The Devil Is a Marquess (Rescued from Ruin Book 4) by Elisa Braden Page B

dark and punctuated by the pop and sizzle from the fireplace. When she answered, her voice was quiet, as though the ground she tread had been worn so deep, the sound that emerged was muffled. “They do not want me. You may wrap my entire body in one-hundred-pound notes, and the reaction will be the same. Is that simple enough?”
    In an instant, Chatham decided she was wrong. Charlotte Lancaster naked but for a few small bits of paper? They would want her. Perhaps not enough to marry her, but to bed her, most certainly. After the incident last winter, when she had taken a tumble beside the Serpentine and unveiled her lower half to a smattering of gape-jawed, gossipy lackwits, he’d endured endless rhapsodies from young bucks at Reaver’s about how it would feel to climb between two limbs of such length. If she thought a man’s cock gave a damn about whether her coloring was fashionable, she did not understand men in the slightest.
    Now, Lancaster was shaking his head, rebuffing her answer. “You did not bother to try—”
    “That is preposterous.” She shook her skirts. “I wear the finest gowns.”
    “Beside the point.”
    “Attend balls and fetes and dinners and soirees and bloody musicales—”
    “Mind your language, girl.”
    “—and have done for five years. I hate it. Every bloody bit of it. But I have done it, because it is what fine English ladies do when they seek a husband. And it has. Not. Worked.”
    “Obviously,” Lancaster blustered. “You have been distracted by your mannish notions about entering trade. ‘Preposterous’ is imagining that a woman can manage an enterprise such as mine. You have only yourself to blame that we have come to this pass.”
    At this, her shoulders again stiffened. “It matters not who is at fault.”
    “It matters when you have engaged in sabotage to thwart my commands.”
    “Sabotage? I have done everything you asked! You simply refuse to comprehend reality because it does not comport with your wishes. No matter. Here is where my compliance ends.” Her long, slender arm shot out from her side and swung around to point in Chatham’s direction. “I shall not marry him. He is a dishonorable—”
    Lancaster protested, “Now, see here—”
    “—scurrilous rake, and to spend one moment in his company—”
    Chatham assumed she had forgotten he was still in the room. He cleared his throat pointedly.
    “—much less an entire year is untenable.”
    “Miss Lancaster,” he drawled.
    She spun around, cracking her wrist against the back of her chair. Wincing, she cradled the injured arm and gave him a green-and-gold glare. “I have nothing to say to you.”
    “How refreshing.”
    Her chin elevated. “You are in your cups. I can smell it from here.”
    Unsurprised by her bluntness, he brushed imaginary lint from his knee. “Mmm. Makes the world more bearable. Perhaps you should try it.”
    “I will not marry a drunkard. Nor a lecherous scoundrel who collects followers to join him in debauchery.”
    Grinning, he replied, “Debauchery is best when shared, love.”
    She opened her mouth to parry, but Lancaster intruded first. “Whatever his past habits, Rutherford has agreed to cease all drunkenness and remain faithful to you for the year.”
    Charlotte’s snort was accompanied by an eye-roll. Chatham found both oddly charming. “Benedict Chatham has no acquaintance with honor, Papa. If you are trusting him to keep his word, you shall be sorely—”
    “Honor is weak tea, Miss Lancaster,” Chatham interrupted. “As one who favors trade, you should understand a sizable dowry is a far superior incentive. If I succeed in surviving the year as your abstemious husband, my reward will be … substantial.”
    She edged toward him, her silk rustling. “How substantial?”
    Lancaster cleared his throat and began to protest, but Chatham did not give a damn what secrets the American wished to keep. “One hundred,” he said smoothly.
    A slim, freckled hand slid