Seduction In Silk: A Novel of the Malloren World (Malloran) by Jo Beverley Page B

and feuds. You’re truly going to marry this woman?”
    “One must suffer for family duty,” Perry said, “and perhaps she deserves some good fortune.”
    “Then why the pistol?” Genova Ashart asked. Perry had discovered that her beauty was matched with intelligence and an independent spirit.
    “She hasn’t yet recognized her good fortune?”
    “Or accurately sees that you are not it.”
    “She’s living in poverty,” he pointed out.
    “Wealth is not the only consideration in life, or I’d never have married Ashart.”
    Ashart chuckled. “A true folly, love. One for which I’m grateful.”
    The Asharts open fondness was distinctly unfashionable. Perhaps that was why they lurked in the countryside.
    “In my experience,” Perry said, “all women wish to marry, but most especially those without the means for a comfortable life. Why is Miss Mallow so different? A sensible answer, if you please.”
    “Perhaps she loves another,” Genova said.
    “Inconvenient if true, but I don’t think so. She would have thrown that at me like a spear.”
    Ashart said, “Perhaps her parents’ marriage has given her a distaste for matrimony.”
    “More plausible, but illogical. She and I are not they.”
    “Not everyone is ruled by logic,” Genova pointed out.
    “Alas.”
    Genova frowned. “Your social skills are famous, Perriam, but I fear you must have mishandled this.”
    “I did. She seemed so practical that I raced to the point. What now? I have only twenty-two days to get her to the altar, and less time than that before I should be back in Town.”
    “You have pressing appointments with your tailor and boot maker?” Ashart asked lazily. He knew better.
    “I have, but yet more pressing duties for my father.” To Genova, he added, “He provides both a salary and sinecures so that I be ready to support the family’s interests.”
    “What does Rothgar pay you?” Ashart asked.
    So that was the thrust of his comment, and might be the reason Perry had been invited here. Perry sometimes assisted the Marquess of Rothgar in delicate matters to do with court politics, but Rothgar was Ashart’s cousin and until recently they’d continued a family feud of their own.
    “Are you still sparring with him?” Perry asked.
    “Only for amusement, but I could bear to know what engages him at the moment.” When Perry didn’t oblige, he shrugged. “Very well, I’ll return to your entanglement. I see no hope. It’s no longer possible to drag an unwilling bride to the altar.”
    Genova offered more coffee and refilled cups. “The normal course is to woo. That didn’t occur to you?”
    Perry spread his hands. “How, if she has more brain than a pigeon, and I assure you she has. Did I glimpse her amid her cabbages in her dismal black gown and tattered straw hat and be instantly slain by passion?”
    “As bad as that?”
    “I understate the case, but at least her appearance is amendable and by God’s grace she speaks well and has respectable manners.”
    “When not offended,” Ashart pointed out. “Pointing a pistol at a guest is not comme il faut.”
    “If you can’t woo,” Genova said, “then persuade. You have much to offer.”
    “And a gift for it,” Ashart said. “If challenged, you could persuade the king to dance a jig down Pall Mall, but you can’t coax a clergyman’s impoverished daughter to the altar?”
    “I prefer honest dealings.”
    “And you a courtier.”
    “I prefer honest dealings in my personal life, and marriage is personal no matter how practical the cause.”
    “Then you’ve a lost cause.”
    “I reject defeat. I didn’t explain the situation or show her the documents. When I do she’ll see the sense of it.”
    Genova rolled her eyes. “Lord save me from illogical men! The documents explain your needs. They don’t touch hers.”
    “I’ll lay out the advantages to her, but I hope her grandmother will already have done so.”
    “Grannie Mallow?” Ashart said with