Chapter One

      ‘You little fool! You will speak to Mr Dashwood and what’s more you’ll show gratitude and a little grace in your address when you accept!’

      Margaret Worthington’s thin fingers locked with surprising strength onto an elbow that was ceaselessly jerking to free itself.

      ‘You are wasting your time, Mama, and that of our…guest.” The epithet was spat through gritted white teeth. ‘I will not marry him, nor will I even deign to sit in the same room as that despicable roué.’ Emma Worthington picked at her mother’s clawed digits. The restraint was soon reapplied and Emma wearily sighed. ‘Please let go of my arm.’

      ‘I shall not! If you do not enter the drawing room of your own volition, you will enter from mine, or your papa’s…or perhaps even Mr Dashwood’s. He demands a biddable wife and one of unimpeachable virtue. Well, the latter condition you honestly meet, the former I own I’ve embellished upon. He might have to encourage that quality…And I’m sure he will now he’s laid down two thousand pounds on your father’s account.’

      ‘Two thousand pounds?’ The fury and disbelief in Emma’s tone rendered her voice little more than an outraged squeak. ‘You have allowed that…that vile man to purchase me for two thousand of his disgusting, blood-stained pounds?’

      ‘Don’t be so ridiculously melodramatic, Emma,’ Margaret Worthington hissed. ‘Besides, there should be another sixteen thousand of those disgusting notes to follow, when you are wed, and that should just about set your papa’s finances to rights. How can you be so stubborn and selfish? Are you so determined to rip a modest comfort from your doting parents in their twilight years? I tell you, it’s not to be borne!’

      Taking abrupt advantage of her daughter’s momentary daze, Margaret managed to swing open the drawing-room door with one determined hand whilst the other propelled Emma, with an ungentle shove, into the room. Margaret reclined daintily against the mahogany panels; a sturdy, unseen hand was planted at her daughter’s back, preventing her retreat. It prodded her forward.

      Emma tilted her chin, endeavoured to separate her grinding teeth and walked purposefully towards the gentleman who had gained his expensively shod feet at their ungainly arrival.

      Tawny eyes of the most exquisite shade and oval shape met the dark gaze watching her. She politely extended pale, slender fingers to him and bobbed a curtsey. ‘I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Dashwood. Unfortunately, there appears to have been a misunderstanding between myself and my parents on the matter of your marriage proposal. I can only apologise to you for the confusion and beg you forgive us for detaining you.’

      Emma just caught her mother’s shocked gasp from behind but she kept her sooty-fringed amber eyes on the gentleman balancing the tapered tips of her ivory fingers on the swarthy blunt pads of his. His dark head angled out of his courteous bow a little and assessing olive eyes arrowed sideways at her.

      Something in that low-lidded gaze slew her attention to where they held bodily contact. She curbed a shudder as she noted a few wiry hairs sprouting from sturdy knuckles. Jerkily, her hand recoiled to the folds of her skirt.

      Jarrett Dashwood gave a low, unamused chuckle as he straightened into stiff-backed stillness. A piercing glance sliced over the top of Emma’s honey-brown head to her mother’s stricken countenance. ‘I appear to be missing something here, Mrs Worthington,’ he began, so smoothly amused, it almost belied the fierce glint in his eyes. ‘On meeting with you and your husband earlier this week, I could have sworn you both gave me to believe your daughter was not only agreeable to my offer but “happy and honoured’ was, I recall, the phrase you used…? Perhaps you have another daughter? One who more resembles your description of a shy spinster of advanced years with an amenable nature…ah, yes, and a fondness for reading frivolous romantic fancies penned by Jane Austen.’ Barely pausing for breath, he drawled, ‘Well, to bastardise that good lady’s wise words: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man with a good fortune must be in want of a wife: most assuredly so once a little of said fortune has been transferred to his insolvent prospective in-laws.’ With the same oiled ease, yet through lips that seemed motionless, came, ‘Where is your husband? Fetch him, if you please.’

      ‘My husband is unwell, sir.’ The words were faint and breathy. ‘I beg you will excuse