Free Lyon's Bride and The Scottish Witch with Bonus Material (Promo e-Books) by Cathy Maxwell Page A

had with Thea. He trusted her.
    N eal was not surprised to find Harry waiting for him at home.
    “You are an ass,” his brother informed him, waving the bottle of port he held in his hand. Neal did not like talking to him when he was drinking heavily. Fortunately, he did not act as if he’d been taking the laudanum—yet.
    “Thank you, Harry, and on that comment, I’ll turn in for the night.” Neal started up the stairs.
    His brother followed. “She’s too nice a woman to do this to, Neal.”
    “To do what? Help me find a wife? She’s a matchmaker. She has a talent for it.” Neal frowned, shook his head, kept walking up the stairs. His brother could be a pest, even as an adult.
    “You know what I mean,” Harry accused, right on his heels.
    At the top of the stairs, Neal continued to his room. “That I want a son? Of course.”
    With a skip, Harry placed himself in front of Neal, blocking his path. He cocked his head in disbelief. “Maybe you don’t know, do you? Poor bugger.”
    “Stop talking in riddles. I’m tired—”
    A door opened to his right, his sister’s room. Margaret had been under the weather the last few days. She now gave them a sleepy, annoyed frown. “Won’t the two of you please take the argument to another part of the house?”
    “Neal is revisiting a fancy he once had for a woman and he doesn’t even know it,” Harry said.
    “What?” Neal almost roared with laughter. “I assure you I have not taken a fancy to Thea Martin. Nothing against her, but I’m not looking for her sort for a wife.”
    “Sort?” Harry repeated. “What sort is that? Attractive female?”
    “Harry, what are you going on about?” Margaret demanded.
    “You don’t remember Lady Thea?” Harry asked his sister. “Duruset’s daughter. Her family had an estate close to ours. She and Neal were friends one summer until Father cut it off.” He waggled his eyebrows on “friends.”
    “How do you know?” Neal demanded. “You weren’t even in the country that summer.”
    “Father told me. Said he’d saved you. He told me the story when he explained the curse to me. He didn’t want you near her, Neal.”
    “I’m not near her out of attraction,” Neal responded.
    “No, now she is a matchmaker. Don’t be naive, brother. About her or yourself.”
    Now Margaret was awake. “Lady Thea is the Mrs. Martin?” she whispered. “I’ve heard of Mrs. Martin. She’s put together several interesting matches when everyone had given up hope. Please, no, Neal. We discussed this. I thought we had a pact. Let it stop with us.”
    “Be like me, brother,” Harry said, obviously happy now that he’d found an ally. “Women are fine. They are adorable, enjoyable, lovable—all the ‘-bles’—but don’t marry. Don’t carry this curse farther.”
    “Maybe I’m ending the curse,” Neal muttered, pushing past his brother. “Father almost made it. If the curse doesn’t claim one of us, then perhaps it will be broken. Certainly, I do not want to do as Father did and lose my head over some opera dancer.”
    “You poor, sorry soul,” Harry said with his customary disdain. “You are already lost, and you didn’t even realize it this evening. The two of you practically had an invisible cord around each other.”
    “That was the concern of old friendship,” Neal shot back. “In your bullheadedness, you are fabricating what is not there.”
    Harry ha ’d his disbelief and took a healthy swig of the port straight from the bottle.
    “Neal, what is he saying?” Margaret asked, worry in her tone.
    “Nothing that he knows anything about,” Neal replied. “Nothing at all. Don’t worry, Margaret, I will be careful.”
    “Men are never careful,” she answered. “Your sex doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”
    “I’m not like the others,” Neal said. This was an old argument between them. “And contrary to what my tomcat brother thinks, I’m not the village idiot about women.”
    “We can’t beat