The Mischievous Miss Murphy Read Online Free Page B

tell. “Well, it seems this Mrs. Fitzgerald lived in a fine castle, in County Cork perhaps, and she was mighty proud of her possession. Then one fine day her husband, who had been out and about somewhere doing the Lord only knows what, ups and gets himself captured by some horse-stealing neighbors, who then surround Elizabeth’s castle to tell her she must surrender her fine pile o’stones or else they’ll slit her husband’s scrawny throat.”
    “Oh, my,” Candie interrupted, “so it’s to be a bloody tale then, is it?”
    “Ah, colleen, how sadly you mistake the matter,” her uncle corrected. “Elizabeth Fitzgerald was as shrewd as she could hold together, so she was, and did not allow her romantic heart to rule her practical head. ‘Mark these words,’ she called down to the rabble from high atop her splendid castle, ‘they may serve your own wives on some occasion. I’ll keep my castle. For Elizabeth Fitzgerald may get another husband, but Elizabeth Fitzgerald may never get another castle!’”
    His story done, Max peered down to see Candie’s reaction.
    Candice Murphy was not slow in taking her uncle’s meaning. “I should send him packing? Is that what you’re saying, Uncail ? But I have no castle to lose.”
    Max stared into her eyes, his own full of unspoken warning. “Don’t you, lass?”

     
    London was becoming a bit thin of company, what with gentlemen going off hunting in the wilds whilst their ladies retired to country estates to make a great show of affection over the children they had birthed through duty and then promptly deserted to the care of strangers.
    The Marquess of Coniston, his liaison with Lady Bledsoe having prompted him to turn down several invitations to transfer his drinking and wenching to the north of England for a space, found himself to be rather pleased by the lack of hustle and bustle along the usually crowded streets of Mayfair as he tooled his curricle down Half Moon Street.
    Not having to dodge cow-handed drivers and wave to endless acquaintances left him more latitude for daydreaming for one thing, and for another, it made that many fewer dandies try to cut him out in his pursuit of Candice Murphy, who was bound to cause a stir in his circle of beauty-hungry bucks.
    The weather had proved to be unseasonably warm this morning, and he felt certain he could convince Miss Murphy to accompany him on a drive through the Park, away from the watchful eyes of her protector. Once Max Murphy clapped his greedy Irish eyes on the hamper full of fine wine and assorted delicacies from the Coniston kitchens, he would be more prone to see his “niece’s” suitor in a favorable light.
    After all, Mark Antony Betancourt, Seventh Marquess of Coniston, was flagrantly handsome, obscenely wealthy, and wickedly intelligent. He was also young, healthy, and popular. Friendship with him would render Max an entree into society he could not dare to cast aside lightly.
    What would not please Max was the fact that the Marquess was, like his circle of cronies, dedicated to the belief that it was his solemn duty as an English peer to bed as many women as he could during his sojourn upon this Earth.
    And to wed none of them.
    Lord Coniston—or Tony, as he was affectionately called by his friends—had, since attaining his majority eight years earlier, shown such diligence and dedication to what he saw as quite the most pleasant of the obligations attached to his rank that he had gained himself a second, slightly less endearing nickname.
    Within two years of his advent into London society, he was known throughout the ton as Mister Overnite, an appellation that was as descriptive of his nocturnal pursuits as it was self-explanatory. Tony Betancourt not only held the distinction of bedding more lightskirts than many other young bucks had eaten hot dinners, but he was also said to hold the modern-day British record for dallying the whole night long in more society matrons’ beds than half the