Daniel scowled at the bellicose female. The answer was he was now one of the wealthiest lords in England thanks to Richard. But while that meant his own mother had eased up on pressuring him to find a rich wife, she still wanted him to find a wife and give her grandbabies. However, he also found himself constantly stalked by marriage-minded mamas and their braying daughters, and, frankly, while he’d thought it rather amusing in a twisted way when he’d been poor and knew they were getting no bargain, Daniel now found it vastly annoying. He was more than a stallion for stud with a bag of gold between his legs. And as entertaining as Suzette was, he didn’t appreciate her interest in him being based only on his wealth. So he did what any reasonable man would do in this situation . . . he lied.

“I am as poor as a church mouse,” he announced with feigned regret. “In fact, poorer than a church mouse since just this last year I inherited Woodrow from my uncle and it is a terrible mess in need of a great deal of repair and care that I cannot afford.”

The last part wasn’t a complete lie. He actually had inherited the family seat from his father’s older brother a year ago, and it was in horrible repair, nearly falling down really. He did have the money to repair it, however, and had been doing so for the last year. Actually, he’d inherited the estate shortly before George’s supposed death which had been meant to be Richard’s death, and had been at the estate taking in the poor state of repair and seeing what needed to be done to return it to its earlier glory when he’d received news of George’s death in the townhouse fire. By the time he got the news, the man’s body, or what everyone had thought was his body, was interred in the Fairgrave family vault and the dust had settled. Daniel had sent a letter of condolence to Richard, or who he’d thought was Richard in London, and offered to come to him if he needed a friend, but had never received a reply.

Still, he’d intended to visit town and seek him out to see how he was handling his twin’s death at some point, but there had seemed to be one problem after another with the reparations at the estate, and then his mother had fallen gravely ill and nearly died. She had recovered, fortunately, but it had been a slow recuperation for her and it was nearly six months before he’d felt he could leave and make his way into town. Daniel arrived after midnight, and had considered heading to Richard’s townhouse at once to see how he faired, but the late hour and his own exhaustion from the journey had made him decide to go to bed instead and visit the next day. But he’d woken that next morning to Richard’s letter coming to him from America of all places.