Free Magic in the Stars by Patricia Rice

her.
    Swallowing his pride and an entire humble pie, he circulated
the room. Lady Azenor had provided a wide variety of females to choose from, he
had to admit. Unfortunately, they all blurred together after a while, and he
couldn’t remember if the one with buck teeth knew how to play chess or if the
one with the mole on her upper lip was the one who kept ledgers.
    The image of his lovely, serene ex-fiancée having a
hysterical, weeping fit over his household’s ramshackle behavior stood out
starkly in Theo’s memory. He didn’t wish to reduce any of these pleasant ladies
to similar seizures or himself or his family to the ensuing unpleasantness.
    He shuddered in memory of screaming hysterics requiring sal
volatile, physicians, and the shame of racing for the neighbor ladies for aid.
The scolding afterward had been endless. No
more fainting ladies on his doorstep , he decided. If he must marry, he
would be firm on this point.
    He worked his way back to Azenor. He had been aware of her
presence at every instant, even though almost everyone in the room was taller
than she. The ladies seemed to circulate around her as planets did around the
sun. Understandable, he supposed, since Azenor was brighter—or at least more
colorful—than any of them.
    “This won’t work,” he murmured for her ears alone. “I must
introduce them to Iveston.”
    Her eyes widened, as if in shock at his suggestion. Then she
vehemently shook her bouncy curls. “No, no, and no .”
    “Why not?” he asked, prepared to insist.
    “That is a recipe for disaster,” she exclaimed in horror. “If
my visit to your home discovered its usual condition, you would do better to
marry and make Iveston a fait accompli .”
    “I don’t want to have to chain a wife to a wall to keep
her,” he argued. “She needs to know what she faces.”
    “I’m a librarian, not a matchmaker,” she grumbled in return.
    “You are a naysayer,” he said. “Every time I make a
suggestion, your response is why ?”
    “And every time I tell you no, your response is why not ?” she retorted. “I am not being
unreasonable. These are busy women. Most don’t have time for jaunts into the
country. And if my recollection of your home is correct, you aren’t prepared
for house guests.”
    “Perspicacious,” he muttered. But his relentless brain had
found a new angle and hope surged. “Help me hire servants to prepare the house.
Surrey is not far and the road is good. The ladies could attend the village
fete and sit down to tea with us before returning to town.”
    “ Hire servants  . . .
I am not a lion tamer either!” she protested angrily. Then she narrowed her
eyes as if a new thought had occurred to her.
    Theo feared he ought to be wary, but he was too desperate.
“Once we have a woman in the household, we can hire regular servants. I ought
to present Iveston as it could be.”
    “That will take planning,” she said, the wheels visibly
turning behind her bright eyes. “I trust you’re not in a hurry.”
    He wanted this done yesterday. He might be the selfish lout Celia
had called him, but he’d learned his lesson. He couldn’t ask a wife to be a
sacrificial lamb to his brother’s melancholia. Or his family’s anarchy. He
bowed. “I must prepare a paper for the Society and hire a steward. That should
give you time to find a few maids and footmen who can spruce the place up a
little. The fete is two weeks from today.”
    “You will provide me with the latest material from the
Society so I may update my charts?” she demanded.
    “I will find copies of every report the Society’s members
have produced and the articles that have been written this past year,” he
vowed.
    “All right, then. Each to their own expertise. That seems
fair,” she acknowledged with a dip of her copper curls.
    Theo walked back to his uncle’s house with no memory of any
of the women he’d just met but feeling lighter than air because he’d tricked
the managing Lady