If Love Were Enough Read Online Free Page B

see the discomfort in Asher’s face. His friend’s brow furrowed; his smile dissolved into a frown.
    “Each and every one of them has taken up introductions on his own. She arrived unannounced, earlier today before the rest of you descended. She has been in her rooms resting from her trip from Northumberland.” Asher’s gaze traveled to his sister. “I didn’t want her to attend, but your arrival presented us with an unmatched male. So, we asked her to join us for dinner. You should know, she just buried her husband and is beside herself with grief. She came home for some much needed family consolation.”
    “It looks like there are quite a few who would willingly console her.” With little reluctance, Brandon would take on the task himself. “Was the death expected?”
    “Eventually. The man was forty years her senior.”
    Brandon made a disapproving sound. “Which of your idiot relatives arranged that hideous match?”
    “I did,” the viscount said, after clearing his throat. “Priscilla came out just after our parents died in the carriage accident. Soon after her first ball, Rutherford asked for her hand. He might have been old, but he was titled, rich and kind. He also needed an heir so he wanted a young wife and was willing to be generous over it.”
    “After his death, I found my father had left the family’s finances in shambles. I had little in the way of a dowry to offer. Even financing a Season was to be a hardship.” Asher drew a cheroot from a sterling silver case from an inside pocket of his jacket then bent to light a piece of kindling from the hearth. “I did the best I could for her with what I had to work with. Priscilla was young, just seventeen, and seemed to be content enough to be banished to the wilds of Northumberland after having lost her parents.”
    Asher, a name only his longtime acquaintances used due to his habit of leaving cheroot ashes in his wake, puffed away at his tobacco. “I was four years her senior. What could I have done, an unattached rake, to care and protect her? We had not even a maiden aunt for a chaperone.”
    Ashes from his cheroot fell to the hearth.
    “She has returned none the worse for wear, has she?” Brandon asked, while he continued to watch the interaction across the room.
    “Well, Rutherford cared for her well enough, though the child never came. I don’t know how long she will remain here; Anne will take her under her wing.”
    Brandon wished that would help the new widow, but doubted Anne’s self-absorbed assistance would be of any value. Priscilla could know little of the ton and its adventures after leaving it so young and being away from it so long. Though, from the looks of her currently, she was holding her own quite well. In fact, she looked like the Ice Queen. Her smiles, rare and forced at best, seemed to be granted solely because she knew it was appropriate.
    Brandon shifted, sensing movement at the door.
    The butler came in to announce dinner.
    Knowing the crowd would move to the dining room, Brandon returned his attention to Asher’s sister. She gazed out the window oblivious while all but one of the gentlemen around her started for their dining companions. No longer did Priscilla have the look of the impenetrable princess, aloof, cold, unattainable. Now her features softened, her body stilled and crumpled. Her focus through the glass seemed distant, whether in distance or time he did not know.
    Brandon perused the dispersing crowd again.
    Priscilla couldn’t believe her circumstance. Though she had to admit her own intentions were less than honorable, she lacked interest in any of the four men who surrounded her, ogling her, like the finest horse for sale at Tattersall’s. It was debasing, no less confounding. Even her short time on the Marriage Market more than ten years ago was less demeaning than this. She was almost sorry Anne relented and invited her to join the company for dinner.
    In the meantime, out of the corner of her