Chapter One

This business of acquiring a husband is going to be far from pleasant, Eliza Hammond decided from her place on the saffron-and-white-striped sofa in the upstairs family drawing room of Raeburn House.

Considering this would be her fifth Season—a lowering realization indeed—she knew she would need all the assistance she could get, despite the immense fortune her late aunt had quite unexpectedly left to her only six weeks ago. At least she knew she would be able to count on the steadfast support of her dear friend, Violet Brantford Winter, Duchess of Raeburn. Perhaps with Violet's assistance, the process would not be as dreadful as she feared. Then again, thinking of the assorted ne'er-do-wells and fortune hunters already vying for her hand, perhaps it would.

"There is Mr. Newcomb," Violet stated as she reviewed the current selection of Eliza's prospective suitors. "He seems a very pleasant sort of gentleman with a genuine interest in the arts."

"Yes, he was most attentive when we happened upon each other at the gallery the other day," Eliza agreed, recalling the man's even features and straight auburn hair, a shade that had put her in mind of a glossy-coated Irish setter. "He demonstrated a definite command of the great masters. Perhaps he has an interest in historical subjects as well."

"What he has is an interest in card playing, followed a close second by a love of the dice," interrupted a deep, smooth male voice that never failed to send a pleasurable tingle down Eliza's spine, no matter how firmly she tried to suppress it.

She shifted her gaze toward Lord Christopher Winter, better known to his family and friends as Kit. Tall, broad-shouldered and ruggedly lean, he sat relaxed in a leisurely all-male sprawl upon a nearby chair. Having spent the past twenty minutes eating his way through a stack of small watercress, cucumber and chicken sandwiches, he leaned forward now to conduct a perusal of the dessert tray.

A lock of his dark, wavy brown hair fell across his handsome forehead as he selected a pair of lime tarts and a thin slice of rum cake. As he transferred the sweets to his plate, he got a smudge of whipped cream on one of his knuckles. Eliza's stomach tightened as she watched him lick it away.

She forced her gaze down to her shoes. Kit was Violet's brother-in-law and nothing more, she reminded herself. Certainly he was nothing more to her. True, she had once nursed a secret infatuation for him, but such silliness was long since over and done. During the nearly year and a half he had been away traveling on the Continent, she had ruthlessly purged him from her heart. And by the time he returned to England this Christmas past, she had long since grown used to giving him scarcely a thought.

Still, that didn't mean she couldn't admire him for the gorgeous male specimen he was. And Kit Winter, with his beautiful, lazy-lidded green and gold eyes, sensuous lips and infectiously charming smile, was a gorgeous man indeed. One with an infamously prodigious appetite that seemed to make no impact at all upon his trim, well-muscled physique.

He bit into one of the tarts from his plate, a tiny smile of gustatory delight on his lips as he settled back into his chair. Engrossed in the confection, he seemed utterly oblivious to the volley of disappointment he had just lobbed into the room.

Violet shot him a mighty frown. "What do you mean by that remark, Kit?"

He swallowed and glanced upward. "Hmm?" He took a drink of tea, then politely patted his mouth with his napkin. "Oh, about Newcomb, do you mean?"

"Yes, of course about Newcomb. Of whom else have Eliza and I been conversing?"

"Well, there's no need to come up cross, Vi. Just thought I ought to give you fair warning the chap is close to being dipped. Last I heard, he lost twenty thousand quid to Plimpton playing high-stakes whist, and his luck hasn't turned for the good since."

Violet and Eliza released a pair of mutual sighs.

"If that is the case, then he is out," Violet declared, turning her bespectacled blue-green gaze upon Eliza. "You certainly don't want to take an inveterate gambler to husband."

Eliza silently agreed and contented herself by sipping her tea.

"There is Sir Silas Jones," Violet continued. "He sent you that sweet nosegay of hothouse roses last week. I hear he comes from a lovely part of Kent. Owns an estate that produces a most bountiful harvest of cherries and apples each year. Has quite the way with plants, I am given to understand."

"That's not all he's good at planting," murmured Kit as he polished off the last of the sweets on his plate and leaned forward for more.

Violet angled her attractively coiffured blond head. "I suppose by that you mean there is something wrong with him as well?"

Copyright © 2006 by Tracy Anne Warren.