Chapter 1
London, late March, 1816…
“You must select a lady of quality to be your wife this season and marry her before the year ends.”
Colin Fairbanks, the newly minted Earl of Celdon, stared in mute surprise at the old dragon, the moniker his siblings had attached to the Dowager Countess of Celdon. Or was she still the countess? With a list of infernal rules that govern the aristocracy still swirling around in his thoughts from their two-hour long discussion, he found his voice to calmly say, “A wife?” When there was nothing calm inside him at that edict.
Worse, Lady Celdon reclined like a queen against the high-back chair positioned by the window as if she simply expected that Colin, a man of one and thirty, would simply obey her ridiculous command. As if he had no thoughts and desires of his own concerning a wife. Someone he had never met died, leaving him to assume a role and responsibility he never anticipated—the most pressing that he marry sooner than later.
Colin was not quite ready for domesticity, although his own mother also supported the idea by touting it as just the thing he needed. He was not quite sure for what purpose he would need to be wed. Why would he want to be shackled to a wife?
How in God’s name am I here?
As he understood it, this formidable dowager countess staring him down, was five and sixty, and had lost her only son to a wasting illness more than fifteen years ago. Given the advanced state of her age, she and her earl had not been able to make another child. They had lived happily together while using a solicitor to find his heir, until the earl died over two years ago. Colin could not imagine what had happened in the intervening years since they had only discovered him six months ago, and this inheritance was something he still hadn’t managed to wrap his mind around.
Settling her gaze on him and pursing her lips, she clipped, “Yes, a wife. You must urgently dedicate yourself to the task.”
I will brook no refusallingered unspoken.
“Regrettably, I must decline,” he said with studied seriousness. “It was never my intention to marry before forty and that has not changed.”
The old dragon narrowed her dark blue eyes at him. Colin found it astonishing he had such a feature in common with her, eyes as blue and vivid as the reflective waters of Aegean seas. As far as the army of lawyers who had found him lying on the grassy hillside bank in Cornwall had informed him, he was some distant cousin, but he was the nearest male heir they could establish. Or some such nonsense.
“You are refusing?” she clipped icily, thumping her cane onto the lush carpet.
“Yes, I—”
“You are not in a position to refuse.”
He canted his head slightly to the left and with icy civility said, “I am the earl, am I not? I do recall it was I the Lord Chancellor summoned by writ to parliament.”
She narrowed her eyes at him in unforgiving censure.
Amusement almost tugged a smile from him. “Pray forgive the disrespect, but who are you to command me to select a lady and marry immediately. I am my own man, madam, and when I am ready to clasp the lock around my throat, it will be my decision.”
Her lips pursed. “What lock?”
“Wedlock, madam. That is what it is called. I daresay it is not a happy state but a terrible imposition on a gentleman who cherishes his comings and goings.”
She leveled a piercing stare upon him; and, if Colin was another sort of man, he would have squirmed in his seat.
“You, Colin Fairbanks, are not a gentleman with whom I am impressed.”
“I was not trying to impress you, madam.”
As if he had not spoken, she continued, “You have been in town for four months and rumor…a ghastly rumor already has it you’ve procured an actress as a mistress and even fought a duel over her!”
“It wasn’t a duel, but a brawl in a—”
Her cane thumped several times onto the floor. “Earls of Celdon do not brawl! They do not attend balls with their cravats undone! Nor do they smoke in rooms where ladies are present. You are a disgrace to the title, and I will not settle for it! You, my good lad, need to procure yourself a respectable wife, one who will help you navigate the ton and become a proper gentleman befitting Celdon.”
The knot of his neckcloth suddenly felt too tight. He had not asked for this. As a country gentleman, his life before had been pleasant enough, and no one had ever asked him his opinion before they upended his life and thrust this new responsibility upon him with the expectation that it couldn’t be refused. Yet he had squared his shoulders and accepted the duties imposed upon him. As one of his sisters had joked, they had moved from “country rags to riches” within the blink of an eye, and apparently being exceedingly rich was a heavy responsibility. “I’ve lived as a gentleman, madam; I believe I am acquainted with the proper niceties and when to apply them.”
The old dragon offered him a mocking smile. “You are not ton worthy, my dear. A country gentleman who dances country dances in barns and village assembly halls is not even qualified to attend a rout in town. No doubt you spent your time talking to sheep and cows, not refined and educated ladies and gentlemen. You are sorely lacking in town polish, and the entire world will see it.”
“Then let them see,” he said with cool indifference, thinking the old dragon had gone quite beyond the pale with her insults. Clearly the solicitors had told her they found him telling a story to the baby sheep curled atop his chest.
Irritation flashed in her eyes. “You will act in a dignified manner befitting the Earl of Celdon, and your sisters and brothers will fall in line! All of them are rakes and hoydens! All of your sisters lack the proper decorum of modesty and correct demeanor which is of utmost importance. One of your sisters laughed with her entire mouth open at Lady Sanderson’s musicale a few evenings ago. I was most astonished as this lack of good governance over her actions when out and about.”