Free The Confessions of a Duchess by Nicola Cornick

intention of finding himself an heiress as swiftly as possible. News of Sir Montague’s dastardly plan to reinstate the Dames’ Tax had spread like wildfire around the town even as the place filled up with adventurers from London.
    With a sigh, Dexter folded Laura’s note and placed it in his inside pocket. “I beg your pardon. I had no notion you were in such a hurry.”
    “Need to find myself a rich wife,” Miles pointed out. “Thought you were in the market for a bride, too.”
    “Since the ladies have just heard that they are to lose half their fortunes if they do not enter wedlock within a year, I doubt we’ll get a very warm welcome,” Dexter said dryly.
    “We’ll persuade them,” Miles said. “Seduce them to our point of view if we must.
    Compromising a lady is a very effective way to secure her fortune.”
    “And a very dishonorable one,” Dexter said. Sometimes he thought that where women were concerned, Miles had neither scruples nor principles.

    Not that he could afford the scruples and principles that beset him. Miles had also brought with him a letter from Dexter’s sister Annabelle. Written in Belle’s loopy, extravagant hand, it had reminded Dexter of all the reasons why he needed to marry money—if reminder was needed.
    Belle had written,
    Mama was in her cups last night, and she let slip to us that you had gone to Yorkshire not only for the fishing, dear Dexter, but also to offer yourself on the Altar of Matrimony for all our sakes! Such Noble Sacrifice! You are indeed the Best of Brothers!
    There was much more in the same vein about how much Belle was looking forward to her come-out ball the following year and how Charley and Roland had lost their shirts at the gambling tables the previous night, and how Mama had an utterly beautiful new peacock-blue morning gown. Dexter shuddered to read the list of all their extravagances.
    There was also a short note from his father’s ward, Caroline Wakefield, whom everyone knew to be another of the Anstruther Collection masquerading under the false respectability of wardship.
    Caro had written crossly,
    Dear Dexter, pray do not regard Belle’s nonsense. The truth is that if we have no money we shall all have to economize and in the last resort find employment. Belle will not expire over the loss of a season, and your mama would have more to spend on gowns if she did not spend so much on gin. If you choose to marry for money for our sakes then you are a fool.
    Dexter smiled ruefully and put the letters in his case. Caro had grown up with no illusions about her place in the world and a far more practical approach to financial matters than his other siblings. He tried to imagine blond featherbrained Belle going out to earn a living—and failed miserably.
    “I should stay here and work,” he said, gesturing to Lord Liverpool’s letter, “and so should you. Liverpool mentions that there is someone who may be able to help us in the matter of Warren Sampson and that you will effect an introduction—”
    “Later,” Miles said, grabbing his arm and hustling him out of the room. “Anyway, this is work, Dexter. You need to listen to the gossip and to meet the suspects. What better way than by mingling with all the fortune hunters and heiresses at the assembly?” They went out into the market square. It was a blustery night with the wind rising and the moon dodging behind ragged clouds. The Morris Clown Inn, a sprawling coaching inn that dated back to medieval times, was on the southern corner of the square, opposite the town’s small but nicely appointed assembly rooms. Fortune’s Folly had been little more than a hamlet until fifty years before when Sir Monty’s grandfather had taken advantage of the fact that the natural springs around the village were thought to be medicinal. He had created a spa, laid out a small park, built an assembly room and a circulating library and had watched Fortune’s Folly grow into an exclusive watering place.