Free Candice Hern by Once a Scoundrel

beauty that you learned to distrust easy flattery? To distrust men?”
    “What nonsense. I am not quite so delicate in my sensibilities, sir.” She rose from her seat. “Excuse me while I run Lucy to earth and see about that tea.”
    Tony had stood when she did and watched as shecame from behind the desk, beribboned slippers peeking out from beneath the long muslin skirts, and the ends of the striped fichu scarf falling down her back from the high waist almost to the floor. She stood in the doorway and called out to the maid. The girl appeared almost before the words were spoken.
    “Ah, Lucy. Would you be so good as to bring up some tea and biscuits?”
    “Upstairs, miss? In the drawing room?”
    “No, in here will be fine. I’ll clear off a table.”
    Lucy’s pursed lips expressed her disapproval of such an inelegant arrangement, but she bobbed a curtsey and turned to go.
    “Oh, and Lucy,” Edwina called out. “Not the good Bohea. The ordinary green tea will do.”
    “I am overwhelmed by such amiable hospitality,” Tony said.
    She turned to face him and there was a spark of amusement in her eyes. “I’m afraid my best manners, and my best tea, are reserved for those guests who have been invited . And for those who don’t make a point of insulting their hostess.”
    “Then I am doubly grateful that you allow me to stay at all. Green tea in the study suits me perfectly. Will this table do?”
    He removed his hat and gloves from the small table beside the armchair. He gestured toward the books and papers still neatly arranged upon it and arched an eyebrow in question.
    “Fine,” she said, and removed the papers to another larger worktable on the other side of the room.
    Tony followed her with an armload of books. “And I assure you, I meant no insult earlier,” he said. “I was simply curious about your unmarried state.”
    “I believe you are also unmarried?”
    “I am.” He grabbed another chair and moved it closer to the makeshift tea table. He would not face her across the fortress of her desk this time.
    “And I suspect no one questions your decision not to marry.”
    “On the contrary. My mother questions it constantly.” He held out the chair and she sat down. “Wants to see me settle down and fill a nursery. I would guess your mother wishes the same for you.”
    “My mother died when I was fifteen.”
    Her stark words stopped him. He still held on to the back of her chair, and reached down to touch her gently on the shoulder. “Oh. I’m so sorry, Edwina. I didn’t know.”
    She shrugged, which had the effect of dislodging his hand. “It was a long time ago,” she said.
    Tony walked around the table and took his own seat in the armchair. “And your father?” he asked.
    “I don’t believe Papa has ever noticed that I haven’t married. He doesn’t notice much. The roofcould fall down around him and he would simply put on his hat to shield himself from the debris and continue whatever he was doing. If not for the housekeeper, he would likely forget to eat.”
    “And so you live here with your brother.”
    “Yes, and quite happily, too. Don’t assume, Mr. Morehouse, that you know my mind. I am, in fact, unmarried by choice.”
    “Indeed?”
    “Though I have no doubt there are some who are put off by such a managing female as myself, my decision to remain unmarried is not based on lack of opportunity.” There was the tiniest hint of humor in her eyes, as though she was laughing at herself. Or perhaps she was laughing at him?
    “Everything I own I have worked hard for,” she said, “and I’ve no desire to turn it over to a husband who might squander it or gamble it away. Nor do I have a desire to be forever dependent upon a man and his whims. There are more important things to do with my life.”
    “Like edit a ladies’ magazine?”
    “That is merely a means to an end. The profits allow us to do so much more.”
    Profits? What was she talking about? Her uncle had taken all