Read Online Lady Varney's Risqué Business by Cerise Deland - Free Book Online Page B

And that she had been not only foolish, but rather childish.
    Dire measures called for bold actions.
    She winced. And now you must pay the price, Puss. Present yourself before the ailing Earl of Belmont and inquire if you might, please, be permitted to propose marriage to his nephew, his heir, Justin Simpson Belmont.
    She squared her shoulders and rapped on the carriage door with her parasol. In a minute, she was down from her spot, met by the butler, shown to the reception room while her request for an audience with the eighth earl was approved. Or denied.
    The butler reappeared within ten eternities of minutes. His expression, when he stood before her, was dour. To say the most.
    But she was shown upstairs and round to a private sitting room. “Wait here, my lady. His lordship has received no one save his nephew since his confinement months ago. He does his best to prepare to meet you.”
    The wait did not improve her nerves. In fact, she had no recourse but to imagine herself tending her rose garden at Varney House. Or Justin’s at his wedding cottage. The one that’s meant for me . She bit her lip, fighting tears at her deplorable predicament. A lady of her status and breeding, her lineage and social accomplishment facing a man who was once the ton ’s most notorious rake and womanizer, asking for approval for his nephew’s hand in marriage.
    “Lady Varney, his lordship,” proclaimed the butler, “awaits you.”
    She followed the earl’s man in to his sitting room, a large wood-paneled expanse where a huge fire raged in the July heat.
    For a man who had once stood as tall and imposing as his younger nephew, the earl was a shriveled, gnarly creature who sat in his overstuffed wing chair and beckoned her toward him with a wave of his feeble hand.
    “Come closer, gel. Closer! Closer!” He peered up at her, his watery eyes slim dark orbs flowing over her like a butcher over a shank of beef. “Henry’s wife. Always wondered who he’d get. Heard you were—” He coughed and hacked into a handkerchief. “An Incomparable. Now then. Pull that chair closer to me, William. I must see more of her.”
    She folded her hands in her lap and faced him in the opposite oversized chair that threatened to swallow her whole. “You are most kind to receive me, my lord.”
    “You were…” He coughed and sputtered. “Vague about coming. What ails you, madam?”
    She found his choice of words odd, but no matter. The man was dying. He was allowed peculiarities. She would rely on her prepared speech. “I have met your nephew.”
    “Eleven years ago.”
    Shocked he knew or, in his debilitated state, remembered how they had met, she moved onward. “I have met him often recently.”
    He laughed until he hacked up phlegm and doubled over with the effort. Wiping his mouth with a huge handkerchief, he gave what she would best describe as a rasping laugh, pushed himself up and said, “I heard about the butler’s pantry. Good one, I must say! And the map table in old Darlington’s library! Ha! Yes, indeed.”
    She took a moment to find her voice. “You have heard of these meetings. I suppose from the broadsheets.”
    “Good stories, too. Best I’ve heard in years. You are a sport, my gel!”
    A sport ?
    “A woman who loves to fuck is a priceless piece.”
    Her mouth dropped open. Her cheeks flamed. Her heart picked up a tattoo. Who had told him that Justin and she had…become intimate? She would kill them in the morning. Meanwhile, she must deal with this ribald old gentleman who had no presence of mind to deal with her like a lady who never, ever fucked . “My lord, I have come to discuss your stipulations for possible brides for your nephew.”
    “Have you now?” He grinned, his yellowed teeth bared to her in a satisfied grin. “Go on.”
    She cleared her throat. “It is my understanding that you have demanded your heir—”
    “Justin.”
    She nodded. “Justin. That he find a young woman who is an