Free The English Witch by Loretta Chase

his business with the tailor when Lord Arden sauntered in.
    The marquess's enthusiastic greeting caused Basil to look at him suspiciously. While their families were intimate, and the two young men had grown up together and caroused and gambled together, they were rather too much alike to trust each other overmuch. Thus, no real intimacy had evolved between them despite many opportunities.
    In a very few minutes, the mystery was solved. "I say, Trev," Lord Arden drawled as they left the tailor's shop and made their way to Watier's, "who is that perfectly stunning creature your aunt's taken in?"
    Only a week and she'd called herself to Arden's attention. Naturally. Every rogue remaining in London must have sensed her presence in their midst, just as experienced hounds would sniff out a fox. Basil pretended to think very hard.
    "Stunning creature?" he asked ingenuously.
    "Why, you sly devil. Of course you know who I mean, is this some sort of family secret? Your aunt refuses to be at home to me, and Maria won't say a word, only tells me I might come to dinner tonight and perhaps the young lady will be there. You must tell me who the mysterious beauty is."
    "If Lady Deverell is determined to tease you, then I certainly won't spoil her fun." What the deuce did the woman mean by inviting one of London's most notorious rakeshames to dinner with Miss Ashmore? Arden's reputation was worse even than Basil's. The marquess had both enormous wealth and exalted rank and took full advantage of the privileges attached thereunto.
    Not, certainly, that Basil could have expected an invitation. Lord Deverell, Isabella's father, was hardly likely to welcome into his home the young man who'd threatened his wife's reputation and his daughter's future.
    "Then you do know," Lord Arden said, calling Basil back to the present. "Well, I must be content to look upon it as a delicious mystery. Obviously, I dare not describe her to anyone and invite rivals. Not, of course, that there's anyone in town at this time of year. Still, I expect she will be there tonight. Maria can't be as conscienceless as all that. Come now, you must give me a clue. Is she a relation? Part French, maybe? Lived abroad most of her life?"
    "Possibly," was the unhelpful reply.
    "What a close-mouthed fellow you've got to be, Trev." There was a speculative gleam in Lord Arden's grey eyes. "But then I daresay you've got your eye on her yourself. Our tastes have always been remarkably like. Still, you must know she's not your type—not at all."
    "And what, precisely, do you think is not my type?"
    "Why, the price is too high, Trev. Marriage. Your aunt's standing guard, after all. No slip of the shoulder in this case, I'm afraid."
    "Then why are you so eager to meet her?"
    "Because I’ve taken it into my mind to marry. Actually, she's put it into my mind. You know that my Respected Parent has been growling at me the last decade at least to be married and get heirs. He's been throwing that insufferable Honoria Crofton-Ash at me this age. Fortunately, my mother believes that a young man must sow his wild oats."
    "And so you have, Will. You've sown them with a ven—”
    "And here," Lord Arden rhapsodised, quite deaf to his companion, "is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Though she was across the street, stepping out of the dressmaker's, your aunt hurried her into the carriage as though all the demons of Hell were after them."
    "She only saw you coming, Will—"
    "I could tell she was no schoolroom miss, and I had nearly resigned myself to one day being leg-shackled to some green girl fresh out of the nursery—and they're all so much alike, one Season after another, that you'd think Almack's baked them from a single mold. Well, I can only thank my lucky stars I obliged my sister by taking her into town. It's the greatest piece of good luck.''
    The man was insufferable. He'd only glimpsed Miss Ashmore from across the street and promptly decided to take possession,