My Fair Marchioness (Scandalous Affairs Book 3) by Christi Caldwell (best short books to read txt) 📗

eyed him up and down, and then, with matching grunts, they raised those scandal sheets back up.

“With a woman indeed.”

He bristled. “I’m perfectly groomed, not even a bit rumpled. One might say it is scandalous for you to assume—”

Lady Cavendish patted her cheek, directing his kiss there.

At age seven, he’d learned the lesson that it was always better to comply than to face a vicious cheek-pinching from the unrepentantly ruthless countess.

“When I was widowed, I wasn’t out and about bedding anyone and everyone, which, given you men and that itch you can never get properly scratched, is saying something.”

Harris briefly closed his eyes.

His godmother leaned forward, peering at him, particularly at his face and neck. “Hmph. He’s still capable of a blush, so mayhap there’s hope for him yet. Here.” She thrust a page at him. “Read this.’

Collecting the source of her latest crisis, Harris read the page aloud. “We have every reason to believe your niece, Miss Adairia…” His words immediately trailed off.

Well, this was indeed a real emergency.

“We need your help,” Lady Cowpen said, wringing her hands.

Yes, someone was preying upon them once more.

Measuring his response, Harris helped himself to a seat across from the trio. After all, having grown up with the three of them as de facto mothers, he knew better than anyone how many hours they’d spent searching. How many papers and files they’d pored over. All in the hope of Adairia being one day returned. In time, however, they’d come to realize the deception played out in the hopes of attaining the wealth the duchess might afford them.

They stared expectantly back.

“Well?” his godmother urged.

And then horror settled in his brain as he realized what united them in their usual contrary opinions. “You… aren’t seriously believing this is really her?” he asked, his voice strained. Praying.

“We are,” his godmother announced.

Lady Cowpen leaned forward. “Deadly so.”

That was enough to give him pause, and he edged back in his seat. When the mood suited them, there wasn’t a more ruthless trio than the one assembled before him.

“But you said yourselves it was time to set aside the dream.”

“This isn’t a dream, Harris,” the duchess said brusquely. She pointed at the page. “This time, it is the real thing.”

Here they went. Again. Harris looked hopefully to the greatest cynic of the ladies. “Not you, too, Lady Cowpen. Surely you aren’t intending to go along with this?”

“Harumph, dear boy,” she said, thumping her orchid-headed gold cane upon the hardwood floor. “I don’t go along with anything. I make my own mind.”

He latched on to that. Certainly he could appeal to one of them, who could in turn make the others see reason. “And surely you’re not trusting that this girl is somehow… out there?”

“Have a care,” his godmother snapped. “First, that girl is my niece. Second, you were the one who suggested we hire the investigator Steele.”

Yes, because he’d expected and hoped that famed gentleman investigator would put an end to this once and for all. Harris resisted the urge to jam his fingertips against his temples. “Your Grace,” he began gently, “Adairia… she wandered away from her family outside a ballet. She was five.”

“Five.”

“That was thirteen,” going on fourteen. “years ago,” he said over her interruption.

“And it was inevitable that she’d be found,” she said calmly. “She’s been identified by individuals who live in East London.”

Harris jumped up. “But not by Steele.” The investigator whom Harris had hired on his godmother’s behalf. “Steele put out inquiries all over East London. If this was real, he would have brought this to you not some,” He slashed a hand about. “cryptic note delivered by who knows?” And yet, it wasn’t his godmother’s fault that she was desperate. Harris forced himself to take a calming breath. “The girl is a damned charlatan. A fake. Someone who is taking advantage of a wo—”

Pale blonde eyebrows came sliding together, forming a hard, warning line that dared him to finish the remainder of his sentence.

Harris wisely corrected course.

“Someone who is taking advantage of an old story about an earl and countess’ missing daughter.”

Lady Cowpen leaned in, directing her hushed words at her sister’s ear. “That was clearly not what he was intending to say.” She grunted. “You were going to say ‘woman’.”

“It wasn’t even a good attempt at covering it up,” the lady’s twin whispered none too discreetly around her hand.

This time, he didn’t fight it. Harris pressed his fingertips into his temples. He let his hands fall and trained his efforts on the person here who mattered most in this exchange. The one who stood to lose the most. “I know you want your brother’s daughter to be found. Through the years, you’ve shared stories about the girl.” Catching the edge of his King Louis XIV chair, he dragged it closer. “But it’s not her. She’s gone.”

“Your cynicism will be the ruin of you,” his godmother said in pitying tones that sent a rush of heat up his neck.

“I was ruined long ago.” The moment he’d heard a scream and gone running to the rescue of a damsel in distress, only to find himself damned by the lady’s trickery. His stomach muscles seized. And then he’d stood by, watching that same woman suffer the most painstakingly slow death. He’d not loved her. He’d not even liked her. He’d not, however, have wished that pain on anyone. “I cannot be ruined any more than I was,” he said quietly to himself.

“Says all dark, cynical rogues,” Lady Cavendish added proudly.

“I personally think the dear boy likes to be dark and cynical,” her sister lamented.

“I’m not dark and cynical,” he called over their chattering. “I’m a realist.”

“Not all women are bad, you know, Harris,” his godmother said with a frown.

Three sets of eyes swiveled