Mistress

Occasionally George clapped Marcus on the back and chortled about having produced such a useful son. Once in a great whole he thought to hoist Be

Cloud frequently observed with some satisfaction that it was fortunate both of his sons had inherited his own excellent constitution. He pointed out that chronic ill health, such as Mrs. Cloud suffered, was a damnable nuisance. But that was the limit of his paternal involvement in his sons' lives.

Marcus's mother, whose medical complaints were generally of a vague nature and featured such symptoms as melancholia and fatigue, contracted a very real fever the year Marcus turned eighteen. She succumbed to it within a matter of hours. Marcus had been at her bedside, his two-year-old brother in his arms.

His father had been out fox hunting. Cloud had lived for nearly a year after his death, an event he had noticed more because it had interfered with his hunting plans than because of any great sense of loss. But eleven months after his long-neglected spouse had succumbed to the lung fever, he managed to break his own neck in a fall when his newest jumper failed to clear a fence.

Marcus was at work in the fields with his men the morning the vicar came to tell him that his father was dead. He had been studying the effectiveness of the modifications he had recently made in a new reaping machine.

He still recalled the curiously detached sensation he had experienced whole he listened to the vicar murmur words of condolence.

A year earlier he had wept alone after his mother's death. But on the morning of his father's demise he could not summon a single tear.

His principal emotion beneath the sense of detachment had been a brief, senseless anger.

He had not understood the reason for the i

Young Be

Marcus pushed the-memories aside and watched Be

"Harry and I got bored in Scotland," Be

"I see." Marcus spread jam on a slice of toast. "I thought you had declared the Season a dead bore."

"Yes, well, that was last year." "Of course."

Last year Be

Marcus had been quietly pleased to see that his brother was not the type to he swept off his feet by the superficial entertainments of the ton.

Oxford had done its job. Marcus had not sent Be

A young man did not go off to either Cambridge or Oxford in order to study. He went there to obtain a social polish and to mingle with the young men with whom he would later do business for the rest of his life. He went there to form friendships with the scions of the best families, families from which he would eventually select a suitable wife.

Marcus had been determined that his brother would not he like him, a naive, rough-edged country squire who knew nothing of the world beyond life on a farm.

Marcus had paid a high price for his own lack of worldliness. He did not want Be

Marcus took a large bite of his toast. "Where did you go last night?"

"He and I both went to our club," Be

"Which ones?"

"I don't remember precisely. The Broadmore hall, for one, I believe. And I think we stopped briefly at the Fosters' levee.

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

Be

"Be

"Nothing is wrong." Be

"What the devil is that supposed to mean?"

"Very well, Marcus, I shall be blunt. I understand you made a spectacle of yourself last night."

"A spectacle?"

"Hell and damnation. They say you carried your new paramour out of the Fenwicks' ballroom in your arms, for God's sake. Talk about causing a scene."

"Ah, so that's the problem." Marcus's hand tightened on the handle of his knife. He cut into his sausage with grave precision. "Did I embarrass you?"

"Marcus, are you going to spend the rest of your life titillating Society with your bizarre behavior?"

"I did embarrass you." Marcus forked up a bite of sausage and chewed meditatively. "Try not to take it to heart, Be

"That's hardly the point, is it?" Be

Marcus nearly choked on his sausage. "A man of my years?"

"You're thirty-six. You ought to have remarried years ago and settled down to the business of building your nursery.

"Bloody hell. From whence springs this sudden concern with my nursery? You know full well that I do not intend to remarry."

"What about your obligation to the title?"

"I'm quite content to see the title go to you."

"Well, I don't particularly want it, Marcus. It's yours and it should go to your son." Be

"I perceive that my actions last night have, indeed humiliated you," Marcus said dryly.

"You must admit, it's a trifle awkward to have an older brother, a thirty-six-year-old unmarried earl, no less, who has no compunction about becoming the latest on dit.

"This isn't the first time."

"It's the first time that you've caused a scene in the middle of a fashionable ballroom."

Marcus cocked a brow. "How would you know? You've hardly spent any time at all in Society."

"Miss Dorchester told me as much," Be

Marcus stared. "Juliana Dorchester?"

"I had the great privilege of dancing with her fast night," Be

"I see."

"Whenever you say 'I see' in that particular tone, it generally means you disapprove. Well, you had best not say anything unpleasant about Miss Dorchester to me, Marcus. She is a beautiful young lady with extremely refined sensibilities who would never dream of getting involved in a scandalous scene."

"This is Juliana Dorchester's second Season," Marcus said grimly. "She has to secure a husband this time around because the Dorchesters ca

"You're trying to warn me off her, aren't you? Well, it won't work. She is an unrivaled paragon of womanhood and I shall he forever grateful that she allowed me into her presence last night."

"She is no doubt thanking her lucky stars right this minute that you took notice of her. She'll be plotting to appear in whatever ballroom you happen to show up in this evening."

"Damnation. She's not the type to plot anything. She's too i

"She's plotting right this minute. Trust me." "How would you know?"