A Convenient Gentleman. Victoria Aldridge

      “Where are my clothes?”

      “I’ve burned them for you. They were unwearable anyway.”

      The fingers that were free clenched into a fist. Caro wondered what it would take to provoke him into dropping the tiny towel.

      “Right, then,” Leander said, his voice very soft. Padding wetly, he crossed the floor to the door.

      “Where are you going?” she demanded breathlessly.

      “Back onto the streets, where I belong.”

      “But…but you’ll freeze out there!”

      “I’ll be arrested for indecent exposure long before I freeze to death, Mrs. Gray.”

      Caro dragged her gaze away from the disconcerting curve of his buttocks to manage a careless shrug and toss of the head. “Well, suit yourself, then. If you want to go ahead and make an…an…absolute spectacle of yourself, it has nothing to do with me….”

      “Apart from the fact that you’re my wife, Mrs. Gray, you’re quite right.”

      A Convenient Gentleman

      Victoria Aldridge

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

       VICTORIA ALDRIDGE

      lives in Wellington, New Zealand, in what she is assured is a haunted Victorian cottage. She shares it with her husband, whichever of her adult children find themselves otherwise homeless, and two bossy cats. She is a fifth-generation New Zealander, and finds her country’s history—especially that of women—absolutely intriguing.

      To Sidney—for everything

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Epilogue

       Prologue

      The Hawkesbury, New South Wales, Australia, 1863

       F or the third night in a row, war raged in the Morgan house.

      The skirmishes took place at a number of sites in the huge house—the sitting room, the dining table, and in the kitchen—but all encounters were protracted and very, very loud.

      Every farmhand in the cottages behind the main house followed the proceedings with great interest, and a number of wagers were laid on who the eventual winner was going to be. Most of the money was on Morgan. Young Caroline had always been a bit of a tearaway, but her father had always prevailed in the past, hadn’t he? And he was not the man to cross, was Ben Morgan. His eldest daughter would come to heel eventually.

      Other, perhaps more knowledgeable, money was on Caroline Morgan. For all that she had her father’s lungs, she was her mother’s daughter, wasn’t she? And who was it who really ruled inside the big Morgan house? The older farmhands nodded and winked to each other. Wait and see, they said.

      On the third evening, the two protagonists faced each other across the kitchen table, a pot of cold tea marking the battle line between them. The bread-scented air was virtually crackling with animosity. Emma Morgan, sitting quietly in a chair beside the stove, put down the tiny nightgown she was stitching and looked at her husband and daughter in exasperation.

      ‘I have had just about enough of you two! When, may I ask, are we going to return to civil conversation in this house?’

      Ben Morgan shoved himself back on his chair and glowered at his wife. ‘When your daughter learns some manners and some common sense. But I’d advise you not to hold your breath for either!’

      ‘Really?’ Caroline tossed her head pertly. ‘You will note, Mother, that you have been my sole parent for the past three days? Which means, Father, that if you didn’t sire me, you’ve no right to order me around like one of your chattels!’

      ‘Caro!’ her parents chorused in shocked tones, just as they had almost daily since the time Caroline could talk. Emma looked at her daughter with the oddly mingled feelings of love and dismay that she always felt for her eldest child. She was so much her father’s child, with the same fair colouring and striking good looks, and the same volatile personality. Only her green eyes were her mother’s, but surely, Emma thought in despair, her own eyes had never glittered with such ferocity? Sometimes she truly feared for Caro. She possessed a hard, determined core just like her father’s and, while that quality might be considered desirable by some in a man, in a woman it was simply not…feminine.

      ‘All your father is asking you to do, Caro, is consider Mr Benton’s offer of marriage—’

      ‘And I’ve told him! How many times do I have to tell him? The answer is no!’

      Emma transferred her steady gaze to her husband. ‘She doesn’t want to marry him, Ben.’

      ‘Then she’s a bloody fool! Benton is his father’s sole heir. When he inherits, he’ll own one of the best farms in the Hawkesbury, and when it’s adjoined to this place—’

      ‘So you’re selling me off, are you?’ demanded Caro.

      ‘No, I’m not! I’m just pointing out a few salient facts! There’s nothing wrong with young Benton—’

      ‘He’s an idiot and his ears stick out.’

      ‘Caro, they don’t,’ her mother remonstrated gently. ‘Well, not all that much. And he just adores you! And you’ve known him all your life.’

      ‘Exactly, Mother! Father wants me to marry a boy he can order around, and you want me to marry a boy I think of as a brother! Although if I’d had a brother, Father wouldn’t be in such a hurry to marry us all off!’

      Her father looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘A son would have taken over the farm when I’m gone, would have looked after you girls so that there would be no need to find you good husbands.’

      ‘Then leave the farm to me!’ Caro said wearily, for the umpteenth time. ‘I can run it better than any jug-eared boy you can pick out for me! You know that!’

      ‘Try to show a little common sense, Caroline,’ her father snapped. ‘A woman can’t run a farm, or any other sort of business for that matter. That’s not what they were made for.’

      Caro looked in appeal at her mother. Usually Ben’s daughters fell about laughing at their father’s pronouncements on the female ideal, and took not one whit of notice of them. But for once his firmly held beliefs were holding Caro back from what she wanted more than anything in the world. She loved the huge, fertile lands that had been in the family for three generations. There had been a brief period in her grandfather’s day when the farm had been in the mortgagor’s hands, but under Ben’s sober guidance the Morgan family had grown to be one of Australia’s wealthiest, with extensive interests in both farming and shipping. But Ben was now ancient—why, he’d had his fiftieth birthday the previous month! He was in his dotage,