Free Leslie LaFoy by Come What May Page A

public reputation. Even then she'd probably managed to wreak havoc with her flagrant disregard for convention. Marrying her off to a distant, desperate colonial planter had been the only hope the man had of ever sleeping well.
    “I can see why your uncle was willing to give up two thousand pounds sterling to be rid of you,” he muttered.
    “And I, sir,” she blithely countered, “can see why you had no wife.”
    “Bachelorhood was my state by choice.”
    “Undoubtedly,” she laughingly retorted, her brow arched delicately. “No woman in her right mind and of free will would choose to be bound to you.”
    She'd boxed him into a corner as neatly as she pleased. And he'd all but invited her to do it. When he next saw his brother, Wyndom was a dead man. Even as Devon planned his well-deserved revenge, the carriage slowed and eased into a turn to the north. Glancing out the window, Devon recognized both the stately oaks that lined the drive of Rosewind Manor and the approaching end of the interminable journey.
    Turning, he caught and held the gaze of his bride. “Before the night is out, madam,” he promised, “you will surrender your breeches.”
    Claire sighed. If he wanted a battle, she had no choice but to oblige him. And he would learn in the course of it what her uncle had eventually come to accept: Obedience and respect couldn't be attained by swinging a fist. George Seaton-Smythe had sent her away rather than be confronted by that humbling fact each and every day. She could only hope that DevonRivard would come to the same conclusion more quickly than her uncle had.
    “It should be a most interesting contest, sir. I look forward to it and wish you the best of luck.”
    The fading daylight was still sufficient for her to see the granite planes of Devon Rivard's smooth-shaven jaw, the light in his eyes that wordlessly spoke of a challenge accepted. A shiver raced up her spine, a shiver that owed nothing to the cold and everything to a sudden shadow passing over her confidence.
    Unsettled, she deliberately looked away from him and out the window of the rented carriage. Her first sight of Rosewind Manor came in that moment and took her breath away.



C HAPTER S IX

HERE WAS SO MUCH of it to take in that she could only do so in small parts. The drive on which they were traveling curved gently across the front of the mansion—and
mansion
was the only word she could think of to describe it—passing in front of a set of wide steps leading up to a central door that was protected by a roofed and pilastered extension. The main portion of the red brick structure was two stories high with a hipped roof. No fewer than seven mullioned windows broke the face of the second story on the front side; six windows on the lower story, three on each side of the massive front door. And chimneys… Rosewind Manor had four of them in the central part alone, an internal pair of them on each end.
    Flanking the main body of the structure on each side were identical wings. Also constructed of red brick, they were single story and comprised of two distinctly different parts. The outermost portion appeared to be octagonalwith a window set in each of the faces she could see. The roof was set in sections, rising and sloping back to abut yet another chimney. Connecting the octagonal portion to the main body of the house was a relatively simple section with a gabled roof and three perfectly spaced windows.
    The whole of it was balanced and solid, a monument to a builder who appreciated order and stability. A builder who also possessed great wealth and a determination to display it for all the world to see. Rosewind Manor was positively huge by any standard of measurement. The main part of the house alone was easily half again as large as the Governor's Mansion in Williamsburg. The Seaton-Smythe house in London would have fit into it with plenty of room left over. Their country house would have fit into it twice. As for her own home of