Convenient Wife, Pleasured Lady
Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Carole Mortimer was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and forty books for Harlequin Mills and Boon®. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Daniel Wycliffe, Earl of Stanford, expected Alice Fortesque to be an obedient and biddable wife, not the vivacious beauty demanding he woo her before sharing his bed! Daniel has no intention on falling for his convenient bride, but he needs to produce an heir soon in order to secure his inheritance. He’s certain that she won’t be able to resist his seductive charms for long…but with Alice determined to accept nothing less than Daniel’s love and respect, will he be the one to surrender first?

CHAPTER ONE

“How flattering, my dear, that you were so desperate to see me again that you could not even wait until our wedding tomorrow!” The icily disapproving tone of Daniel Wycliffe, earl of Stanford, as he entered the room where Alice Fortesque sat waiting for him, showed, however, that he was neither flattered nor indeed pleased to find her there. “At such a late hour too!”

Alice firmly refused to be intimidated by that tone. “The hour was not so late when I arrived, my lord…” She gave a pointed look toward the ornate ormolu clock on the mantel, which showed the time to be approaching midnight.

Almost their wedding day, in fact…

Daniel duly noted the slight rebuke in her tone, his lids hooded as he studied the young woman whom circumstances and expediency had allowed him to choose as his future wife and the mother of the future Wycliffe heirs. The Fortesque family, although members of the ton, admittedly were not major players in that elite circle. But Alice Fortesque’s mother had been a Hammond before her marriage, and the daughter of a duke, and so rendering her own daughter eligible to become the wife of an earl.

Alice Fortesque also had the benefit of being only nineteen years of age. Young enough, Daniel hoped, to accept the businesslike marriage he offered her in exchange for the privelege of becoming his countess. The accusation in green eyes beneath an abundance of dark, glossy curls did not give the impression those things were at the forefront of Alice Fortesque’s mind at this moment, implying that she would not be as undemanding a wife as Daniel had hoped.

He raised blond brows. “Your brother and stepmother will not be concerned by your absence?”

“My family believe me to have been abed these past three hours in excited anticipation of our wedding tomorrow!” his bride assured him with scornful dismissal.

Daniel gave a derisive inclination of his head as he accepted that as from tomorrow this young woman would be at liberty to come and go as she pleased in any of the Wycliffe homes and estates. “May I offer you a glass of brandy?” He did not wait for Alice’s answer before crossing to the tray of drinks on the large dresser to pour some of the expensively acquired French liquor into two glasses.

“Have you not already drunk enough for one evening, my lord?” Alice prompted tartly, well aware of the smell of brandy and cigars he had brought into the room with him. Along with the more heady scent of a lady’s perfume…

How dare Daniel Wycliffe go to another woman on the eve of their wedding? The fact that he had done so made it even more imperative that Alice talk to him tonight, that she make him aware of her condition for their marriage before that wedding took place!

Daniel had drawn in a hissing breath at the obviously intended rebuke. “Is it not a little unwise of you to attempt to tell me what to do before we are even wed…?”

Her laugh was hard, if not a little cynical for one of such delicate years. “I doubt I will be given the opportunity to do so after we are married.”

How right she was, Daniel acknowledged as he strolled across the room to place one of the brandy glasses on the table beside her chair before deliberately taking a sip from his own glass.

In truth, he had not been in the best of moods even before he arrived home and learned of Alice Fortesque’s presence in his drawing room. He had received a missive from Teresa, his mistress until his betrothal a month ago, begging to see him one last time, so that they might make their goodbyes in a civilized manner. In view of the scene that had taken place when he had ended their affair, Daniel had his doubts that would prove possible. On Teresa’s part, at least. His doubts, unfortunately, had proved to be more than justified.

His mouth twisted with distaste as he remembered all too clearly that meeting earlier this evening. “I sincerely trust there is an urgent reason for this unexpected visit?”

Dark green eyes sparkled brightly. “I would hardly be here otherwise.”

“Well?” Daniel prompted tersely seconds later as Alice added nothing to that statement.

“I—The truth is—”

“Yes?”

“I am not at all sure that I wish to marry you!” There. She had said it, Alice congratulated herself, relieved beyond words to have voiced the concern that had plagued her for the last month.

A month during which she had met the earl only twice. Once following his coming to the house and receiving her brother’s approval to his marriage proposal. The second time a week later on the eve of his departure to his estate in Bedfordshire, at a family dinner to celebrate the announcement of their betrothal, when again there had been no occasion for private conversation between the two of them.

Alice had composed several notes to him during the intervening weeks. Notes that had never been sent. The things she needed to say to Daniel Wycliffe could not be written in something as soulless as a letter.

“Your affections are engaged elsewhere?”

“Of course not.” Alice frowned her impatience with the question.

