Leslie LaFoy by Come What May Page B

so much as a quarter yard of new cloth come into this house in over eighteen months. The quality of tea we've endured for the last six is positively wretched and we haven't attended—”
    “I didn't pay it,” Devon snapped, pivoting to glare at her. “If I lack the money for fine tea, Aunt Elsbeth, you can be sure that I don't have it to pay an ill-considered debt that
I
didn't incur.”
    Ah, yes. She'd been right; it was Elsbeth. And Devon's appraisal of her general manner seemed to be accurate.
    “There is no reason to snap, Devon,” his mother chided. “I can only hope you stated your regrets to Mr. Seaton-Smythe in a more polite manner.”
    His regrets? Madam Rivard had absolutely no idea how the larger world worked. Judging by the look in her eldest son's eyes, she was on the verge of getting a hard and brutal lesson on the subject. Claire held her breath and wished herself a thousand miles away.
    “Mr. Seaton-Smythe isn't the sort of man to accept regrets,” Devon explained, his voice tight. “Politely stated or otherwise, Mother. Anticipating that I wouldn't have the funds, he offered to retire the debt in its entirety if I would agree to wed his niece. Hence, this afternoon, I most reluctantly married Mistress Curran.”
    He'd
been reluctant? Claire's blood heated with outrage even as Elsbeth looked her up and down, her nose wrinkling in obvious disdain. Wyndom absorbed himself in taking a sip of his brandy. Madam Rivard turned to face her, her brow raised.
    Refusing to be baited into defending her innocence in the fiasco, Claire straightened her shoulders and metMadam Rivard's gaze squarely. “We've agreed to have the union annulled as soon as your son receives documents from my uncle canceling the debt. The sham should end by August at the latest.”
    “An annulment?
An annul
—” Madam Rivard gasped, placed the back of her wrist across her brow, executed a half pirouette while fluttering her eyelids, then daintily crumpled backward.
    Claire reacted instinctively, stepping forward and extending her arms to catch the collapsing matron. While Madam Rivard's faint was decidedly graceful, Claire's rescue of her wasn't. The combined weight of the woman's hair, the panniers, the gown, the embroidered petticoats and Henrietta Rivard herself was more than Claire had anticipated and she staggered, desperately struggling for balance. She heard Elsbeth squeak in shock. At the farthest edge of her awareness, she felt the younger brother skitter away, saw the embroidery hoop fall to the floor, and a blur of dark blue.
    Then Madam Rivard's weight miraculously left her arms. Claire's hope of recovering her balance was only momentary, though. Even as she tried to get her feet squarely under her, she was abruptly wrenched forward and down. Unable to keep herself upright, she gasped, closed her eyes, and threw her hands out to cushion her certain impact against the floor.
    Only it wasn't the floor she hit; it was a heated wall of blue wool and corded muscle. She opened her eyes to find herself on her knees, her arms flung around the neck of Devon Rivard and her breasts pressed hard against the broad expanse of his chest. His emerald gaze met hers and held it as he cocked a brow and a smile played at the corners of his mouth. She froze, her heart pounding furiously, traitorously, at the sight.
    “I can manage, thank you,” he said softly.
    Dear Lord, what he had to be thinking! With all the dignity she could muster, Claire awkwardly leveragedherself against his massive shoulders and gained a respectable space between their upper bodies. But she simply couldn't move her lower limbs and go any farther. Neither could she let go of his shoulders without tumbling back fully against him. Glancing down, she realized the cause of her dilemma. They were both on their knees with Henrietta Rivard trapped between them, cradled in her son's arms with her panniers twisted and her skirts a bunched and crumpled wad held in place by a