Free A Notorious Countess Confesses (PG7) by Julie Anne Long

time, just different enough to intrigue her. It’s actually begun to drive her just a little mad. I think she might even be anticipating the next one with something like eagerness. Devilishly clever, if you ask me. And every day he sends the same message: He would very much like to call on her.”
    Adam remembered why he recognized the name. “He’s the one who entered the wager in White’s betting books, isn’t he? About Olivia?”
    This was noteworthy. Not one of Olivia’s myriad suitors had dared go so far as to enter a wager regarding Olivia since Lyon Redmond had disappeared. Olivia had made clear in ways both subtle and overt that it was a bet no one could ever win.
    Fire and flood and jealousy. What was it about Olivia that Landsdowne thought he must have? The fact that she could not be had? Was it purely the challenge of it? Or was Olivia Landsdowne’s equivalent of an embedded glass splinter? An inappropriate woman who’d managed to fascinate him into a bombardment of bouquets?
    The Song of Solomon said nothing about foolishness. Perhaps he would be the one to immortalize foolishness in verse.
    “But he won’t win that wager,” Colin said with grim certainty. “Because he doesn’t know Olivia. And that’s my point: There’s nothing heroic about futility. And Ian’s right. Getting married is the best thing I’ve ever done. Do you really want to discover whether virginity grows back?”
    Adam sighed gustily, pushed himself away from the table, and stood. “Good night, cousins. It’s been edifying, as usual. And just for that, you can pay for my second ale.”
    “It makes you testy if you go long between, too,” Colin called after him. “So I hear.”
    “Chirp chirp,” Ian added.
    It was purely an accident he trod on Ian’s outstretched foot as he departed.

Chapter 6
    ADAM ARRIVED HOME after ten o’clock to discover that Mrs. Dalrymple had collected all the wadded foolscap and dumped it on the fire. Where it belonged, as far as he was concerned. Saturday was for wadding; Sunday was for burning.
    “They do make excellent kindling, Reverend, and I like to think of all your words floating up to God in the smoke,” she’d told him.
    “I’m certain God would be relieved that I burned them, rather than inflicted them upon my parishioners,” he’d told her dryly.
    Often he welcomed the blessed silence after days filled with goat-related disputes and Lady Fennimore and the like. But tonight, after the warmth and hum of the Pig & Thistle, the quiet of the vicarage rang like a blow to the head. There were days when he felt the isolation of his job keenly; he belonged to everyone and yet to no one.
    Tonight, he sat down at the table in the spotless kitchen and stared down and thought dryly: If I were married, at least I’d have someone to help me get my boots off.
    He tried to imagine it. For instance, Jenny kneeling there to give a tug on his boot, her soft, fair head shining in the …
    He couldn’t do it. His thoughts felt permanently dislocated in the shape of a petite brunette. God willing, it was nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure.
    He opened his eyes and lifted his head when he heard Mrs. Dalrymple’s solid tread in the hall.
    “Oh, Reverend Sylvaine, I did hear you come in. Something arrived for you while you were out.”
    As usual, he looked first at her face for clues to what it might be and found it carefully stoic, ever-so-slightly disapproving.
    Then he looked at her hands. The missive might have been edged in flame or dipped in something foul, so gingerly did Mrs. Dalrymple hold it. He could see it was sealed in wax. In her other arm was tucked a soft-looking package bound in brown paper and string.
    “I thought you might like to see this straightaway. It was brought to the house by a footman. Powdered hair and all dressed in scarlet and yellow like a bird, he was, and this package for you along with it.”
    He stared at her. A scarlet-and-yellow