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I’ll buy her one, eventually,” he muttered. “I simply needed a few moments of your time in order to advise you that I’m plotting revenge over the unfortunate remarks you made regarding my need for a wife. I plan to round up every spotty faced, fortune hunting fob I can find and hint in a not so subtle fashion that you’ve set your cap for them.”
    “I do beg your pardon. My only intent was to help a friend in need. However, if you make good your threat, I will inform Aunt Mirabella that you would prefer a stout, not overly attractive, serious-minded young lady for a wife in order to offset your own free spirited, reckless nature.”
    “You wouldn’t dare.”
    “You don’t care for stout, unattractive, serious minded young women?”
    “As you well know, I most certainly do not. But this is getting far too brutal. It’s time for a truce before we both end up with a match made in hell.”
    She broke into a rich melodious laughter. It pleased him to see how her face lit up with pleasure, how her eyes brightened when she laughed.
    “Agreed,” she said. “Though it would be terribly amusing to see you courting a blue stocking.”
    “It would bring untold misery to the young lady as well as myself. I would much rather court…” He stopped the words before they escaped his mouth. A tall, green eyed minx with copper curls that never stay put.
    “Yes?” she prompted.
    “I don’t really know,” he finished lamely. “I suppose I’d rather not court anyone at the moment.”
    He left the house on an odd note, the teasing banter between them gone. He wasn’t certain what had transpired between them but he decided that it would be best if he kept his distance. It would be damned difficult, but it would be best. Resigned to his decision he nudged Hudson toward Bryony Hall.

Chapter Two

    P alladian of weathered gray stone, graceful columns and ivy covered walls was immensely impressive. Its owners were rarely present, but Bryony Hall was well tended by its large staff of servants. The terraced gardens at the rear of the house led to vast manicured parklands complete with a summer house, gazebo and a number of ponds. The outskirts of the property were bound by heavily wooded grounds, where game was plentiful. In addition to a hunting lodge, there were a number of cottages where the groundskeepers lived. Happy to enjoy the fortune he had amassed from his profitable shipping business, his great-grandsire had begun building the country house in the earliest part of the previous century. It had been named for his wife.
    As always, a gamut of emotions ran through Rand as he stared at the house. Good memories spoiled by bad ones. He generally spent Christmas week here with his mother and his sister’s family, but other than that, he rarely visited. Not since his father had died. The memory of that last meeting with his father was enough to keep him away. His father had been a philanderer as well as a drunk. He would toss up the skirts of any wench who was willing and especially when he was deep in his cups, those who weren’t. Had he been discreet, Rand might have overlooked his father’s excesses. It wasn’t unusual for a married man to keep a mistress, but William Danfield had taken no pains to keep his affairs quiet. In fact he seemed to delight in parading his whores and paramours in front of his wife. Rand’s mother had handled it with amazing dignity and grace and he had often wondered how she managed to refrain from putting a bullet between the man’s eyes.
    When it reached the point where he was no longer welcome in most of the drawing rooms and gentleman’s clubs of London, William Thomas Danfield had been forced to 'rusticate' at Bryony Hall where though the opportunities for whoring were much less plentiful, he could continue that and his drunkenness without censure. But it had all come to a head when at the age of