Free To Tame a Dragon by Megan Bryce

for tea were
     given.
    She sat and repeated, with more composure than he
     suspected she felt, “You have gone quite, quite mad.”
    “Yes.”
    She snorted, nodding to the paper. “Since you
     seem not to be able to get a handle on it, I have prepared a
     list for you.”
    He didn’t even glance at it. “What kind of a
     list?”
    “A list of marriageable women.”
    That surprised him and he glanced down. A
     list of women Amelia would consider suitable seemed to cool his
     ardor and he lifted the paper off his lap to scan the names. His
     eyebrows rose a few times at a surprising name and he even
     laughed out loud at the last.
    He looked up at Amelia and found amusement
     dancing in her eyes as well. “I admit that Lady Whitcomb is not
     the sort of woman most men think of as a blushing bride. But she
     made her late husband very happy and is sensible enough to talk
     you out of any hare-brained scheme you can come up with.”
    “She has four children, the oldest of which
     must be at least ten.”
    “He’s twelve. But she married very young. I
     believe she still has an heir and a spare in her.”
    He snorted. “She may be too sensible to marry
     me.”
    She nodded. “Yes, that could be a problem.”
    He laughed and she smiled at him. He looked
     at her in amusement and mentally crossed off every name on the
     list.
    “My dear, your schemes are just as
     hare-brained as mine.”
    She shook her head. “Every woman on that list
     would make you an excellent wife. Though you both may need to be
     persuaded about it.”
    He looked at the one woman he would be
     willing to persuade and said, “I shall take these names into
     consideration. Shall we discuss them over dinner tonight?”
    “Not tonight. I am attending a
     tête-à-tête with Clarice.”
    “Tomorrow, then.”
    “I will see if Robin is available.”
    He smiled at her subterfuge. “Of course.”
    He rose, bowing to her formally, a nicety
     they rarely engaged in. As he left, he folded the paper she had
     given him and put it in his pocket. He appreciated her attempt
     to distract him, but he had already made his own list and there
     was only one name on it. Amelia .

    Amelia had not been entirely truthful about
     her plans for the evening but she quickly invited Clarice for
     dinner and was happy to find her free for the evening. She did
     not look too closely at her reasons for avoiding Jameson; she
     had spent an inordinate amount of time thinking, planning, and
     scheming for him in the last few weeks. Any woman would deserve
     one night free from him.
    Instead, she and Clarice compared the suitors
     now clamoring for Jameson’s discarded bride. Clarice had been
     surprised to find her prospects of marriage not dashed
     completely, but Amelia had known only too well that there was a
     class of men attracted to a scandal—especially when the woman
     refused to acknowledge there was a scandal in the first place.
     The unanswered question of it seemed to drive some men mad.
    Of course, none of those men would make
     Clarice a happy union.
    “Not even Mr. Snowden?”
    Amelia shook her head. “You are attracted to
     the flashy ones, aren’t you?”
    “He is quite handsome.”
    Amelia smiled. She too had thought beauty the
     be-all and end-all of a prospective husband when she’d first
     come out. She’d learned quickly enough that the most beautiful
     men were also the most trouble.
    Of course, she’d grown up with Jameson, who’d
     insisted on proving her right day after day. Perhaps that had
     predisposed her to an aversion to handsome men and then the
     miscreant had finished it off.
    In any case, beauty in a man put him on a
     suspect list. Add in any man who thought he could fall in love
     in a week’s time and that scratched him off the list entirely.
     Amelia saw no reason to think Clarice deserved any less than a
     not unattractive man who was slow with his emotions.
    She said, “How about Mr. Stillwell? He would
     make you a fine