“Lord Billington, you are considered the biggest rake in all of Kent! Even my brother-in-law has said so.”

“Remind me to throttle Robert the next time I see him,” Charles muttered.

“You very well might be the biggest rake in all of England. I wouldn't know, since I haven't left Kent in years, but—”

“They say rakes make the best husbands,” he interrupted.

“Reformed rakes,” she said pointedly. “And I sincerely doubt that you have any plans in that direction. Besides, I'm not going to marry you.”

He sighed. “I really wish you would.”

Ellie stared at him in disbelief. “You are mad.”

“Thoroughly sane, I assure you.” He grimaced. “It is my father who was mad.”

Ellie suddenly had a vision of crazy, cackling babies and lurched backward. They said insanity was in the blood.

“Oh, for the love of God,” Charles muttered. “Not truly mad. He simply left me in a cursed bind.”

“I don't see what this has to do with me.”

“It has everything to do with you,” he said cryptically.

Ellie took another step backward, deciding that Billington was beyond mad—he was ready for Bedlam. “If you'll beg my pardon,” she said quickly, “I'd best be getting home. I'm sure you'll be able to manage from here. Your carriage…you said it was around back. You should be able to—”

“Miss Lyndon,” he said sharply.

She stopped in her tracks.

“I must marry,” he said plainly, “and I must do it within the next fifteen days. I have no choice.”

“I cannot imagine that you would do anything that did not suit your purposes.”

He ignored her. “If I do not marry, I will lose every drop of my inheritance. Every last unentailed farthing.” He laughed bitterly. “I will be left with only Wycombe Abbey, and believe me when I tell you that pile of stones will soon fall into disrepair if I lack the funds to keep it up.”

“I have never heard of such a situation,” Ellie said.

“It is not wholly uncommon.”

“It seems uncommonly stupid, if you ask me.”

“On that matter, madam, we are in complete agreement.”

Ellie twisted some of the fabric of her brown skirt in her hand as she considered his words. “I don't see why you think I should be the one to aid you,” she finally said. “I am certain you could find a suitable wife in London. Don't they call it ‘The Marriage Mart?’ I should think you would be considered quite a catch.”

He offered her an ironic smile. “You make me sound like a fish.”

Ellie looked up at him and caught her breath. He was devilishly handsome and thoroughly charming, and she knew she was far from immune. “No,” she admitted, “not a fish.”

He shrugged. “I have been putting off the inevitable. I know that. But here you are, dropped into my life at my most desperate—”

“Excuse me, but I believe you dropped into my life.”

He chuckled. “Did I mention that you're also vastly entertaining? So I was thinking, ‘Well, she'll do as well as any,’ and—”