‘You are clearly unsuited to the state of matrimony and I am not so desperate for a husband that I would bind myself to a man who shows me so little respect…’

God help him, at the time he had thought it amusing. The incident had confirmed his outrageous reputation and he had played on it to the full. Yet after a couple of years the empty life of a rake about town had become too barren to sustain him and he had chosen to join the Navy, to his father’s utter fury. He had enjoyed life at sea and had acquitted himself with valour, but when he had been invalided out, his old way of life had beckoned him as surely as a devil tempting him from the path of virtue. Until he had come to Midwinter and seen Deborah Stratton, and felt his heart seize in his chest. In one second she had achieved what the French had failed to do, and shot him down. It was rich retribution for a rake.

He did not intend to make any further mistakes. Deb had given him the advantage now and he would not let her escape him. It was marriage-or naught.

Richard stretched his long legs out to the warmth of the fire. He had already decided to tell Ross the whole truth, for he could see no way that he and Deb could sustain a masquerade beneath the noses of his friend and her sister. He rested his chin on his hand and sighed.

‘I shall tell you the whole matter, Ross, and then you may have me horsewhipped from the house if you please.’

Ross paused. ‘Is that a likely outcome?’

Richard sighed again. ‘I cannot be certain. Suffice it to say that your sister-in-law recently advertised for a gentleman of honour to come to her assistance.’ He saw the arrested look in Ross’s eyes and added hastily, ‘I need hardly tell you, Ross, that I am relating this in confidence. I have no wish to make further difficulties for Mrs Stratton. She was in urgent need of a fiancé and I offered my services.’

There was a very long silence.

‘What form did this advertisement take?’ Ross said, after a while.

‘It was a notice placed in the Suffolk Chronicle.’ Richard looked at him. ‘Under a pseudonym, of course.’

‘And you answered it,’ Ross said.

‘I did.’

‘And you also paid to suppress all the other replies?’

Richard grinned at that. ‘I did. How well you know me.’

‘Hmm,’ Ross said. ‘Did you know from the start that it was Deb who had placed the notice?’

Richard hesitated. ‘I…guessed.’

‘Extraordinary,’ Ross opined.

Richard smiled ruefully. ‘I do have rather a strong instinct where your sister-in-law is concerned, Ross.’

‘My dear fellow, we have all observed it,’ Ross said. He reached for the decanter and topped up Richard’s glass. ‘I suppose it is the nature of your impulses towards Deb that have always concerned me. I have to admit that I had not expected chivalry to be one of them.’

Richard’s mouth twisted wryly. ‘Thank you, Ross.’

‘I beg your pardon.’ Ross laughed. ‘I do not mean to imply that you would seduce Deb, merely that you might want to.’

‘You give me too much credit.’ Richard’s conscience stirred. ‘Until recently I would have seduced Deborah with the greatest of pleasure had she encouraged me to do so.’

Ross’s eyes narrowed. He looked torn between amusement and disapproval. In the end he merely said, ‘And now?’

Richard shifted. He was thinking of the incident the previous year when he had asked Deb to be his mistress. He had mistaken her then. Misled by her widowed status and also by her vivacious nature, he had assumed her to be a high-flyer like Lily Benedict, or, if not that, at least an experienced woman of the world such as Lady Sally Saltire. He had also assumed that once he had made love to her, her power over him would wane. Now he could see that both assumptions were groundless, for Deb was an innocent in matters of love and that very innocence captured and held him as surely as if he were bound with silken ties. He could ignore what was on offer from a practised flirt like Lady Benedict and prefer the infinitely more difficult prospect of wooing Deborah Stratton.

And that wooing would lead to marriage. If he wished to keep the friendship and respect of Ross Marney he could not simply take Deb to his bed. He did not even want to. He wanted Deb, but he did not wish to make her his mistress. Somehow that had become insufficient. He wanted to protect Deb and gain her trust. He was acting on an instinct that had never previously stirred in his relationships with women. He wanted more. He wanted everything. Once she was his, he would never let her go.

He spoke slowly. ‘Now I want to marry her. Genuinely marry her, I mean. Not connive at a pretence.’

Ross nodded and moved on to another difficult question. ‘What was it that prompted you to assist Deborah in this matter, Richard?’

Richard smiled. ‘I felt that she had presented me with a perfect opportunity to woo her.’

