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WHEN ALASTAIR CAME into his townhouse and received word from his butler that a “lady awaited,” he thought it might be Millie. Few women would dare seek him out at his home. But he had not heard from Millie in some time and presumed she had abandoned hopes of persuading him to change her dowry. After their meeting in the gaming hall, she had written him twice with reasoning, threats, cajoling, and pleas.

He had responded by advising her to desist or he should be tempted to double her dowry to eight thousand pounds.

He had not heard from her since.

But the woman sitting in his drawing room was not Millie, alas. It was his eldest sister, Louisa, who bore no small resemblance to him. She had the ebony d’Aubigne tresses, sharp eyes, and strong bone structure. She stood taller than the average member of the fair sex, and with her ridiculously large ostrich plume in her bonnet, it appeared she stretched from floor to ceiling.

“Andre,” she greeted at his entrance, then wrinkled her nose. “You smell of horse.”

Having just arrived, he had not yet changed out of his riding clothes and boots.

“Have you lost all your manners?” she asked with a critical lift of the brow. “I may be your sister, but I am still a lady, and you know perfectly well a gentleman would not receive a lady smelling of horse.”

Not bothering to point out that she had chosen to call on him, and without warning, he returned, “Would you rather I take the time to don a different wardrobe?”

He had no qualms in keeping his sister waiting.

She relented. “I haven’t all day. I waited nearly half an hour as it is.”

“Then praise the stars, for I nearly chose to ride out to Camden. Your wait then would have lasted hours.”

“Your butler assured me you would be home before then, for you are expecting Mr. Kittredge.”

“Kittredge does not mind waiting for me as long as he has access to my cellar.” He went to pour himself a brandy from the sideboard and nearly considered offering Louisa a glass, though he knew full well she detested the drinks of his sex. She watched him in silence, no doubt waiting for him to inquire into her health or, at the least, the purpose for her visit.

“Do you plan to spend Michaelmas with our aunt?” she blurted when it was plain he had no intention of making an inquiry of any kind.

“No.” He set his glass down at his writing table and picked up the letters of the day to review.

“It is not because you have yourself some opera singer here in town for a mistress? Surely you can command better than an opera singer.”

Louisa did not approve of his having a mistress at all, but she had voiced this too often to deaf ears and was thus left with criticizing his choice in whom he tumbled.

“Did you come all this way to talk to me of an opera singer?” he asked, opening one of the letters.

She bristled. “Of course not! I asked if you intended to spend Michaelmas in the country with Katherine.”

“And I gave you my answer.”

“It affords me some refuge but, still, I think I cannot decline. I have not your ability to disregard what is proper. Were she not our only aunt, I should have arrived at some ready excuse to respond with my regrets. I would sooner accept an invitation from our uncle Herbert. Caroline said she can tolerate but a few hours with Katherine, let alone an entire sennight.”

Caroline was his other sister, whom Alastair had even less regard for. Louisa could be critical and condescending, but Caroline added vanity to these qualities. She would spare no expense for her carriage, baubles, and lace, but would berate her housekeeper for spending a penny too much on butter.

“I do not think Katherine would care if you accepted her invitation or not,” he said, hoping to end their dialogue.

Louisa huffed. “What a thing to say! Is that what she relayed to you?”

“Katherine is far too wise and well-mannered to confide such a thing to me, for she knows all too well that I lack the manners to pretend niceties where none exist.”

His sister pursed her lips, not knowing what to make of his statement but wanting to know where Katherine stood in regards to her niece. “Your words imply that Katherine invited us out of obligation and not from a desire to have our company.”

“I intended to imply that you should have no reservations in refusing her invitation,” he replied without looking up from his letter.

She sniffed, “Well, when I heard that she had also invited the Abbotts, I knew for certain that I had no wish to go.”

He paused. Millie had been invited to spend Michaelmas at Edenmoor?

“I shall never understand why she pays such heed to her poor relations.”

“They are our relations as well.”

Louisa gave a despairing groan. “They are all of such little consequence.”

“Richard was a good man.”

“I will grant you he was uncommonly decent for a man of his background, but marrying him does not require her to consort with all of his siblings, especially the Abbotts. I wonder that Katherine tolerates them.”

“She is partial to the daughter,” he said slowly.

“As are you, I take it, for I understand you are providing her a dowry of four thousand pounds.”

Here was the real reason Louisa had come to see him, he thought to himself.

“Four thousand pounds!” she reiterated when he said nothing. “That is more than that family has seen in their lifetime, I’ll wager.”

“Probably so.”

She huffed again at his indifference. “What possessed you to grant such a sum to Miss Abbott? You realize that all of Richard’s poor relations will be making requests of you now.”

“They had been doing so long before I underwrote a dowry for Miss Abbott.”

“And have you always been this generous?”

“Not at all.”

“Then I fail to see the sense in such an extraordinary gift. Why, it is equal to the dowry for my Emily, and that is not as it should be.”

“Very little in life is as it should be.”

“Then you mean to go through with it?”

“Why would I not?” He immediately regretted his response, for though he meant the question to be rhetorical, he had invited an answer from Louisa.

“Because it is preposterous! Miss Abbott is not the sort of young lady that ought to have a dowry of four thousand pounds.”

“It would be bad form for me to withdraw it now.”

“Since when do you care about good form?” she cried.

“Withdrawing now would be devastating to the family, and even I am not so cruel.”

“But everyone or anyone would understand that it was a grave error on your part. They would not fault you for attempting to correct it.”

“Then I have far too much pride to admit I could make so large an error.” He was beginning to be more than a little irritated with Louisa. He knew he could provide no answer, short of delivering what she wanted, that would satisfy her.

