The Counterfeit Gentleman by Charlotte Louise Dolan Page A

any move to leave. Instead, they all showed every sign of hanging around until dawn just so that they could bask in Miss Pepperell’s smiles, which she was dispensing all too liberally. In the end Digory virtually threw the besotted men out of his cottage.
    Alone at last with Miss Pepperell, who did not look the least bit repentant, Digory forced himself to be stern. “When did you first suspect that one of your cousins was attempting to enrich himself by foul means?”
    Bethia’s mind was instantly flooded with all the horrible memories, which for the moment she had been able to push out of her thoughts. Staring into Mr. Rendel’s eyes, she found herself quite unable to speak.
    Or was she tongue-tied merely because his gray eyes were so bewitching? As desperately as she wanted to turn away from his penetrating gaze, which seemed to be look ing into her very soul, she could not break free from the spell he had cast over her.
    Was he experiencing the same thing she was? Could he feel this bond that connected them—the powerful force that linked her fate with his? Or was it only in her imagination that they were forever bound together?
    He got up from the table, and turning away from her, he added another log to the fire, then stood looking down into the flames.
    With his back toward her, she found herself able to talk quite normally, her voice steady and casual, conveying no trace of her inner anxieties and confusion. “Actually, all three of my cousins tried fair means in the beginning. Al though none of them had previously paid me the slightest note, after the reading of my grandfather’s will, they began vying with each other quite openly for my attention. I was quite bombarded with flowers and other small tokens of their esteem, and as soon as the period of mourning was over, they appeared on our doorstep one after another and asked my aunt’s permission to address me.”
    Bethia suppressed a shudder at the memory of how un pleasant and distasteful it had been, then continued, her voice growing more and more wooden as her emotions became more and more heated. “Cousin Wilbur hastened to assure me that since we are only first cousins once re moved, there is no problem with consanguinity. Cousin Gervase felt my only possible objection might be the difference in our ages—he is twenty-two years older than I am—but he explained that being around me made him feel quite youthful. And Cousin Inigo actually gave me his word of honor as a gentleman that he would give up all his mis tresses once we were married.”
    Instead of returning to his place at the table, Mr. Rendel sat down in the upholstered chair by the fire. “I am sur prised that you were able to resist such impassioned proposals,” he said with a smile.
    Although at the time she had not been able to find any humor in the situation, Bethia now found the corners of her mouth turning up of their own accord. “My aunt was like wise of that opinion and felt it was clearly my duty to ac cept one or the other of my cousins since their breeding was impeccable, their manners—at least when she was present—were beyond reproach, and in addition, I would thereby be keeping my grandfather’s wealth in the family. Taken together, these were, in her opinion, irrefutable argu ments in favor of such an auspicious alliance. She did, however, give me leave to decide for myself which of my three cousins I would marry. She was quite put out with me when I insisted upon having a Season first.”
    It seemed to Bethia that her ears still rang with her aunt’s recriminations, which over time had grown from gentle reprimands to scathing denunciations of Bethia’s character. “Due to my grandfather’s ill health and then his death, I was not able to be presented at court until I was nineteen, and for all of last Season, my cousins paid me such marked attention, at times it felt more like persecution.”
    Turning to look into the fire, which seemed to be radiat ing less heat