Daniel Wycliffe, arrogant earl of Stanford, shrugged broad shoulders in the superbly cut black jacket that he wore over a silver brocade waistcoat and snowy-white linen, an elegant diamond pin nestled in the meticulously tied cravat at his throat. “Then I fail to see any impediment to your marrying me tomorrow…?”

Alice gasped. “You fail to see—! Why did you offer for me, my lord, when it is perfectly obvious that you do not care for me at all?”

Why? Daniel mused bitterly. Because he had no choice. Because death had given Daniel’s father the victory over his son and heir that he had never succeeded in acquiring during his life. It was a victory that Daniel had done everything in his power to avoid for the last six months, but which he could no longer afford to ignore if the Wycliffe estates were not to fall into complete disrepair through lack of funds.

“I realize you are very young, Alice, but surely you must have observed this last two seasons that marriages amongst the ton are rarely made for love?” he drawled mockingly. “Other factors, such as money, land, or merely social standing, are of far more importance in a marriage than an emotion as destructive as love.”

Alice was well aware of the cold and often cynical reasons for marriages amongst the ton. Was aware of it, and deplored it. “I fail to see which of those three things could have prompted you to offer for me, my lord,” she taunted.

The earl sighed his irritation. “I suppose, as my future wife, you have the right to know my reasons for marriage—”

“You suppose…?” Alice echoed incredulously.

Daniel gave a haughty inclination of his head. “To put it simply, my father, in his infinite wisdom—” his mouth curled disdainfully “—saw fit to leave the earl of Stanford’s fortune outside of the estate, with the condition that I, as his heir, would inherit half that fortune if I marry within the year following his death, and the second half if a future heir is born during the first year of that marriage. Failure to do those things would see half, or all, of that fortune in the hands of a cousin who, I do assure you, is even less deserving of it than I am.”

Alice found that very hard to believe. Daniel, at the age of nine and twenty, had the reputation and handsome looks of a god fallen from Mount Olympus; his hair was the gold of ripe corn, his wickedly sensual eyes the blue of the sky in a face etched and hewn as if from granite, and softened only by a sinfully moulded mouth. His shoulders were wide, waist tapered, hips and legs elegantly muscled, his every movement a delight to a woman’s senses.

Was it any wonder that women of the ton, both young and old, so often fell into the snare of those sensuously golden good looks?

Was it any wonder that Alice, too, had fallen under the spell of that sensual attraction the first time she set eyes on him a year ago…?

CHAPTER TWO

Alice may not have been introduced to the earl of Stanford until their betrothal a month ago, but that had not stopped her from being completely aware of him on the rare occasions he deigned to attend balls or parties given during the season. Occasions when he stood arrogantly removed from all but his close circle of friends, and seemingly immune to the gossip and speculation about him.

Alice’s heart had stopped beating altogether four weeks ago when her brother, Jonathan, called her to his study and introduced her to Daniel as the man who had come to offer for her hand in marriage. Alice had been ecstatic, convinced that the earl must have seen her at a recent ball and fallen secretly in love with her. His coldness during that initial meeting, and the one following, and then his disappearance for three weeks to his estate in Bedfordshire, had quickly cured her of that childishness.

She gave a dismissive shake of her head now at her own naïveté then looked Daniel straight in the eye. “Your father’s will does not explain why I have the dubious pleasure of becoming your choice of bride.”

“‘Dubious pleasure,’ Alice?” Daniel echoed mockingly. “I assure you, my dear, that I have so far received no complaints from any woman on the subject of ‘pleasure’!”

Alice felt the heat in her cheeks. “There is always a first time for everything, my lord.”

“So there is,” he dismissed tauntingly. “As to my reason for choosing you as my wife…Quite bluntly, my dear, your brother, Jonathan, has become rather too fond of the card table of late. So much so that he owes me rather a lot of money. Money he informs me he does not possess. I am willing to forgo those debts on the occasion of our marriage tomorrow.”

Alice felt her face go pale as she realized she was to be the sacrifice on the altar of her brother’s recently acquired liking for the card table. “We have had no chance in which to even become acquainted with each other, my lord.”

Daniel’s patience with this conversation had come to an end. “I assure you, that omission will have been rectified by this time tomorrow.”

Alice’s mouth tightened. “No.”

He raised questioning brows at her vehemence. “No…?”

She gave a determined shake of her head. “Understanding your reason for marriage is one thing, my lord, accepting my own role in that cold-blooded plan is something else entirely.”

Daniel’s mouth thinned. “You are refusing to marry me?”

The fact that she swallowed hard before answering showed Daniel that Alice was not as composed as she wished him to believe. “I assume that if I do then my brother’s debts to you would become pressing?”

“You assume correctly,” Daniel grated.