Ross looked thoughtful. ‘That is true, of course. She has played into your hands. But what of your other, more altruistic motives?’

Richard shifted a little uncomfortably again. Ross could never accept things at face value and he was usually correct.

He spoke slowly. ‘I had the distinct impression that Mrs Stratton’s need was acute. She tells me that her father is insisting that she return to live under his roof, and that she feels unable to comply.’ His took another mouthful of brandy. ‘She also implied that Lord Walton intended to marry her off to her cousin and that she had no desire to wed ever again. She seemed very distressed by the entire matter, which was one of the reasons why I offered my aid.’

Ross nodded. He hesitated. ‘It is certainly true that Deb is set against marriage. She was very unhappy with Neil Stratton. She has frequently expressed the view that she would rather starve than marry again. It seems a shame, but she is quite adamant.’ He gave Richard a look of acute perception. ‘I should warn you that there are matters there which are very painful to her.’ Ross looked away. ‘But that is Deb’s story to tell, not mine. Suffice it to say that I would have killed Stratton if the fever had not beaten me to it.’

Richard’s head snapped up sharply. ‘That bad?’

‘Worse.’ Ross took a moody sip of his drink. ‘The man was beneath contempt.’ He looked up again, his mouth a hard line. ‘And as such, he gave Deb such a disgust of men in general that I believe you will have your work cut out to make her change her mind and accept you in earnest.’

Richard frowned. ‘You do not think that I could persuade her?’

Ross looked rueful. ‘I cannot say for sure, but I feel it only fair that you should be forewarned.’

‘Deborah is not in a strong position to oppose her father alone,’ Richard said thoughtfully. ‘She needs some protection. I understand that her husband left her without much substance?’

‘Penniless,’ Ross confirmed. His mouth thinned. ‘Though that was the least of his sins.’

Richard grimaced at the confirmation. It was no wonder that Deb Stratton was wary of men if her only experience of love had been with a man like that. The memory of the unhappiness he had seen in her eyes made him feel angry.

‘So Mrs Stratton is dependent on the allowance her father makes her and…’ he looked at Ross shrewdly ‘…your generosity, I suspect.’

Ross shifted in his chair. ‘I help her a little.’

Richard let that pass. He knew that Ross’s liberality to his sister-in-law was likely to be far greater than that but his friend would not thank him for prying.

‘I know that you cannot like this temporary arrangement, Ross,’ he said feelingly. ‘God knows, if it was my sister Bella or Henrietta, I would feel much the same.’ He looked up and gave Ross a very straight look. ‘I can only give you my word that I shall do nothing to hurt Deborah.’ He smiled wryly. ‘My intentions are all that is honourable, damnable as it is for a rake to admit such a fact!’

Ross moved the decanter in a precise circle. ‘I wish you luck,’ he said, a little bitterly. ‘And if you succeed, I hope that you find more joy in your marriage than I have in mine. How odd that Deb and Olivia look so very similar and yet temperamentally they could not be more different.’

Richard hesitated. He sensed that Ross needed to talk but in his experience, passing comment on another man’s wife was fraught with danger. One always said the wrong thing and gave offence. He was prepared to take a risk though, for Olivia and Ross. If there was anything that he could do to help their situation, then he was willing to try.

‘I think that both Lady Marney and Mrs Stratton may have some of the same spirit,’ he said carefully.

Ross looked horrified. ‘Good God, do you think so?’

‘I did not mean,’ Richard qualified hastily, ‘that Lady Marney is as impulsive as her sister.’

‘Thank the lord!’

‘But from something that Mrs Stratton told me, I do believe that it may be a question of Lady Marney hiding her real feelings under what she sees as her duty. Parents are notoriously more strict with the elder than the younger daughter,’ Richard continued, feeling his way and half-expecting an explosion at any moment. ‘I have seen it myself with Bella and Henrietta. Bella always complained that Henrietta could get away with everything and she with nothing.’

Ross looked intrigued. ‘You mean that Olivia might behave the way she does because Lord and Lady Walton expected it of her and so she conformed?’

Richard nodded. ‘Precisely, old fellow. Deborah told me that Olivia and her brothers always did as they were told and never dissented, whilst she was the rebel. How would it be if Olivia secretly wished it to be different?’

He saw a flash of expression in Ross’s eyes, the unmistakable sign that Viscount Marney thought the idea of a secretly rebellious wife to be rather fascinating.