“Then reduce it to a more sensible amount. I understand you had initially set it at two thousand pounds. Two thousand pounds is perfectly sufficient. Why you saw the necessity to increase it is bewildering.”

“You may chalk it up to old age, the onset of madness, or inebriation, I have no intention of retracting.”

She twisted her hands in frustration. “Then I suppose, if you are in such a generous mood of late, that I should request an amount for my Emily. A dowry of six or eight thousand pounds would be fair.”

“As you pointed out, a dowry of two thousand pounds is ‘perfectly sufficient.’”

She bristled. “Sufficient for Miss Abbott. But now that she is at four thousand pounds, it appears all wrong if my Emily, a d'Aubigne, does not have a dowry commensurate with her station.”

“If you wish your daughter to have a dowry of six or eight thousand pounds, then talk to your husband and not to me. Your situation allows you to afford that amount.”

“Two thousand pounds is no insignificant amount to us, but it is for you. And why should the Abbotts be the recipients of your generosity and not your own sister.”

He set his letters down and finished off his brandy. If Louisa stayed much longer, he would require a second glass. “Because you are not in need of the money.”

“But you have not granted anyone else in need such a magnanimous gift.”

Louisa spoke true, and he had at one time  reasoned to himself that he had granted Mr. Abbott's request to avoid having to deal with the man further, but that would not be the whole truth. He met his sister's stare and smiled. “It amused me.”

“Amused you?”

“Yes, and I can assure that whatever answer I provide to your questions will not satisfy you, and only serve to exasperate you further. As such, I suggest you curtail this conversation so that you are not completely overwhelmed with vexation.”

Affronted, she huffed with her mouth agog. He was a little surprised she was not, by now, accustomed to his impertinence.

“That is all the response I am to receive?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She had exhausted his patience, and he was in no mood to entertain her further. He had a preponderance of correspondence to respond to before he left town with Kittredge to go hunting in the country.

“As your sister, I merit better!”

“No doubt you do, Louisa, but as you have often pointed out, I am both ungenerous and impolite.”

“And well you deserve those labels!”

He did not bat an eye. Both his sisters had married well and needed naught from him. Louisa’s daughters would have no trouble finding husbands of good standing.

“You will regret your actions,” she said, “when you are besieged by requests from your relatives and anyone who thinks they may claim a connection to you.”

“Madam, I am besieged more by my own sisters than by distant connections.”

At that, she threw up her hands and turned on her heels. Before she crossed the threshold, she turned around and waved a finger at him. “If you persist in such heartless disregard for your own family, then I shall wash my hands of you. I will, Andre! And when you are old and alone, you will come to reconsider your youthful recklessness and be sorry that you permitted all this to come to pass!”

Whirling about, she stormed from the room.

When she was gone, Alastair took a relieved breath. Louisa was fortunate he did not voice his true thoughts on her vanity and lack of interest in her relations. The latter, however, he owned he shared with his sister. He could not be certain why he had tolerated Millie. Perhaps because she neither tried to tempt him nor judge him, lest he had provoked her, in which case he had warranted her criticism. He remembered how cross she had been with him at Château Follet. He had been quite overbearing. Yet how easily they had surrendered to each other.

Her soft and supple body had withstood his attentions well. Her lips had yielded deliciously beneath his. Her marvelous heat had welcomed his member. The area of his crotch tightened as he recalled how her body had clenched him as she spent.

In the glow of rapture, she had looked beautiful, though he had not found her striking before. In the morning hours following their night of wicked indulgence, he had had ample time to observe her while she slept and began to appreciate the suppleness of her body. He remembered his concern that she might wake with regrets or have developed an infatuation with him. He had been impressed with her lack of sentimentality. It was not what he expected from her sex.

“You have no regrets?” he asked.

“I am fully content with what has transpired,” Millie replied.

“You will think differently with time.”

“You are presumptuous, sir.”

“There are few who would dare speak to me in such a manner, and fewer who could do so without raising my ire.”

If they had not resumed their identities as Alastair and Millie, he would have taught her more courtesy. A spanking might do.

She lowered her gaze for a few seconds. “Your pardon, but, really, Alastair, you do not know me well enough to make such a claim. In truth, I am quite surprised that you seem to harbor more shame than I.”

The thought seemed to amuse her, and he bristled. “I was only worried for your sake. My sex can dispense with guilt much more easily than yours, especially over matters of the flesh.”

She was silent in thought. “Am I more the wanton jade if I harbor no repentance or shame? Am I a...slut?”

He groaned, and he felt another unsettling tug at his crotch. He had thought such sensations would not have persisted past the night.

“Millie, that is not at all what I intended with my words! I applaud that you honored the natural cravings inside you and sought to fulfill them without fear.”

“You tried to stop me.”

“That was before I knew you had already forsaken your virtue!”

“Then you have no need to worry of me, though I appreciate your concern. It is quite hopeful that you may not be as unredeemable as society deems you to be.”

He growled at her teasing smile. Women. If he had had a choice, he would have selected one of his own sex to fulfill Katherine’s birthday wish.

“My dear cousin,” Millie said. “I will forever be grateful to you for last night. My one fear is that you will henceforth be awkward in my presence.”

“You think our relationship can remain the same after what happened?”

“Why not?”

“Your naivety is charming at best.”

As he recalled their exchanges at Château Follet, he considered that perhaps he should accept his aunt’s invitation to spend Michaelmas at Edenmoor, but he reminded himself that doing so would require him to suffer the company of his sisters and their husbands. Hunting with Kittredge would be much more preferable.