Free Rogue in Red Velvet by Lynne Connolly Page B

conversation and think on his feet. Alex reached for the coffee pot. “Refusing to offer for Miss Stobart?”
    “Precisely. A considerable heiress and ripe for childbearing.”
    “I don’t want for money, sir and I’m not your only son.” He pushed his plate aside. Bacon could lose its appeal very quickly in the right circumstances.
    His father glared. “I thought La Stobart had you but you slipped out of that one. Then she chased you and I thought she’d snare you but here you are, still unattached.”
    “Not Miss Stobart, Father.”
    “Pick somebody. I want the succession settled before I pass on. It’s time. You know it. I know it.” The picture of robust good health, his father glared at him, his dark eyes beacons of disapproval.
    “I will, Father, but I haven’t met the right woman yet.” One face came to mind and he dismissed it, as he’d got in the habit of doing recently.
    Lord Leverton snorted. “You’ve met many women who would have made you an excellent partner in life. You’re just too fussy. Or you prefer bachelorhood. There is no reason you should not go along the way you always have after your marriage. You’ve always been reasonably discreet with your mistresses. I don’t even know if you have one in keeping at the moment.”
    “No, sir. The last one proved a bore in the mornings.” He sipped his coffee. At least he didn’t have those tantrums to cope with any more. “Do women think they get more money if they scream a lot?”
    His father’s gruff laugh echoed around Alex’s snug breakfast parlor. “It works with a lot of men. Don’t say you’ve never given a ladybird a diamond brooch just to stop her squawking in the morning.”
    Alex gave a reluctant grin. “Can’t say I haven’t, Father. But I want more than that in a wife. And I don’t want a spiteful woman with no more sense than hair, either. Miss Stobart has a smallness of mind that would, I fear, pall very quickly.” He added something bound to appeal to his father. “She would not make a good countess. I want an equal, someone I can talk to, discuss matters with, someone to share my life with—” The expression on his father’s face shook him.
    No longer displeasure but an open vulnerability that made Alex uncomfortable. His father concealed it in an instant. Enough to tell Alex how much he still missed his wife, Alex’s mother. They’d all loved her, sweet with a core of tempered steel, but she’d been taken from them by smallpox ten years ago. Alex missed her, too. Did he want to marry a woman who would mean as much to him, even if it meant that one day he’d have to live without her?
    Yes, the answer came, resoundingly and with no caveats.
    “Some of us are lucky enough to find that,” his lordship said. “But I married young and I’d filled my nursery by the time I was your age.”
    “You never married again,” Alex said softly.
    His father cleared his throat. “No need. I’d done my duty. Time for you to do yours.” His voice lowered, even though there was nobody else in the room. “Look here, Ripley, it’s not just that. I worry for you, sometimes. You can go on as you are but you need to move on with your life. You could have taken Louisa Stobart and made her into what you wanted. Or left her in the country once you’d done your duty. All she needs to do is give you a few children.”
    “I don’t want that, Father. I want a woman who knows a little of the world and what she wants.”
    “So is that who you met in Yorkshire?” His father tucked into a devilled kidney with every evidence of relish, making Alex wait for his next remark. He experienced no inclination to fill the silence and poured himself more coffee.
    Lord Leverton cleared his mouth and took a few gulps of tea, seemingly oblivious of the fraught silence. “You came back very thoughtful and I thought finally you’d met her. When I realized it wasn’t La Stobart, I wondered who it could be. A few young ladies just happened