excellent position to know that his mirror-polished Hessians were unblemished by so much as a speck of dust, and his pantaloons were designed to emphasise rather than disguise the muscular strength of his powerful legs. If he had become as idle as he looked, very soon he would run to fat, she concluded vengefully, and just remembered in time that she was not superior enough a servant to give vent to a sniff of disapproval.
‘Before I join the delights of the drawing room, you really must let me get rid of my dirt, ladies,’ he drawled and Thea longed for the pail of dirty water she had recently washed down the drain, after scrubbing the pristine marble under his fastidious feet.
No, he could bring all the heiresses in Britain into his cousin’s house and shamelessly flirt with them in front of her, then cynically make his choice for all she cared. She set her face in an indifferent mask as the butler ordered her to help with his lordship’s luggage. Her gaze fixed on the middle distance as was only proper and she spared the tall figure at the centre of all this fuss not another glance; he wasn’t worth it, after all.
Chapter Five
Wishing he could be as serenely indifferent to the little wretch as she appeared to be to him, Marcus ran upstairs and tried to reorder his world again. It had cost him weeks of turmoil to forget the hurt in a pair of unique turquoise eyes, and harden himself to this task. He would not let the mere sight of her throw him off course now. Three months spent turning this way and that like an animal in a trap, and he was held as fast as he had been when he began. Still, now he knew he had no alternative but to marry the money he needed to drag his estates out of River Tick.
Despite the immaculate attire that made Thea itch to muss and muddy his splendour, he stripped off and shaved himself once more, before donning pristine breeches and a spotless linen shirt. He was absently tying his neckcloth when he reminded himself of Nick’s cynical advice.
‘Look like a ragtag without sixpence, Marco, and you will be taken for the desperate man that you are. Dress like a top o’the trees and you will be fighting off the rich little darlings in droves.’
A smile fleetingly softened his austere mouth. Few believed Nick had a kindly bone in his body, but gain his loyalty and he was steadfast as granite.
Nick had come to town to consult the doctors about his arm, and ordered his own tailor to outfit his cousin. ‘And if he don’t pay you out of his ill-gotten gains, send the bill to me and I’ll dun him instead.’
He had gone on to countermand the modest wardrobe Marcus had ordered, and thus he stood here, dressing in fine feathers to charm the gold out of the heiresses’ dower chests. He probably deserved Miss Rashton he decided, and at least her iron determination to wed a title would work to his advantage. He could make her a viscountess and she could save his bankrupt estates. They might have been made for one another.
He shrugged himself into the elegant waistcoat and beautifully tailored coat Nick insisted no self-respecting fortune hunter should be seen without, and wondered what his lordly ancestors would have made of their latest descendant. Not much, he determined grimly. The Ashfields had been a shrewd race, until his father gambled, drank and caroused his way through every penny he could lay his hands on, and a good many that should have been safely out of his reach.
Hastily running a brush through his thick dark hair, Marcus knew he looked as elegant as a gentleman could without the services of a skilled valet, and decided it was high time he wrote to his lawyer again. Surely something must have escaped his father’s headlong pursuit of pleasure? After all, his grandfather had outlived his only son by ten days, so it wasn’t as if the Honourable Julius Ashfield had ever inherited the title and estates. He had been borrowing against expectations, so how had he managed to beggar his heirs?
Preoccupied with this dilemma, Marcus forgot his promise to join the ladies in the drawing room and marched downstairs with a determination his former brigade would have recognised, even if the light-hearted Major Ashfield they knew off-duty had vanished along with his dark green uniform. He was halfway down the room in search of a decent pen and hot pressed paper when he finally took in the picture before him.
The humblest female in the entire household was taking her ease in Ned’s favourite chair. Marcus blinked and wondered if too many sleepless nights and occasionally drinking too deep to escape harsh reality, had caught up with him. No, his eyesight was sharp and his senses stubbornly unclouded, so the troublesome wench really was sitting reading some solemn tome with such intense concentration she hadn’t noticed him come in.
‘And what the devil are you up to now?’ he barked, and watched her start violently with an unworthy sense of satisfaction.
A faint feeling of shame made his expression all the more forbidding as he stood in judgement over the female he had fought so hard to forget. How could the annoying little witch be so wrapped up in her studies, when he had been so ridiculously conscious of her every move the instant he stepped over the threshold?
Thea glowered back at him, Lord Strensham was a fortune hunter of the worst sort—a man who could easily earn his own wealth if he could be bothered to do a day’s work now and again. To prove that he meant nothing to her, she had slipped away from the furore his coming had caused and taken this ridiculous risk. Ten minutes of forgetfulness were needed to erase the image of dashing, self-sufficient Major Ashfield from her mind, and set foppish, useless Lord Strensham in his place.
‘Improving my mind,’ she snapped as he continued to wait for her explanation like examining counsel. ‘An example you might follow, if only you could spare the time.’
‘And you obviously spend yours avoiding the job you’re paid to do. I should never have told Lyddie you needed work, for you quite obviously don’t value her kindness in taking you without a reference.’
Maybe he was right. If he had let her slip into the woods that day, she would never have suffered the hurt and humiliation of being rejected by this handsome idiot. Of course she might also have starved to death or been caught by the Winfordes by now, but sometimes even that seemed better than yearning for a man who did not want her. It was his fault of course—if he had stayed away just a little bit longer she would have forgotten him. Anyway, he was changed, if the trappings of a fashionable fortune hunter and the indolent, impudent manner he affected were anything to go by.
‘Her ladyship knows we’re run ragged by that virago of yours.’
He looked conscious, and so he should. If he was really planning to wed the confounded female for the sake of her bulging coffers, he was selling himself short. After all, if a fortune was all he wanted, he could have married her. By reminding herself that she would have been storing up a lifetime of heartache, she forced her numb legs into supporting her and prepared to make a dignified exit.
She watched as his grey gaze ran lazily over her rather crumpled uniform and found her lacking. How she wished she dared to slap the suggestion of a smile from his handsome face. Spoilt and silly Miss Alethea Hardy would have fallen headlong for such a dangerous, damn-your-eyes rogue, but prosaic Hetty Smith was surely immune to his dubious charm.
‘Tiresome heavy these great books, ain’t they, your lordship?’
‘So you sat down and waited for that one to jump back onto the shelf?’ he asked quietly, a hint of laughter vanished from his grey eyes as if it had never been and she shivered, despite the growing heat of the day.
His deep voice sounded as if he had permanently rasped it barking orders on the battlefield, she mused, feeling for one shocking moment as if his baritone rumble had found an echo in her very bones. She caught herself remembering how seductive
