No Marriage of Convenience by Elizabeth Boyle Page A

behind his back and pacing around his desk as if he faced a classroom of first-year students, he practiced his opening speech.
    “Madame Fontaine, I find your reputation and manners inappropriate for an association with my nieces.” Warming to his subject, he continued, “First and foremost, there is the way you dress. This outfit is a perfect example. It tests the very limits of decency.”
    His, mostly .
    Mason ran a hand through his hair. Gads, if he didn’t sound like the worst kind of stuffy antiquated prude.
    Rather like old Cheswick who’d taught philosophy for over forty years at St. John’s College. He’d railed at the younger teachers to live the very model of restrained, sober, and chaste lives.
    Even as Mason tried to recall some of the man’s morepoignant speeches, he then remembered Cheswick had recently been retired to Bath—and the reasons behind his mentor’s sudden departure. After years of militant temperance, Cheswick had been discovered in his bachelor apartment utterly foxed, singing ribald songs and being bathed by two tempting French-born armfuls named Monique and Marie.
    Perhaps Cheswick was not the best guide to call forth at a time like this.
    Well, still, he told himself, there was nothing wrong with being a staid, respected man.
    Not unless you want to spend your final days singing tawdry verses whilst they haul you away , a voice not unlike Frederick’s niggled at the back of his thoughts.
    Mason shook his head, trying to clear his mind.
    Mayhap he should take Cousin Felicity’s advice about finding a wife more seriously. Not some rich, artful minx, like Miss Pindar, but a quiet, moderate girl of good breeding who’d bring advantageous family connections to a marriage. They’d wed, have a passel of well-behaved children, and live out their lives in the relative tranquility of Sanborn Abbey, the Ashlin ancestral home.
    Once there, he would see his nieces met only the best young men, and in time they too would be settled just as comfortably, not trussed up and fed to London’s rakes like so many morsels.
    Yet even as he envisioned this tidy scheme, a stray thought, a Frederickism at its worse, whispered in his ear.
    Little brother, a mistress would be more fun.
     
    “This is ridiculous. He’ll find me out before the morning’s over and everything will be lost.” Riley turned and headed toward the departing hackney.
    Hashim caught her by the back of the skirt before shereached the street. He shook his head and nodded at the imposing front door of the Ashlin residence.
    “Didn’t you hear me? I said this is ridiculous. Past ridiculous—it borders on insane! I know nothing about being a lady.”
    He shook his head and laid his hand on his heart.
    “Well, I know a little bit about being a lady,” she conceded. “But not the kind of lady who lives in a house such as this or attends balls or whatever it is they do in these venerable piles of stone. The likes of what I know will certainly not please him.”
    Hashim shook his head, his eyes crinkling at the corners with good humor.
    “Stop that right now,” she scolded. Her friend and servant knew her too well. Then again, they’d been together for ten years, ever since she’d “bought” him from a slaver in Paris. There had been something about the man’s regal stance and nobility, trapped as it was by circumstances that Riley had understood only too well. Having just made her entrée onto the Paris stage, she’d earned just enough money to buy him, and had promptly freed him the moment the papers had been signed.
    But the giant had refused to take his emancipation. At least until the debt between them was paid.
    She had considered it paid in full years ago, but Hashim just shook his head every time she broached the subject of his liberty.
    Over her shoulder, he coughed and nodded toward the front door.
    Riley took a deep breath and considered the information she’d had Aggie solicit during the night regarding their