When the Marquess Met His Match by Laura Lee Guhrke - An American Heiress in London 01 - When the Marquess Met His Match

course public in so blatant a fashion, she had well and truly spiked his guns.
    Devil take her. She’d not only betrayed his confidence by airing their private conversation in the gutter press, she’d ruined his credit and damaged his chances of marrying well. He was not about to let this move on her part go unchallenged. Taking up the paper, he rose to his feet. Lady Featherstone wanted a fight, did she? By God, he’d give her one.
    Fifteen minutes later, he was on her doorstep and her butler was again expressing doubt as to whether she was home to visitors, but Nicholas had no doubt whatsoever on that score. She’d see him. How else would she have the opportunity to crow?
    Nicholas was proved right when the butler returned. “If you will follow me, my lord,” the servant said, and once again showed him into Lady Featherstone’s drawing room.
    She rose from her chair at the tea table as he entered the room, making a great show of setting aside the newspaper she’d been reading. Her expression was as cool and self-possessed as ever, but an unmistakable little smile curved her full lips. “Lord Trubridge.”
    “Lady Featherstone.” He removed his hat and forced himself to bow.
    She gestured to the silver tea service on the table. “Would you care for tea?”
    “No.” He strode forward, wasting no more time on banal civilities. “You went to the scandal sheets about me.”
    She didn’t deny it nor even try to dissemble. “One scandal sheet,” she corrected, and in those three words was enough relish to send Nicholas’s temper up another notch.
    Nonetheless, when he spoke, he kept his voice even and controlled. “The things I told you about myself and my situation were in confidence, madam.”
    “I deemed the hearts, virtue, and reputations of young ladies to be more important than your confidences.”
    “That was not your choice to make.” He could feel a tiny muscle working at the corner of his jaw, and his hands were so tightly clenched around the brim of his hat, they began to ache. “You had no right.”
    “I had every right! The future happiness of many a young lady depends upon choosing a husband of fine and upstanding character. You, sir, are not one of those. And I fail to see why you are bothered about the story.”
    “Bothered? Lady Featherstone, I am more than bothered. I am outraged.”
    “But why should you be? According to what you told me yesterday, you are prepared to be an honest fortune hunter. If that is true, then why should it matter if the news of your financial situation comes out now rather than later?”
    “Because having the news come out later would have given me the time to secure a loan from my bankers, which would have been enough to tide me over until the end of the season, by which point I had hoped to be married, or at least engaged. Now, thanks to you, I do not have even that small window of opportunity. I will be unable to secure the blunt to lease a house in town, cover the bills of tradesmen, or pay wages to a staff. How can I be expected to establish the connections I need to find a young lady to marry if I cannot even establish a household in which to entertain?”
    “That is not my problem. Perhaps you should have put by some of your income when you had it? Saved it for a rainy day?”
    “Perhaps,” he was forced to acknowledge. “But it’s a bit late for that now.”
    “So it is. But for my part, I cannot feel anything but relief, knowing that no young lady shall be unknowingly beguiled and seduced by a scoundrel like you in the candlelight of your latest dinner party!”
    “Dinner party?” he echoed through clenched teeth. “I doubt I could even procure the required joint of beef from the butcher, thanks to you. And as for honesty, I was prepared to be honest about my circumstances with my future wife and her family, yes, but that it is a far cry from having it bandied about in the scandal sheets! You say you care about reputations, madam, but that