Chapter 1

England, 1818

“Lady Ophelia Thornton?”

Harry Spencer, Earl of Avondale, stared at the list of women his mother had handed him with a growing sense of horror. He gaped at the countess as if she had sprouted another head.

“Marriage? Lady Ophelia Thornton? I don’t even know what the chit looks like.”

“She is rich. Does it matter what she looks like?”

“Of course it matters, Mother.”

“Well, it needn’t be Lady Ophelia Thornton.” She pointed to the other names. “I’ve made a list of six heiresses fit to become the next Countess of Avondale.”

“Lady Harriet Hillstow?” Harry shuddered. “My wife’s name cannot be Harriet. Harry and Harriet. We will be the laughingstock of England.”

“No one will dare.”

Harry took a deep breath and gave his mother a long-suffering look. “Is there no other solution?”

“I’m afraid not, dear,” his mother said, patting his hand.

Had Harry known his life was about to be turned inside out, he’d have declined the invitation to tea. In fact, he should’ve been suspicious the moment he had learned that tea had been set up in the countess’s private quarters rather than her favorite sitting room.

He scowled down at the brandy-laced tea gripped between his fingers. Harry hadn’t questioned the spiked tea after his first sip because the countess had just lost her husband six weeks prior, and he had just lost his father. But as he sat stunned, waiting for her to renounce this madness, the slight burn of the tea scratching his throat, Harry realized why his mother had laced his tea with brandy. There was no renouncing anything. His mother had presented him with what she believed was the last resort.

His hand trembled, and he looked down at the black band that circled his wrist. They were in mourning, and while it certainly would not be frowned upon to attend some events, searching for a wife this soon after his father’s death would announce to the entirety of England that they were distressingly impoverished. Harry himself still had trouble swallowing the revelation.

Shock drove into him with the force of a hundred hammered nails. Had she thought a dash of brandy would lessen the blow? Perhaps a bottle with a touch of tea might have done the trick. Not this.

Harry surged to his feet. “We cannot be penniless! I would have known if we were destitute, would I not? How the bloody hell can our coffers be empty?”

“Your father developed a dependence on cognac, as you are well aware, dear.”

Harry dragged a hand over his face.

The late earl had been a dedicated husband and committed father, dutiful to his title, but on matters beyond that, he lacked adherence. But this? “Crippling the family fortune with drink would’ve been too much of an effort for all his distractedness. I would have stepped in.”

The countess sighed. “His drinking in and of itself did not draw us into these dire straits, but the procurement of several expensive pieces of art while presumed inebriated did. He bought numerous paintings, sculptures, and objects at exorbitant prices. Your father made rash decisions.”

How could this be happening?

Blast it! It could not be true. Not when the truth meant wedding an heiress, which in return translated to Harry being in possession of a wife

.He was not bloody ready to have a wife.

At eight and twenty, Harry was still in his prime. He hadn’t thought to settle down until much later. Hell, he hadn’t even become used to being an earl yet. How was he supposed to convince some woman to become his countess when he could not dispel his own doubts?

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Harry growled, circling back to his mother’s explanation. “Where are these precious pieces of art?”

“You have gone over the ledgers with the solicitor, have you not? Did you not see all the purchasing debts?” A sad note entered his mother’s voice. “Your father dug through the family coffers like a pirate working his way through a case of rum—all for art we have never laid eyes on.”

“Artwork, the expensive kind, does not disappear into thin air,” Harry muttered bitterly. “It has to be somewhere.”

“I have searched all of our estates, dear, and have found nothing.”

“Why did you not inform me sooner?” Harry questioned. “I could have hunted father’s purchases down by now.”

“I only discovered the extent of these purchases after his death, dear. You were so distraught. I wished to give you time before I troubled you with financial matters.”

Six bloody weeks.

Harry rolled his shoulders to ease some of their stiffness.

Avondale

. The title still did not sit right on his shoulders, even though it was his birthright. And now Harry had an additional burden: He had to make what his father had done right. He had to restore the family wealth.

But sculptures and paintings?

What the hell had his father been thinking? Harry could not grasp the logic. How had they missed the extent of the late earl’s condition?

His father had always been an eccentric man, prone to absentmindedness and long periods of solitude, but never careless. Not when it came to the duties of the title. Not when it came to his family. Not until about a year ago. Not until the drinking started.

Even then, though, when his father had lost a portion of his faculties, Harry had not considered the deterioration a severe matter. How many times had he dined with his parents and laughed over a glass of brandy? The nights they had spent idly before a crackling fire, discussing consequential matters for hours, had given Harry no cause to believe his father that ailing. Had it been pious wishes on Harry’s part?

Now that he thought about it, the first sign of his father’s withdrawal had been when his father had missed their annual pheasant hunt in the country. From then on, the frequency of dining together and chatting over a glass of brandy had lessened and lessened. Why hadn’t he questioned this?

He cursed himself a fool.

He should have known.

He should have stepped in a long time ago.

And yet, marbles lost or not, why squander the entire family fortune on art? It boggled Harry’s mind.

“At least the debts are settled,” his mother said, relief evident in her tone. “He left us that much.”

“This is preposterous.”

The countess’s eyes turned solemn. “Regardless, dear, now that you are the Earl of Avondale, it falls upon your shoulders to right his wrongs.” She lifted the porcelain teacup with delicate fingers to her lips. “Marriage is the only way to salvage this.”

“Not the only way, mother. I will find the art father purchased and return it all.”

“What if you cannot find the art? Lord knows I’ve searched everywhere.”

“I’d rather restore the fortune the hard way,” Harry said. “The way our forefathers did.”

A flash of emotion moved in the depth of his mother’s gaze but was gone before Harry could catch it. “You imagine courting a woman is not a challenging pursuit? I suppose you harbor the misleading impression that marriage is an easy way out of this quandary.”

“Surely it is not as hard as resurrecting our financial status.”

His mother chuckled. “Pick a wife, dear, and then we shall see how effortless you find the process of acquiring her.”

Trapped. Harry felt completely and utterly trapped by his mother’s words. His fingers fisted over the paper clutched in his hand. How the hell did his mother expect him to pick a wife while he was grieving the loss of his father? Blast it all, he could not think straight, let alone make such a life-altering decision in the midst of grief.

“Father has been gone but six weeks.”

“Our funds will be depleted in a matter of months, and we have no recourses, dear. We have no way to survive.”

“We are in mourning,” Harry pointed out, a last attempt. A desperate attempt.

His mother smoothed her hands over her black skirts. “Harry, dear, whether you wait or not, gossipmongers will rain upon us regardless. They will either remark on you wedding so soon after your father’s death, or they will snicker about our financial state.”

“So choose a wife. Fix father’s mistakes. Sire heirs? That is what is required of me? This is the duty of the title I now bear?”

Her face softened. “It is also a mother’s fondest wish for her son.”

Hell if Harry did not understand. All his life he’d known what was expected of him. That didn’t mean he wanted to hear it at that particular point in time.

Duty or not, this felt different. A fate he could not readily accept. Not yet. Not in the wake of his father’s death. He would turn over every rock in England for the missing art. Only then would he consider marriage to fill the family treasury with blunt. It was a matter of principle.

After all, who would Harry be if he gave in so easily?