Captain Durant's Countess - By Maggie Robinson Page 0,3

so very young, six years younger than she was if she did her sums correctly.

“You must come! It is your duty!”

“Don’t talk to me of duty, madam. I’ve done my share and have the scars to prove it.” Maris’s gaze couldn’t help but follow his large brown hand, where it rubbed against a muscled thigh slashed with a long red line.

He noticed. “Bayonet wound. There’s still a ball in my shoulder, too. Hurts like the devil when the weather is damp, which is pretty much every day in England. Look your fill—I’ve nicks and knots everywhere. Even my pretty face didn’t escape the French. Some ladies like it, though.” He grinned rakishly, the saber scar doubling his dimple.

Maris could see where some ladies would.

He was not yet thirty, but there was a worn look about him that went beyond whatever injuries he’d sustained. Dissipation, she thought, but something else as well. She watched as his fingers drummed against his thigh, and quickly realized where her eyes were straying.

A few minutes in this horrible house and she was good as corrupted. But that was necessary, wasn’t it, if she were to go through with Henry’s plan?

“You must come to Kelby Hall, if only for a little while. I’m sure it won’t . . . take very long.” She felt the color creep into her cheeks.

“I told your husband I had changed my mind. Now I am sure of it.”

Damn the man and his implied insult. She knew she was plain and old, but not completely repulsive. “You took his money.”

“And I wrote to say I’d pay it all back.” Durant rose, went to the chair where his clothes were piled, and reached into a pocket. “Here. I’ve had some recent luck at the tables. I was mistaken to agree when Mr. Ramsey presented this . . . uh . . . unique opportunity to me. He can be quite convincing, you know. Passionate. I’ve never met a man quite like him, and that’s the truth. Odd sort of fellow. Have you met him?”

Maris shook her head in answer. Henry had come up with his cork-brained idea all on his own and had made all the arrangements. She waved away the offered payment.

“Something is not quite right about him. I don’t think he is at all what he pretends to be. But when I met him, I thought to—well, never mind. My need for the position you hired me for is no longer valid.”

His emphasis on the word position brought another blush to Maris’s cheeks. She could feel the heat sweep clear down to the collar of her high-necked gown. She tugged the fabric up another inch.

The man had the effrontery to catch her at it and smile. It was dazzling, like the rest of him. “Needless to say, I’m sorry I ever replied to the advertisement in The London List last fall and put you both to all the trouble. It was a mistake. After I met with your husband, I had a crisis of conscience and realized his scheme wouldn’t suit.”

Maris had not been present for the job interview. Henry had insisted on handling the meeting himself, and she had relented, hoping to delay her mortification. She had not even permitted herself a peek at Captain Durant as he rode up Kelby Hall’s crushed stone drive.

“My husband is dying,” she said bluntly. Thank heavens Captain Durant is stepping into his fawnskin trousers. He doesn’t seem to wear smalls, though.

“I am very sorry to hear that, Lady Kelby. But it doesn’t change my mind. I assure you I will repay every penny now that my luck is turning.”

“We don’t want the money! We want . . . you.” It was far too late to go through the process all over again. It had taken Mr. Ramsey over a year to get even this far. Vaguely worded advertisements. Vaguely worded interviews with the handful of candidates so desperate they had not been bothered by the vagueness.

Henry had been extremely particular. While all cats might be gray in the dark, Lord Kelby did have a care for his wife and the succession. Evidently the two other men Mr. Ramsey had sent him had not compared at all favorably with Captain Durant, for Henry was insistent that no one else would do.

Though Henry might not be so impressed if he knew where Maris had found him. Henry’s London doctor would have to be consulted if Reynold Durant decided to go through with this insanity.