Page 19 of My Fair Lord

Ned felt his eyebrows shoot up. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were adjoining his hairline. His first instinct was to get up and walk out. A smaller instinct, however, was to hear her out. That was the one he listened to.

“Miss Wakechild, isthisthe hoax? Will I turn round to discover a group of people standing behind me and laughing because I believed you even for a second?”

“Not at all,” she replied earnestly. She leaned towards him. “I mean every word. I need a viscount. Not a real one. That is the point of the hoax. I shall train you in the correct manners of speech and behaviour, then at some point we will attend a social gathering and introduce you as a viscount. We’ll have to think of a title but that can wait for now. My sister’s husband thinks it can’t be done and I think it can. We’ve made a wager and there is money at stake.”

Miss Wakechild was growing more animated as she spoke. She clearly believed she could do it. Ned wondered if she was genuinely addled in the head or suffering from some female infirmity that had caused her to come up with such an odd idea. It was very clear she knew nothing about the British aristocracy if she thought that simple manners was all that was needed to appear convincingly noble.

Then again, Ned could think of at least one earl who had regularly called his footman a bastard in private and told him to fuck off if the door squeaked as it opened.

“Ah, money,” Ned said. “I wondered when we would come to that. So it’s a bet? How much will you earn if you win?”

Miss Wakechild grew solemn for a moment, then looked at him and gave a small smile that was awash with pathos. “The amount is incidental. Naturally I would pay you well for your time and effort.”

Ned sat back and folded his arms across his chest, wondering what sort of fee he could charge for something that went so far beyond any of his previous commissions.

“Miss Wakechild, what you are proposing is most definitely fraudulent and, depending on the circumstances, almost certainly illegal. I’d expect to be well remunerated.”

“I’m not asking you to try and gain entry to the House of Lords or to swindle a widow out of her jewellery by offering marriage,” she said. “The only victim would be my father. He is the only one we will need to trick.”

That was unexpected. Ned scratched a thumb across his jaw. “And the reason for this trickery? Do you dislike your father?”

“Not at all. I love him dearly,” she said indignantly. She looked puzzled. “What makes you think that?”

“Because you’re prepared to ask a stranger to help you deceive him and potentially humiliate him in public. I’m confused,” Ned admitted.

Her eyes widened. “I don’t want to humiliate him, and certainly not publicly. I’d tell him in private once I knew he was convinced.”

“What do you expect to happen if we manage to pull off our deception?” Ned’s head was beginning to ache. His relationship with his own father had been strained but even he hadn’t resorted to this sort of jape.

“I want to prove to him that a title does not make a gentleman and that a man’s character does not result from simply possessing one. What is a title other than an accident of birth? Being a duke does not in itself make a man kind, principled, or well-mannered.”

She paused and frowned slightly, thinking about her judgement.

“It might have for the first in the line because there would have been a reason for the creation of the title, but his descendants are of no greater moral superiority than you or I or the waiter.”

“You sound very contemptuous for somebody who has come over here to try to sell herself to a nobleman,” Ned remarked.

“I didn’t come, I was brought!” she snapped. She made a little strangled noise and looked down at her hands. “It was not my idea.”

Her shoulders dropped. Beneath her outwardly confident manner, Ned caught a glimpse of someone altogether less full of bravado.

“My apologies,” he murmured.

“I suppose it’s common knowledge why we’re here.” She sighed, looking back up at him. “It’s fair to assume that I’m dazzled by the idea of becoming a baroness or countess, but unlike my father, I don’t care a damn for titles or tiaras.”

“Well, I’m in agreement with you there,” Ned said calmly.

His memory trailed back to the comment Van Hoon had made about the Wakechilds being on a quest for a titled husband. He’d initially assumed Miss Wakechild had a naïve and starry-eyed view of the aristocracy and wanted to marry into it. Now it appeared she wanted entirely the opposite.

“I have to admit to being tempted to accept, but before Iagree to your scheme, tell me how exactly you, an American woman, will train me to deceive Englishmen?”

Her eyes lit up. “Well, that’s the beauty of this. I don’t expect you to fool English men, just the one American. Also I have a book.”

“A book?” Ned blinked.

“Yes. I found it at my brother-in-law’s house when we were there last time I visited. It’s fascinating.” She delved into her bag and brought out the book she had been reading when Ned had arrived and presented it to him.

Manners and Rules of Good Society or Solecisms to be Avoided.