Free An Infamous Proposal by Joan Smith

always does.”
    “I’m packing you off home tomorrow, at dawn.”
    “Ah, Cousin, you wrong me. I am a changed man since my affair with Lily. I have learned the unwisdom of consorting with the muslin company. Only think, a child of mine being raised by a light-skirt.”
    “You got the woman enceinte?”
    “So she would have me believe. At it turned out, she was three months pregnant when I first knew her—intimately. No, the child was not mine, but it might have been. It taught me a lesson. I have reformed. That is what decided me to enter the church and lead a life of sobriety, doing good to atone for the ills of my scarlet past.”
    As James was only twenty-two, Nick assumed he was not yet a hardened rake. He was young enough to change his ways. Marriage would be an excellent thing for him. “Whitehern is a very profitable estate,” he said.
    “Yes, and of more interest,” James murmured, “did you notice that Lady Capehart’s eyes, if I am not mistaken, had the leer of invitation?”
    “Lady Capehart was not leering! She is a perfectly respectable widow, and I expect you to remember it.”
    “I shall certainly try, Hansard. I have a dreadful weakness for ladies, you know. I had hoped that daily doses of prayer might cure me, but prolonged abstinence is taking its toll. I am quite determined to behave myself, however. I shall go to my room when we return and read a few sermons by John Donne. Don’t let me read his poems. They incite me to ... Ah, but you wouldn’t understand. You are old and settled in your ways.”
    “I’m three and thirty. Not exactly Methuselah!”
    “If you have lived so close to that enchantress all these years and not seduced her, you are invincible. How do you control your passions?”
    “I bear in mind that I am a gentleman, and Lady Capehart is a lady.”
    “And a woman,” James said softly. “I shall have her—in marriage, I mean. When confronted with two evils, I always choose the prettier.”
    “And the other evil?”
    “Work, Cousin, in the field of the Lord, harvesting souls. I never really felt it was my calling. The jackets are so unbecoming, and all that fustian about truth and honesty. But with Lady Capehart by my side, I could be a saint in my own way.”
    Nick decided that he would give his young cousin a chance at reformation, but the lad would want watching. If he veered down the garden path, he would be dispatched home at once.
    Nick spent a few moments in the stable speaking to his groom when they returned to Waterdown. Lord James said he would go to his room to read the sermons. When Nick went inside, he went to the library to hide the copy of John Donne’s love poems. He couldn’t find the book. He called his butler and asked about it.
    “I believe you’ll find Lord James has it, sir. He asked for it the moment he came in.”
    “Will you please tell him I need it, immediately.”
    Nick waited, pacing the length of the marble-floored hall while his butler went abovestairs. He told himself the churning in his stomach was due to the possibility of James offending Lady Capehart. It would be unconscionable if she were seduced by his cousin and houseguest. Really! Why hadn’t Lady Revson warned him of this ungovernable streak in James?
    The butler returned empty-handed. “It seems I was mistaken, your lordship. His lordship says it was John Donne’s sermons that he borrowed from the library. Odd, as he borrowed them earlier and didn’t return them,” he added, with a raised eyebrow.
    “Thank you, Simms,” Nicholas said, and darted up to pound on James’s door.
    “Enter,” Lord James called. “Ah, it is you, Nicholas, vigilant to prevent my falling into errant ways. What an excellent cousin you are.”
    He handed Nick the book of poems. “Unfortunately,” Lord James said, “I have my favorite poems by heart. Perhaps if I apply myself diligently to the sermons, I shall overcome this weakness.”
    “You bloody well better!”
    “I make you a