My Lady, My Lord by Katharine Ashe Page A

settled. When she regained her senses she was sitting on the carriage steps, elbows on her knees, hands behind her neck. She shook her head and looked up. The marquess stood beside another man. Both stared at her with intent skepticism.
    Corinna was only slightly acquainted with the newcomer. The Baron of Grace was one of the earl’s closest companions, a rake and a rogue and a good-for-nothing, just like Marquess Drake and Ian Chance. But he was also one of high society’s most successful entrepreneurs and a war hero. From a wreck of an estate left to him by his wastrel father, he had founded a coal mining empire. He was wealthy, handsome, and unmarried.
    “Feeling more the thing, old friend?” the baron asked.
    “Must have been something I ate.” Foolish and ridiculous. A little blood and she turned into a wilting violet.
    “I’ve collected our winnings,” the marquess said, apparently cured of his earlier misery over the heartless Russian doxy. “Let’s head on to the club for dinner, then go on and spend this blunt at the tables. You coming, Jag?”
    He nodded, cast Corinna another odd glance, and climbed into the coach.
    The next several hours passed like slow Purgatory to Corinna. Finally seeing the inside of a gentlemen’s club proved intriguing for the first few minutes. But it only served to remind her of what she was not allowed, wasted instead upon useless idlers like Ian Chance.
    For years she had longed to become a member of the prestigious Royal Society, a club dedicated to scientific thought. All the elite intellectuals of the day were members, men she saw only rarely at her salon but who spent every day together discussing astronomy, physics, music, botany, and foreign lands.
    Holding a membership at the Roxburghe would have been even more wonderful. That club, dedicated to the preservation and collecting of rare books and manuscripts culled from the greatest libraries in the world, called to her like a Siren. If only she were able to spend a few days, perhaps a fortnight, conversing with the members of these clubs, she could achieve what she had long dreamed.
    With all her heart, she wished to purchase a publishing company.
    Lord Frederick Pelley belonged to both the Royal Society and the Roxburghe. For months he had been searching for a suitable buyer for his publishing company. Corinna was more than willing to buy. But he would not sell to a woman. She had offered him a fair price. When he refused, she offered more—the whole of her mother’s dowry that had come to her. He held fast. Women, he said, did not belong in publishing, but in the home. The disdainful look he’d offered suggested they should not be hosting salons in those homes.
    Corinna stared blankly into the clouds of smoke rising in Brooks’s dining room like coal-fire fog, barely aware of the hum of conversation around her, and she cursed fate. Despite his subhuman intelligence and licentious lifestyle, if Ian Chance wished, he could take membership in the Royal Society or the Roxburghe. And he could buy a publishing house. Simply because he was a man.
    Marquess Drake offered her more wine. She declined. Lord Grace peered at her closely, but continued discussing the business of his estate. The marquess listened attentively. Corinna supposed she ought to be amazed they weren’t drunkenly wagering on which woman they would bed tonight. But she was too exhausted and miserable to care. She sat in silence, hoping no one would ask her anything she was incapable of answering, and sank further into gloom. She only hoped the Earl of Chance in his borrowed body was having a similarly wretched time.

Chapter Seven
    I F IAN WAS OBLIGED TO EAT ANOTHER teacake or drink another cup of tepid swill he would vomit it all up in the middle of the Duchess of Hammershire’s drawing room. The corset bound his ribs and stomach with an iron grip. He had divested any number of women of stays, but he’d never understood before how damn uncomfortable