Page 37 of An Unwilling Earl
“Myfuture?”
“Have you looked at your estate books?”
Jacob hesitated, and Oliver made a frustrated noise. “Have the books sent down here. I’ll have my man look at them.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“You have no idea what to look for. Do you even know what makes land profitable? What to do to make it earn you money?”
Jacob pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Are you trying to make me feel like an imbecile?”
Armbruster waved his hand in the air. “You need to be taught all of this. I can teach you most of it.”
“Why are you doing this?” Oliver rarely did anything out of the goodness of his heart.
“Because you’ve helped me out of quite a few messes.”
Covering up his indiscretions and paying off a few whores did not warrant such a grandiose reimbursement from Oliver, but Jacob wasn’t going to question it. He needed help, and Armbruster was the best one to help him.
“Then, thank you,” he said.
“Don’t thank me yet. Wait until Mother’s ball. All of the matchmaking mamas and their eager daughters will be eyeing you like a hawk eyes a mouse. You are the newest, freshest meat on the market, my friend.”
Jacob shuddered. “That sounds horrifying.”
“You can fix it.”
Now Armbruster was looking shrewd, and Jacob felt uneasy. “Fix what?”
“Fix your marital status before the desperate mothers descend.”
“And how do you propose I do that? Hide in the country?Notattend this ball?”
“I have something better.” Armbruster grinned, but to Jacob it seemed evil. “Marry Miss Morris.”
Jacob stood so quickly and so violently that conversations around them stopped and people stared. “Are you mad?” he hissed.
“Sit down,” Armbruster said calmly. “I am not mad. Think of it objectively. It will solve all of your problems.”
“I will not listen to this…this tripe.” He practically spewed the word tripe. He’d never been this incensed with his friend.
“Just listen for a moment.” Armbruster was so damn calm that it only enraged Jacob more, but he sat because people were staring and even he knew the amount of tongue-wagging that happened in these places. One husband would go home to his wife and it would be all over London that the newest earl couldn’t control his temper.
“I’m listening,” he muttered.
“You are a new earl. We don’t know if you are arichearl, yet, but to some of these mothers it doesn’t matter. Especially the American mothers.”
“American mothers?” Jacob whispered, appalled. Never did he thinkhewould have anything to do with an American heiress.
“They’ll be all over you like flies on horse dung.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, it’s true, and you know it. For some, it’s all about the title and not so much about the money. There are families that made a fortune in trade in America that are dying to get their foot in the front door of an earl’s home. I know how you hate such attention, and I can’t believe that you haven’t received any callers yet. Mark my words, they will come. I’m sure they’re just waiting for some formal announcement.”
Jacob closed his eyes, feeling as if his world were tilting and spinning.
“Marriage will stop it all before it starts, and you get the added benefit of saving Miss Morris from the fire-breathing dragon of an aunt.”
