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despair to descend on him. Instead, his lips curved in
a smile as a picture rose before him of the
confrontation between his fiancée and his
grandmother. There was no question Amanda had
routed the old dragon, foot, horse, and artillery.
Bubbies, indeed. He laughed aloud. Most women he
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knew would have simply dissolved in a paroxysm of
embarrassment, but Amanda had remained cool and
possessed. He drew a rather unsteady breath as he
thought of the splendor of her bosom, displayed to
such advantage in the low-cut gold gown that swept on
to cling tantalizingly to hip and thigh.
Good Lord, he thought, startled. He was not in the
habit of harboring such thoughts about a woman
other than Lianne. Well, no, that was ridiculous. He
had not lived like a monk, after all, in the years since
her marriage to his cousin, but his liaisons were gen-
erally with a different sort of woman, carried out as a
giving and taking of transitory pleasure. He was not
used to assessing the charms of unmarried ladies of
breeding, with whom, in the normal course of things,
he had little social contact. Of course, few ladies of his
acquaintance possessed the blinding attributes of
Amanda Bridge.
He paused in thought, his glass halfway to his lips.
But it wasn t merely Amanda s beauty that drew him
to her, was it? No, he found the inner woman equally
compelling. Her artless, frank conversation was
fascinating, and even when she was at her most
infuriatingly unconventional he had to admire her wit
and her intelligence.
The smile died. Amanda had declared her intention
of ending their betrothal. Coming from any other
woman he would have seen her offer as some sort of
ploy an indication that she had set her sights on a
richer prize. A duke, possibly one that was not
impoverished? Or perhaps she was still harboring a
tender sentiment or two for that hedge-bird Cosmo
Satterleigh. But no, he was convinced her only
thought was to free him so that he could marry the
woman he truly loved. A charming, if somewhat
impractical aspiration.
Not that he wasn t tempted, of course. To marry
Lianne was the summit of his dreams, was it not? He
allowed himself to slip into the familiar daydream of
life with Lianne. He thought of the two of them, living
in the quietude of Ashindon Park, working together to
bring the place back to its old glory.
He frowned as he recalled her words earlier that
evening. Visits from the Earl of Ashindon to his
cousin s widow in the presence of the widow s very
proper maiden aunt would surely be considered
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unexceptionable. Yet somehow he felt this was not
what Lianne had in mind. Her demeanor had
suggested clandestine assignations without benefit of
chaperon. Good God, such a situation would be only
slightly less forbidden than if she were his mistress.
He could not believe Lianne had made such a sugges-
tion. It warmed him, naturally, that she would turn
her back on the standards of a lifetime, but the
prospect appalled him, nonetheless.
He had thought Lianne unchanged from the lissome
girl she had been when she married Grant, but he was
mistaken. She certainly had not aged noticeably she
was still achingly beautiful but her voice seemed a
trifle more shrill, her expression just a little harder
than he remembered. He chastised himself immedi-
ately. Of course she had changed. Six years of
marriage to Grant was bound to change anyone for the
worse, but she was still his love, the woman he would
give his soul to possess.
It was not to be, however, and he may as well face
that fact. He would have to persuade Amanda to face
it, as well. Amanda Bridge was shortly to become the
Countess of Ashindon, his wife, the mother of his heir.
A guilty surge of pleasure shot through him at the
thought of getting a son on that golden beauty, and his
throat tightened as he wondered how the silken sweep
of her hair would feel splayed across his chest.
He shook himself. My God, this had to stop. How
could he love one woman and think so lasciviously of
another? His jaw tightened. He would do well to
remember that it was not just Amanda he was
marrying. He could talk of separating himself and his
bride from the Bridges, but he would be inextricably
wed to her family, all the same. It was a prospect
almost too dreadful to contemplate. Serena could be
borne, but the thought of being bound to Jeremiah
Bridge socially and emotionally for an interminable
stretch of years weighed down on him like death itself.
Ash rose from his chair, and stiffening his
shoulders, he set his glass down on the table beside
him. It would be all he could do to maintain his
fortitude for the immediate future, for Serena Bridge s
confounded ball loomed before him, and that was
enough to cut up any man s peace.
Cursing softly, he took himself off to bed.
* * * *
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Amanda woke early the next morning, though the
events of the previous evening had kept her staring
wide-eyed at the canopy above her bed for some time
the night before. She was rather surprised to discover
that, for the most part, she had enjoyed herself. She
had found the confrontation with the dowager
countess exhilarating and rather thought she and the
old lady might become friends. Since she had been
asked to return, it might be assumed the dowager felt
the same.
It was too bad the meeting between the old countess
and Jeremiah had not been so felicitous. Couldn t the
man see that groveling was not the way to the
dowager s esteem? How could he have brought himself
to behave so? It was perfectly obvious by now that
groveling was as foreign to his nature as it was to hers.
How sad that he so desperately wanted the
approbation of the ton. Particularly since, even with
his daughter married to an earl, he was so unlikely to
achieve anything close to social acceptance by the
nobs.
Amanda shrugged. Jeremiah Bridge was what he
was, and as such was not deserving, in her opinion, of
much sympathy. She addressed herself to the
chocolate and biscuits brought a few minutes earlier
by Hutchings. She smiled wryly. It had not taken her
long to become accustomed to being waited on hand
and foot. If and when she ever made it back to the
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