One Golden Ring. Cheryl Bolen

this. You’d sell yourself but not accept a donation?”

      “I know it sounds decidedly foolish, but I simply cannot accept the man’s charity. Even for Randy.”

      “Then you’re not going to try to save Randolph?”

      “I didn’t say that! I’ll do anything to save him—or, almost anything.” Her face brightened. “Mr. Birmingham said there must be any number of men of the ton who would wish to marry me.”

      “The Cit’s right.”

      “Then I simply find another man. A wealthy man. Quickly.”

      “Now see here, I don’t like this at all. Ain’t right that you shackle yourself for life to some detestable man in order to come up with the funds.”

      “I told you, Trev, I don’t mind. Truly. Since . . . since last year I’ve known I’ll never love another man. I’ve come to accept that. So why not marry a man of wealth, a man who can save my brother?” And why not a man as sinfully handsome as Nicholas Birmingham? Her heart fluttered at the memory of his fierce black eyes lazily perusing her. She could not have felt more undressed had he stripped her bare. It was suddenly clear to her that a marriage to Mr. Birmingham would not have been so terribly repugnant.

      “You don’t need to marry at all. Go back to Birmingham and accept his offer.”

      Her brows lowered. “I can’t do that.”

      He scowled. “You’re being very obtuse.”

      “Help me think of wealthy bachelors.”

      His pointed chin thrust out. “Don’t think I will!”

      “Now you’re being obtuse!”

      Nick was in a foul temper. He had snapped at Shivers simply because his secretary had asked if Nick was going to the ’Change today. Nick always went to the ’Change. But not today. He was in such a bloody bad humor that even the prospect of making money did not satisfy him. He had torn up today’s Times because it contained a lengthy article on Foreign Secretary Warwick. He had slung his teacup into the fire. And he had enumerated and cursed every eligible bachelor in the ton. Which of them would Lady Fiona offer herself to next?

      Stalking angrily from his office, Nick gave Shivers the rest of the day off in a meager attempt to apologize for his sharp tongue, then he summoned his coach and headed to the West End. He felt like sparring with Jackson. At least to Jackson, his money was as good as the next man’s.

      But after riding for only a few blocks, Nick demanded his coachman turn around and take him to his brother’s bank.

      Adam, his brows dipping to aV with anxiety, leaped from his desk and sputtered forward when he saw his elder brother amble into his office. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

      “Nothing’s wrong!” Nick barked, plopping into a comfortable chair in front of Adam’s desk.

      “You never miss a session of the ’Change. Are you ill?”

      “You sound like my secretary,” Nick mumbled.

      Adam moved closer and bent to look into Nick’s pupils.

      “I tell you I’m fine!” Nick hissed. “Can’t a man take off a single afternoon without creating a commotion?”

      “But you never take off! I’ve seen you propped up against the plaster pillar on the floor of the ’Change burning with fever, and still you wouldn’t take to your bed. Something’s wrong.”

      “Nothing’s wrong,” Nick insisted.

      “Shall I ring for tea?”

      “I don’t want any blasted tea!”

      “Mind if I have some, old boy?” Adam lifted a fine porcelain cup and took a drink, then sank into his own chair. “Something out of the ordinary has happened to you today,” he said.

      Nick watched his brother. It was somewhat like staring into a mirror, given that the brothers so closely resembled one another. To confound outsiders even more, there were but eleven months separating them. They were so close that Adam intrinsically knew Nick’s every mood. “As a matter of fact,” Nick said, striving for casualness, “I had two different callers today, both of them with rather bizarre proposals.”

      Adam raised a single brow.

      “The first was our foreign secretary.”

      “Warwick?” Adam asked. “You don’t mean to tell me the man came to you?”

      “The man came to me.”

      “Why in the devil would he come to you?”

      “He wants us to commit financial suicide in order to thwart the French.”

      Adam’s scowl was identical to Nick’s. “What kind of financial suicide?”

      “I believe he would like for us to buy up all the francs our fortune could buy, then glut the market with them.”

      “That would most definitely be financial suicide. What did you tell him?”

      “I told him he was a fool.”

      “Really, Nick, you could have tried to answer the man more delicately.” Though Adam and Nick shared a strong physical resemblance, they were vastly different in temperament. Where Nick was brash and single minded, Adam was diplomatic and possessed of eclectic tastes that extended to art and music—two areas that Nick abhorred. “Did you not even try to be civil to the man? He’s devilishly important!”

      “I know he’s important, dammit!” Nick said.

      “So what else did you tell him?”

      “Not much. I had another caller. Warwick asked that I think about his proposal. He’ll be back next week.”

      “You really must apply your astute financial brain to the task. Having the foreign secretary in our laps could be extremely advantageous to our business interests.”

      Nick grinned. “Where’s your patriotism? I thought you’d be urging me to jeopardize my fortune for the sake of crown and country and all that.”

      “It depends,” Adam said shrewdly, “how much you’ll have to stake. As it is, I know you too well to believe that you’re not going to give the proposal careful consideration.”

      “It’s rather fortunate that our younger brother has such a facility for languages.”

      Adam’s chocolate eyes sparkled with mirth. “So you’re already planning on dispatching him to other capitals to begin purchasing francs?”

      “I never said anything of the kind.”

      “Tell me, who was your other caller?”

      “You remember Randolph Hollingsworth from Cambridge?”

      “I thought he was in The Peninsula?”

      “He is.”

      “And I thought he was now Lord Agar. Wasn’t he the eldest son and did his father not die last year?”

      “Right on both accounts,” Nick said.

      “Then who in the devil came to see you today?”

      “His sister.”

      A look of stark disbelief swept over Adam’s face. “She came expressly to see you? To The City?”

      “To see me and to ask that I marry her.”

      Adam spit his tea all over his snowy white cravat. “You’re jesting me. I’ve seen the exquisite creature, and I know—even if you are considered irresistible to women—Lady Fiona Hollingsworth would never have to beg a man to marry her.”

      Nick shrugged. “It wasn’t precisely me she wished to marry. She wanted twenty-five thousand pounds