Miss Westlake's Windfall by Bárbara Metzger Page A

if I had your title and fortune—and my face— I could have any woman I wanted.”
    “Not Ada. She isn’t mercenary.”
    Leo ground his cigarillo out under his boot heel. He’d never met a woman whose favors could not be bought but he did not travel in the same circles as Viscount Ashmead. “Why doesn’t the lady like you, then?”
    “She likes me fine, as a friend. She doesn’t love me.”
    “Gammon. Your kind is forever marrying for other considerations. You must have done something to give her a disgust of you. I thought you had better address than that, my friend.”
    “Oh, and I suppose you could do much better? I’ve seen you with Molly and her ilk on your lap. That’s not courting, that’s rutting. Any other female comes into the room, and you go mumchance. Fine address you have.” He gestured to where Tally was once more shedding dog hairs on Leo’s fawn trousers. “I don’t see you with a wife at your side and a passel of children at your knee, now that you can provide for them, only a mongrel hound.”
    “Well, you’ve been to London, you must know the proper way to court a lady.”
    “Faugh, it’s all flowers and verse and morning calls. Ada wouldn’t give a hang for any of that tomfoolery.”
    “You must have learned something about women at least, from your years on the Town, something to keep you from making micefeet of Miss Ada’s affections.”
    “All I learned from the London Marriage Market was that I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the scrutiny of a man’s background and bankbook. As for the frantic bustle to be entertained, the artificial laughter, the closed spaces, you can have them. And the women ... Most of them are like trained parrots, repeating whatever a man says, while others are like crows, picking over bones of gossips. Then there are the jackdaws, collecting anything that sparkles. All of their feelings are false, fake, feigned. A man could not trust a one of them.”
    “Nothing fake about Miss Ada.”
    “No, Ada always says what she means.” He sighed, remembering their last argument. “One is never in doubt as to her feelings.”
    “Unless the lady doesn’t know her own emotions, of course. Why don’t you just carry her off and have done with it? She’d ought to love you well enough by the time you reached Gretna.”
    “What, kidnap Ada? You might think such a thing is romantic, but I consider it an insult to any lady.”
    “How is a lady supposed to know if she can share passion with a bloke if they don’t even share kisses? I suppose such fine gentlefolks as you don’t...?”
    “Of course not. Ada’s a lady, by George. Naturally there was last Christmas, under the mistletoe, and her birthday. And that bonfire at All Hallow’s.”
    “Deuce take it, no wonder there are so few of you nobs. If you never kiss the gal, how is she supposed to know you love her?”
    “I asked her to marry me, damn it. That ought to be enough.”
    Leo was musing, leaning carefully against an upright beam. “Or maybe you don’t love her enough to try to convince her.”
    Not love her enough? He’d stood on a blasted saddle, hadn’t he? “She doesn’t love me, and that’s the point.”
    “No, you said she had too many other concerns. That’s why you thought the money might make her reconsider.”
    She was never going to reconsider, was she? Chas did not want to hope. “That’s not what I meant at all. I just wanted to take care of her, if she won’t let me do it the right and proper way.”
    Leo shook his head. “You’ve got the moon-sickness, Charlie. Even I can see you’ve got it bad.” He pressed the pouch on the viscount. “Give it to her, tell the girl what you did for her. Tell her you love her.”
    Chas handed the sack of coins back. “No, it would never work. Ada’s got too many scruples. Besides, she hates my dog.”
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Leo Tobin might not betray a comrade’s confidence, but he was not above meddling in a friend’s failed