Counting on a Countess: The most outrageous Regency romance of 2019 that fans of Vanity Fair and Poldark will adore

Frustrated, impatient, Kit muttered a curse and started for the card room at the other end of the chamber. He wouldn’t find a wife there, amidst the games of vingt-et-un and loo, since the amusements were set up primarily for men and married women. But at least it would help relieve a fraction of the tension that knotted his muscles and made him grit his teeth.

Distracted as he was, his head tucked low, his gaze fixed on the parquet floor, he didn’t see the young woman in his path until it was almost too late. They nearly collided, but he pulled himself up just before smacking into her.

“Excuse me, miss,” he exclaimed.

The girl spoke with a distinct Cornish accent. “No harm done, sir.” She smiled at him.

Her smile set off fires throughout his body. She fairly glowed with vibrancy.

Kit didn’t recognize her, and he wouldn’t have forgotten meeting a girl with such vividly red hair—coppery and bright beneath the light of the chandelier—and he had a fierce need to see it loose about her shoulders. He was drawn in by her wide-set, light brown eyes, slightly tilted at the corners. Her full, rose-hued lips stirred a need in him, baffling in its swiftness.

She had an elfin look, with a long, sleek form. The neckline of her pale green gown highlighted her modest but well-formed bosom, and his hands twitched with the desire to know the feel of her. Though the pink in her cheeks alluded to a life spent frequently out of doors, he easily imagined the same flush in her skin when roused to passion.

The hell? Kit wondered dazedly. He’d seen women and desired them within minutes of meeting, but never had he looked upon a woman and been suddenly dragged under the tide of sensual need.

It had to be because he’d been celibate these last three weeks, a drastic measure undertaken because he’d had to be on his best behavior whilst searching for a bride.

He waited for his reflexive dismissal of her. Yet it never came.

Her eyes were bright with intelligence as she looked at him, and her smile lingered, as though she liked what she saw. That baser part of himself puffed up and preened.

He gave her his best, most winning smile. “I—”

But that was as far as he got before a swain stepped between them. “I believe this dance is mine, Miss Pearce.”

“Of course, Mr. Carroll,” the girl answered. She sent Kit an apologetic look as she was led to the dance floor. He fought the urge to take her hand in his and run off into the night like some underworld king claiming his companion.

It’s finally happened. I’ve lost my goddamned mind.

He could wait for her. Bide his time, and then swoop down on her the moment she was free from this Carroll’s clutches.

Yet his response to her was too powerful. Frightening.

He had to regain control over himself. He needed balance. The only time he’d been this close to losing control of himself was on the eve of his first battle.

Kit turned away from the sight of Miss Pearce swaying on the dance floor like a living flame and made his way toward the room set aside for gambling. At least there, he knew the rules of the game.

Though Tamsyn did her best to keep her attention on her dancing partner, her gaze strayed to the blond man with the wary gaze and wide shoulders as he swiftly exited the ballroom. She ought to stay focused on Mr. Carroll—dancing often led to conversation, which could in turn become a morning call, and a few social calls might give way to an amicable connection, and then, hopefully, an offer of matrimony—but she was unable to help herself. Not only had the blond man been exceptionally handsome, but he carried himself with a singular determination, and sharp intelligence gleamed in his eyes.

Three weeks in London searching for a man she might consider marrying had revealed that, while there were a good deal of attractive men, very few of them possessed lean, athletic bodies, and almost none had a sense of purpose or keen intellects.

However, she didn’t need or want a husband to be observant. Or attentive. The more distracted and heedless the better.

It didn’t matter what she wanted for herself, that she had once dreamed of a marriage as devoted as her parents’. Such hopes were merely fancies, never to come to pass.

Yet as she moved through the figures of the dance, she found herself asking Mr. Carroll, “Who was that gentleman?”

Mr. Carroll seemed to know exactly to whom she referred. “Lord Blakemere.” He gave a puzzled frown when she only looked at him blankly. “You really are a country gel if you don’t know him either by face or name.”

She couldn’t feel embarrassed about her Cornish origins. Some London girls had a pale, pinched look and probably couldn’t walk over the moors without calling for a carriage.

But she couldn’t snap a tart reply to Mr. Carroll—not without seriously damaging her marital prospects—so she merely smiled. “We hear so little about the sophisticated city in Cornwall.”

“Can’t be faulted for being born in a backwater, I suppose.” Mr. Carroll sniffed.

She had considered Mr. Carroll moderately handsome, in a rather watery, overbred way, but her opinion of him took a sharp plummet. It would be bad form to simply walk away and leave him alone on the dance floor, so she kept moving through the figures of La Gaillarde.

“Tell me more about Lord Blakemere,” she said with as much sweetness as she could muster.

“Third son of the Marquess of Brownlowe,” Mr. Carroll said dismissively.

“But he’s Lord Blakemere,” she pointed out. She fell silent as she walked through the steps, pulling her away from her dance partner.

“He bought a commission, the way third sons do,” Mr. Carroll explained when they came back together. “Went off to war. Must’ve shown off over there like a trained lion because he came back and they gave him an earldom. But it didn’t come with any money,” he added quickly, clearly seeing her interest. “He’s strapped. Barely has a groat.”

Tamsyn’s heart sank. So much for Lord Blakemere. The second part of her objective in coming to London was finding herself a rich husband. If she was going to buy Chei Owr from her uncle and keep the smuggling operation alive, she needed a spouse with considerable wealth.

“You didn’t tell her the best part,” the man dancing next to Mr. Carroll added. Before Mr. Carroll could object to the interruption, the other man continued, “Blakemere’s got one week to find himself a bride.”

“What happens in a week?” she asked, trying to listen and concentrate on the steps at the same time.

“He loses his chance to inherit a fortune,” Mr. Carroll snapped. “No wife, no money. That’s the end of it.”

Inherit a fortune. The words reverberated in Tamsyn’s head as she fell into distracted silence.

It was certainly something to contemplate.

At the end of the dance, she curtsied to Mr. Carroll. “Thank you, sir.”

“Might I get you some refreshment?” he offered.

“That’s kind of you, but I believe I see my sponsor, Lady Daleford, standing alone. I must keep her company. Do excuse me.”

He looked annoyed by her dismissal as Tamsyn backed away from him, but his expression of irritation lifted when the same talkative gentleman from the dance whispered in his ear. Mr. Carroll glanced at Tamsyn with the look of a man who had narrowly escaped a ravenous ghoul.

She suppressed a sigh and turned away. Doubtless her lack of dowry was the topic under discussion. In the weeks she had been searching for a potential groom, all the men who had shown promise eventually disappeared when they learned of her impecunious circumstances.

Lady Daleford looked at her with sympathy as she approached. “My dear, you mustn’t let the chatterers deter you,” the older woman declared. She fanned herself slowly. “Your dear papa, God rest him, did you no favors by leaving this world intestate.”

The heaviness in Tamsyn’s chest pressed down. “I suppose he believed he could attend to that matter later.” His brother, Jory, hadn’t seen fit to make any provisions for her, and it was only through Lady Daleford’s largesse that Tamsyn had any fashionable clothes to wear during her brief, disastrous Season.

“We, all of us, think we have more time than we do,” Lady Daleford agreed.

Seeking a change in topic, Tamsyn said, “It cannot be factual that Lord Blakemere has only one week to find himself a wife.”

The older woman’s brows rose. “Heard the gossip, have you?”

So it was true, incredible as it might seem. “Why isn’t he swarming with debutantes?”