Free I Love the Earl by Caroline Linden Page A

circumstances?”
    She really was from a different society, if she didn’t know. “By living on credit. By using your station and name to intimidate merchants into supplying you, while never paying their bills. By bleeding every farthing out of your lands and tenants in order to maintain appearances, while they starve. An earl must live like a nobleman, not like a vagabond, even if he is as poor as one,” he finished a bit harshly, remembering Branwell’s last lecture to him on the subject.
    “A vagabond.” Her voice rang with doubt, as if to say, how can a man who attends balls be a vagabond?
    Suddenly he was just tired of it. Margaret knew he was destitute; he’d already admitted it to her himself, even though she’d heard it from a dozen other sources as well. After taking such care to get to know her, what was the point in hiding the truth now? If she couldn’t stomach it, better that he know now. “I’ve sold everything I can,” he said quietly. “The plate, the silver, the furnishings, the paintings, the rare books . . . everything my father collected and Branwell approved of. All that’s left is entailed, but it’s crumbling around my ears. I don’t believe an earldom entitles a man to amass as much debt as he can and ignore the bills. But I’ve reached the end of what I can do. There is nothing left to sell, no more source of funds.” He sighed again. “Damned foolish sheep.”
    “And that’s why you need to marry an heiress,” she whispered.
    “Clyve persuaded me to that. After spending the last ten years trying to salvage my estate, and being beset by one disaster after another, I personally favored putting the whole property into Holland covers and decamping for the Continent. Perhaps try my luck at tending goats in the Alps.” He gave her a wry look. “The very course you urged upon me when we met.”
    She didn’t smile. “You really would have abandoned your estate?”
    “It’s damn near a ruin at this point. My father was so obsessed with collecting objets d’art, he let the house fall into extreme disrepair. The roof collapsed on one wing, the gardens were let go when my mother remarried, Branwell tried to cover his losses by letting servants go so there’s been no one to keep out the weather . . . It’s in such a state I cannot even lease it out.” He shrugged. “I would sell it all if I could break the entail. The house in town at least is still whole.”
    “What will you do if . . . ?” Her voice trailed off uncomfortably.
    “If I cannot seduce a wealthy lady into marriage?”
    She bit her lip, looking about to cry. He repented his bitter remark. “There, darling,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms. She laid her cheek on his shoulder, and he took a deep breath. God. If only he’d had as much money as she did, or even just a little bit. Then she wouldn’t doubt him. “I thank God for your brother’s generosity,” he whispered. “I might not have met you but for the gossip about your dowry—along with Clyve’s mother, of course, who put your name on a list of potential brides for him.”
    “For Lord Clyveden?” She sounded appalled, and Rhys smiled.
    “He gave me the list and persuaded me to meet the ladies on it. Your name was the third of four.”
    “Who else was on the list?”
    He made a dismissive sound. “Mere girls. One meek and quiet, one amiable and ambitious.”
    “That’s only two.”
    “I never even met the fourth, Maggie,” he breathed against her temple. “Once I met you, and you gave me such a magnificent set-down, I knew you were the only woman for me.”
    He could feel her cheek swell with a little smile, but then she stepped back and regarded him soberly. “But if I didn’t have a dowry, you wouldn’t be here with me in this garden, would you?” In the moonlight she was beautiful, her eyes dark and serious, her skin glowing like pearl.
    “I think I would be,” he said. “If you were still that spinster in Holborn