The Seduction of an Earl Read Online Free

would one day need to marry a woman suited to the ton . A woman who would be accepted by the peerage because she was already a part of it. The daughter of an earl or a viscount or even a baron would suit just fine, Sarah thought.
    The daughter of a marquess would be even better.
    After a rather restless night spent at his rarely used townhouse in Bruton Street, he had decided that he rather liked the idea of being married to a beautiful fairy princess.
    Which was why Henry sat in a town coach in Park Lane at ten o’clock in the morning, the driver waiting for space to clear in the drive in front of the house. He would have stepped out of his coach and made his way up the steps, but another town coach, a very new one in glossy black, sat in the semi-circular drive.
    He watched as a beautiful, somewhat overweight woman descended the stairs and, with the hand of a groom supporting her, stepped into the marked coach. From her auburn hair and rounded front, Henry knew it wasn’t the woman he had watched in the park the night before. Which meant Lady Hannah was probably still in the house.
    Once the town coach departed from Devonville House with its passenger, the driver of his coach set the horses in motion. Another minute, and the coach had come to a halt.
    Yes , Henry decided, I could see myself married to Lady Hannah .
    Now he just had to convince her to marry him.

    Henry pulled his thoughts back to the present. The driver was dismounting and about to open the door. The last thing Henry wanted was to be caught daydreaming about the woman he’d seen the night before. If she truly was Lady Hannah Slater, then Lady Charlotte had been almost remiss in not describing her with the more generous attributes the woman deserved. “This is the Marquess of Devonville’s residence, my lord,” the driver said, motioning to the grand house with the wide expanse of parkland to one side. Henry noted that the driver had pulled into the semi-circular carriageway. The equipage was parked at the base of the five stone steps leading up to the massive double doors framed by a portico and Grecian columns.
    Nodding to the driver as he stepped down, Henry gave the man a coin and asked if he could wait. He silently chided himself for not yet having visited Tillbury’s to claim his newly built coach for the trip from his townhouse. Besides the added comfort of his new coach, the marked equipage would signal to the household staff that he was a member of the peerage. He’d considered riding in his late uncle’s ancient coach – the one he’d used to get to London from Oxfordshire – but the springs were long gone, and the condition of the exterior made for a poor first impression. The only other equipage the earldom owned was a curricle, but he’d left it behind on the off chance Sarah might require it for a trip to Bampton. She might not be his wife, but everyone in his earldom knew she was under his protection.
    In lieu of a marked carriage, he made sure he had a calling card to hand to the butler.
    Taking the risers with quick and efficient steps, Henry found one of the front doors opening even before he could pull the brass lion head knocker. “Is Lord Devonville in residence?” he wondered, handing the pasteboard to the butler.
    The stout servant took only a quick glance at the card before nodding to Henry. “Indeed, my lord. If you’ll follow me, please, I’ll see you to the drawing room.” He took Henry’s hat and placed it rather fastidiously on a polished shelf before leading the earl down the ornately decorated hallway.
    Henry had to resist the urge to answer; the butler’s welcome was spoken with more words than he heard from his own butler in a entire day.
    If there was any question as to the financial status of the marquess, a quick look at the artifacts displayed on caryatids throughout the alcoves they passed would hint that he was quite flush. The thought of the dowry associated with Lady Hannah hadn’t even crossed