Free No Marriage of Convenience by Elizabeth Boyle Page A

your difficulties, so I am loath to waste your time.” She sighed prettily and smiled at him.
    The kind of smile that would make a man forget every vow he’d ever made. Forget his pride, forget his plans.
    Forget he was a new kind of Ashlin.
    But it didn’t let him forget he owed his soul to every debt collector in London.
    Taking a deep breath, he nodded for her to continue.
    “As you well know, you are entitled to a percentage of our receipts. My partners and I are willing to double that percentage to allow your debt to be repaid in half the time. And by the end of production you will have more than tripled your brother’s investment.”
    Mason didn’t speak at first. As it turned out, his shock and inability to utter a response to her offer worked well to his advantage. She continued quickly, heaping additional enticements onto her already unbelievable proposition.
    “I know you have doubts about my qualifications and I promise you I won’t teach your nieces anything but the most ladylike of manners and grace,” she said in a hasty rush. “In fact, I am so positive that I can enhance your nieces’ chances in the Marriage Mart that I’m willing to wager they’ll be betrothed within a week of opening night. If not, I’ll throw in my five percent of the first three weeks’ receipts.” Madame Fontaine stuck out her hand. “So, my lord, do we still have a deal?”
    Before Mason could strike what he was sure was a deal with the devil, his eldest niece, Beatrice, burst into the study. She skidded to a dead halt in the middle of the room.
    Looking back over her shoulder toward the still swinging door, she shouted at her youngest sister, “Lud, Louisa. ’Tis true. You have to take back calling Cousin Felicity a senile old hag. Uncle really does have some Haymarket bird in Father’s study.”
    Mason stared at his eldest niece and saw what Madame Fontaine probably saw—a coltish and fair-haired girl of twenty and some odd years.
    Then, to his horror, his middle niece, Margaret, barreled into the room with all the energy of a pack of hounds and half the grace.
    Not having noticed her sister frozen in the middle of the room, nineteen-year-old Maggie plowed into Bea, sending her flying toward the settee and in the process tearing a large patch out of Bea’s already well-worn skirt.
    “Lawks and the devil,” Bea cursed, with all the native inflection of a wharfside rat. She held out her ruined gown for her sister’s inspection. “Mags, can’t you enter a room for once and not act like a drunken sailor?”
    Mags promptly burst into a loud cacophony of tears, turning her already ruddy face into a mottled mess. “I didn’t see you, Bea,” the girl sobbed. “I’m sorry.”
    “Well, you are as blind as you are stupid,” her sister continued, adding a string of curses that would have made a battle-hardened marine blush.
    “Uh, hum,” a third voice coughed.
    Mason glanced up to find Louisa, his youngest niece, in the doorway, her toe tapping impatiently because no one had noticed her.
    All of seventeen, Louisa stood poised, not unlike how her mother used to make her own dramatic entrances. But where Caro had been bright and glowing, Louisa’s look was one of utter disdain. With the stalking precision of a military officer and none of her mother’s sleek elegance, she tromped over the still prone Bea, giving Madame Fontaine a wide berth, as if their guest carried the plague.
    The girl turned her haughty features toward him.
    “My God, Uncle. Whatever is this vile whore doing in our house?” she said, pointing at Madame Fontaine.
    He looked for only a second at his nieces and saw his future—one that featured this ill-mannered, uncivilizedtrio as a permanent fixture in his household for the remainder of his days.
    I love my nieces, I love my nieces , he chanted like some strange Eastern prayer, hoping to convince himself, but the truth be told, they were the three most unappealing harridans who’d ever