupation. Presently working part-time in a local library, she dedicates hard-won leisure moments to antique browsing, keeping up with two lively sons and visiting the local Tandoori for a prawn damask and a glass or two of red wine….
The Silver Squire
Mary Brendan
MILLS & BOON
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Contents
Chapter One
‘You little fool! You will speak to Mr Dashwood and what’s more you’ll show gratitude and a little grace in your address when you accept!’
Margaret Worthington’s thin fingers locked with surprising strength onto an elbow that was ceaselessly jerking to free itself.
‘You are wasting your time, Mama, and that of our…guest.” The epithet was spat through gritted white teeth. ‘I will not marry him, nor will I even deign to sit in the same room as that despicable roué.’ Emma Worthington picked at her mother’s clawed digits. The restraint was soon reapplied and Emma wearily sighed. ‘Please let go of my arm.’
‘I shall not! If you do not enter the drawing room of your own volition, you will enter from mine, or your papa’s…or perhaps even Mr Dashwood’s. He demands a biddable wife and one of unimpeachable virtue. Well, the latter condition you honestly meet, the former I own I’ve embellished upon. He might have to encourage that quality…And I’m sure he will now he’s laid down two thousand pounds on your father’s account.’
‘Two thousand pounds?’ The fury and disbelief in Emma’s tone rendered her voice little more than an outraged squeak. ‘You have allowed that…that vile man to purchase me for two thousand of his disgusting, blood-stained pounds?’
‘Don’t be so ridiculously melodramatic, Emma,’ Margaret Worthington hissed. ‘Besides, there should be another sixteen thousand of those disgusting notes to follow, when you are wed, and that should just about set your papa’s finances to rights. How can you be so stubborn and selfish? Are you so determined to rip a modest comfort from your doting parents in their twilight years? I tell you, it’s not to be borne!’
Taking abrupt advantage of her daughter’s momentary daze, Margaret managed to swing open the drawing-room door with one determined hand whilst the other propelled Emma, with an ungentle shove, into the room. Margaret reclined daintily against the mahogany panels; a sturdy, unseen hand was planted at her daughter’s back, preventing her retreat. It prodded her forward.
Emma tilted her chin, endeavoured to separate her grinding teeth and walked purposefully towards the gentleman who had gained his expensively shod feet at their ungainly arrival.
Tawny eyes of the most exquisite shade and oval shape met the dark