She stood up, a slight figure in her pale yellow gown against Daniel’s superior height and heavier build. Slight, but most definitely not downtrodden, Daniel acknowledged with grudging admiration. He had expected—hoped—that Alice would be an obedient and biddable wife, but perhaps a wife with at least some fire in her might be less tedious to his jaded palate.

Damn his father to the hell in which he belonged, anyway!

The dissolute life Daniel had chosen to live these last ten years had been the only way he could think of in which to repay his father for his years of neglect and cruelty to Daniel’s mother before her death. It was a retribution his father had more than returned by placing these conditions in his will.

“I have every intention of becoming your wife tomorrow, my lord,” Alice softly interrupted the bitterness of Daniel’s thoughts.

“I am sure that your brother will be relieved to hear it,” he drawled mockingly. “Tell me, why does he gamble when he is obviously so bad at it…?”

Her perfect bow of a mouth turned down slightly. “I believe for the same reason I have agreed to marry a man I do not know, let alone feel—affection for.”

Daniel’s mouth tightened. “Which is?”

“You are acquainted with my stepmother, my lord.” It was a statement rather than a question.

Yes, Daniel had met Lady Constance Fortesque several times.

And each time he had disliked the woman more than the last. In fact, if anything could have deterred him from offering for Alice Fortesque then it was the thought of having the shrewish, social-climbing Lady Constance as his mother-in-law.

Alice sighed. “Unfortunately she is not only Jonathan’s stepmother but also his mother-in-law. It was Jonathan’s marriage to her daughter Charlotte that brought Lady Constance into our lives,” she explained. “And that of our father,” she added heavily.

“Good God…” Daniel was stunned at Jonathan’s misfortune.

“Indeed.” Alice gave a graceful acknowledgment of her head. “Our stepmother has become even more impossible to live with since our father died two years ago.” She frowned.

“Forcing Jonathan to find his entertainment outside of his own home,” Daniel drawled knowingly.

Her green eyes flashed resentfully. “Only when it comes to the card table. I believe Jonathan is still faithful to Charlotte and their marriage, that he does still love her.”

Daniel nodded. “Then it is only the mother-in-law he despises. In that case, why does he not ask her to leave his home?”

Alice gave a humorless smile. “To go where, my lord?”

“Hmm, you have a point,” the earl murmured ruefully. “Poor devil.”

“Yes.” Alice sighed. “As I have already stated, I have every intention of becoming your wife tomorrow. However—”

“It has always been my experience, when a woman begins a sentence with ‘however,’ that I am going to heartily dislike what follows.” Daniel sighed impatiently.

“I bow to your superior knowledge on the subject,” Alice acknowledged dryly as she looked at him with calm green eyes. “It is my intention for our marriage to initially be in name only. In other words, my lord, until such time as we know each other better, I agree to share your home but not your bed.”

No, not tedious at all! “In that case, Alice, perhaps we should make a start on ‘knowing each other better’…?”

Daniel was suddenly standing much too close, Alice realized slightly dazedly, the warmth of his breath stirring the tendrils of hair at her temples, her own eyes wide with trepidation as his mocking blue gaze held her captive.

Then his head lowered and his lips were soft against hers, gently exploring as he took her into his arms before deepening the kiss. The warmth of his tongue stroked against her lips, parting them before thrusting inside, the caresses making Alice’s body burn as his hands moved down the length of her spine to curve about her bottom and pull her into him.

Alice was at once aware of the hardness of his thighs and of the way they pressed so intimately against her, causing a sudden heat between her own legs. Her breasts swelled against the tight bodice of her gown, her pleasure deepening as Daniel moved a hand to cup one of those burgeoning mounds, his thumb caressing the hardened tip with an expertise that left her breathless.

At the same time Alice suddenly became aware of exactly where, and on whom, she had last smelled the woman’s perfume that now clung so insidiously to the earl’s elegant jacket.

“No!” Alice regained her dignity with effort as she put her hands firmly against the earl’s chest and held herself away from his seduction. “I am firm in my resolve, sir. I refuse—I will not become your wife, in the fullest sense of the word, until you have wooed and won me.”

Daniel’s eyes widened incredulously as his arms dropped from about her and he took a step backward. “‘Wooed and won’ you…?”

“Exactly, my lord.” Alice gave a measured inclination of her head, grateful that the length of her gown hid the slight trembling of her lower limbs. “If you wish for me to fully become your wife, the mother of your heir, then first I will need to be convinced that your emotions are as engaged as other parts of your body.” A delicate blush colored her cheeks in acknowledgment of her awareness of the earl’s arousal.

She might well blush, Daniel scowled darkly. How dare this chit come here and ask—no, demand!—that he court her like some lovesick youth? “That will only happen when hell freezes over!” he bit out harshly. Having observed during his childhood and beyond the deep and abiding love his mother felt for his father, as opposed to his father’s complete indifference to her, he knew that love for one’s spouse was as destructive as it was painful.

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