Patrica Rice by Regency Delights Page A

the way his little devil had brought her father and his army to a standing halt, Damien relaxed and wrapped his arm tightly around her waist. "What if we just ask your father to stand up for me this time? If the vicar isn't busy, we can have the business done by evening. I'll pick the flowers personally."
    A maid ran frantically down the hall crying, "There's a carriage coming, sir. There's a carriage and a baby!"
    Damien sought her eyes questioningly, and Melanie smiled back. "Let us go meet your daughter, my lord. Perhaps Pamela would hold her while we take our vows."
    Sir Francis and his army of footmen stood back, gaping, as Damien helped her to her feet and the couple glided through their ranks without a hitch, looking for all the world like expectant parents as the sound of a crying baby wailed through the previously silent corridors.
    As they reached the astonished baronet, the Earl of Reister placed his arm around Melanie's shoulders and held his hand out to her father. "I want to thank you for raising such a beautiful daughter. I hope I can do half so well as you have."
    Melanie pinched him for this conceit, and Damien laughed. He was a scoundrel, no doubt, but there was no reason he couldn't be a charming one.
    As if she read his mind, she whispered heatedly, "One more whopper like that, Damien Langland, and I'll make you change your daughter's nappies."
    "May I still have kisses for dessert?" he whispered back.
    The look she gave him in return made him thankful he had a license in his pocket. He didn't think this groom could wait much longer for his wedding night.
     

* * *
     

Fathers and Daughters
     
    "I would like your permission to marry your daughter, sir." Lord Edward John Chatham stood nervously before the older man's desk. From his crisply immaculate white waterfall cravat to the elegantly tailored dove-gray pantaloons tucked correctly into a pair of gleaming Hessians, he was every inch the proper young gentleman. A thick head of burnished brown curls cut fashionably to fall forward over his forehead did not disguise the bleakness of his eyes as he watched the other man turn his back on him and walk away. The fact that he had been offered neither brandy nor a chair spoke ill for his hopes.
    "I've been expecting this, Chatham." A small, slender man, Henry Thorogood opened a drawer in a nearby cabinet and withdrew a sheaf of papers. As an astute businessman who had turned his family's dwindling estates into an extremely profitable and lucrative career, Thorogood was always prepared for every eventuality. The neat study in which they stood bespoke his natural methodicalness. He threw the papers on the desk. "Your vouchers, Chatham. Do you have any idea of the sum total of their worth?"
    "Considerably more than you bought them for, I wager," Lord Jack replied wryly, acknowledging Thorogood's shrewdness in obtaining large discounts on practically worthless pieces of paper. Some of those vouchers had been so long outstanding that his creditors would gladly have taken a ha'penny on the pound.
    "Enough to have you called before the court, in any case." The older man came to stand behind his desk again. The Thorogoods were an old and respectable family, but no title attached to their name, and Henry's immersion in trade had tainted their welcome in the highest echelons of society.
    Lord Jack, on the other hand, was the son of an earl and younger brother of an earl, the current holder of the title, in direct line to the succession, and an eminently eligible bachelor.
    The young man paled slightly at Thorogood’s threat, but he remained steadfast, clenching his hands at his side. "I realize I have overspent my income for some time, but I have already given up my expensive habits and begun to pare down my debts. Except for repaying what you hold there, my allowance from my late father's estate is sufficient to keep Carolyn comfortably, if not quite in the style to which she is accustomed. She understands and has no