It came out far more breathless than she liked but, honestly... It was not every day that a man swept her off her feet and picked her up into his arms.
He held her tightly to his chest as though he might keep her warm and safe through sheer will alone. “I cannot let you stay out here in this storm,” he shouted to her over the wind and rain. Hail pierced her skin and made her wince. It also wiped away any protest. Huddling farther into him, she tried not to notice how wonderful he felt.
How warm and strong his embrace, how delicious he smelled—like leather and soap and something so ruggedly masculine it made her dizzy. And then he was lifting her, balancing her atop his steed and seconds later seating himself behind her.
His touch was intimate but not inappropriate...given the circumstances.
The circumstances being that you are a spinster, that bitter voice pointed out.
And as if her spinster state was not detrimental enough, she was now the raving lunatic woman he’d stumbled upon in a storm. She groaned softly, her head still buried in his chest.
Her great aunt and every guardian since had made such a fuss over being proper and pure and demure. But not one of them thought to warn her that if she was not, if ever once she broke down and lost all sense of propriety...she would surely be caught.
She sniffled, uncertain whether she was crying or if sleet had found its way to her cheeks.
It was official. She was a mess. And if there was any doubt about the matter, it was confirmed minutes later when he brought the steed to a stop in front of a large manor whose details she could hardly make out thanks to the storm.
Servants bustled about, helping her down, covering her as best they could as they hurried her inside with tsks of concern and murmurs about how disheveled she’d become.
Her. Disheveled.
Oh, Amelia would laugh herself into tears if she knew.
She didn’t have a chance to turn back and say thank you or steal one last look at her handsome savior’s face before she was inside and face to face with a mirror.
“Oh good heavens, I am a disaster.” She said it to herself but a servant beside her assured her that she’d be right as rain after a nice, warm bath.
Physically, perhaps. But it was not so much the dripping, sagging hair nor even the puffy eyes and red nose that had alarmed her so.
It was the look in her eyes. The crazed look that was still there. It was the glimpse of desperation and anger—all the feelings she’d done so well to hide until today.
Until that man came along.
She closed her eyes briefly as she let them steer her up the stairs to the second floor where her room waited. She barely had a chance to take in the splendor of her surroundings before the bath was drawn and ready for her.
The servant was right. A bath did help tremendously. And by the time Prudence joined her, fussing over her after her great adventure, as Prudence called it, Madeline was nearly starting to feel like herself again. Enough so that she noticed her younger friend’s barely contained excitement as she helped Madeline finish getting ready to join the others.
“It is wonderful to see you so happy, Prudence, dear,” she said with a genuine grin. Despite her earlier tantrum, she meant it with her whole heart and soul.
Prudence paused while rearranging Madeline’s hair pins and the joy written all over her face made Madeline’s own heart ache with happiness...and longing.
“Now I just want you to find the same happiness that I have,” Prudence said gently. “The same happiness Delilah has found and...” Her voice trailed off.
All of them. Each and every one of her students had found love, and none could have been more deserving of it.
But Madeline didn’t need love, just a chance for a family of her own.
There was that hope again. Silly, useless, seeming indefatigable hope.
She set the hairbrush down a little too hard.
“I have a feeling you may find happiness quite soon once you beguile our handsome vicar.” She wiggled her eyebrows playfully. “He will be madly in love the moment he lays eyes on you.”
Madeline tried not to wince. She failed.
“Whatever is the matter?” Prudence asked.
Madeline cleared her throat. “Nothing is the matter,” she lied. “It is only that I believe I have met this vicar you are so eager to acquaint me with.” And he most certainly believes me to be a lunatic.
“You have?” Prudence’s eyes grew wide in surprise. “But how? Where?”
In all the excitement, Madeline’s version of the story of how she’d gotten from the carriage to the manor had been...vague, at best. She might have left out a detail or two, like...who exactly had saved her.
“Earlier,” Madeline said, waving in the general direction of the carriage and her disastrous downfall. “I met a widowed vicar.” That was one way of putting it. “He was the one who—”
“But it could not have been him,” Prudence cut in with a frown. “Mr. Charleston was called away two days ago to care for an ailing relative.” She bit her lip, her expression filled with disappointment. “I was so disappointed to see him go. I do believe you would have found much in common. You both have such good manners. And you’re both so, so...charming.”
Madeline grimaced at the memory of stomping in the snow as she shouted at the top of her lungs. Charming, indeed.
She shook off the thought as she fully realized what Prudence was telling her. “But...” Her brows drew down in confusion. “Pru, if that was not the vicar attending this party, then who was it?”
Prudence shook her head in obvious confusion. “I have not the faintest idea. Mr. Charleston is the only vicar nearby, and the only widower on the grounds is our own Uncle Edward, the Marquess of Ainsley.”
Madeline frowned at her reflection, a sick sense of foreboding churning in her belly.
“There is no way you would have confused our dashing uncle with the vicar,” Prudence continued, seemingly unaware of her discomfort. “He might be an older gentleman, but he is still quite attractive.” She leaned down with a teasing smile. “Not quite as handsome as my Damian, of course, but even so...” She pulled back and started perfecting Madeline’s hair. There was a lady’s maid who’d been assigned to see to her but both women had preferred to have an intimate chat.
And right at this particular moment, Madeline was happier than ever that there was no one else there to see her expression as she replayed that odd first interaction.
He had said he was a vicar...had he not?
“But...” Madeline had to clear her throat as a wave of fear threatened to swallow her whole. “Prudence, you said in your letter that the vicar was quite handsome—”
“Oh indeed,” Prudence said quickly. “He is handsome as well, just...” Prudence’s lips pursed as she sought the right words. “Well, I would not go so far as to say dashing, if you know what I mean. He is quite refined, albeit short of stature...”
Prudence kept talking, but Madeline was only half paying attention, for each new word used to describe the vicar made it abundantly clear that the man who had saved her was not he.
Her lips grew dry and she pressed them together as she took a steadying breath.
“And the marquess,” Madeline said when Prudence had ceased talking about the fair-haired Mr. Charleston with his slim build and his diminutive stature. “You said he is nearly as dashing as your Damian?”
“Oh, yes.” Prudence grinned at her in the mirror. “He has Damian’s dark features, the hair and the eyes. His demeanor is more serious, as a whole, but he can be quite charming when he wishes to be.”
“I see,” Madeline murmured. Her lungs were barely working now as she tried to breathe in and out. In and out. Panic was threatening to strangle her as she digested Prudence’s words.
“He would make some fine lady a wonderful husband, I am certain of it,” Prudence was saying. “But that would require Uncle Edward to marry again.”
“He is a widower.” Madeline said it more to
herself than to Prudence, as this was a fact they’d already established. But her mind had called up a moment from her disastrous meltdown, when she’d said as much to her savior. You are the widower.
Is it so obvious?
Her groan went unnoticed as Prudence continued talking. “But Damian still has hope. I told you that Miss Farthington will be joining us, did I not? She and her mother. Her father is a viscount, you know—Lord Bradford.”
“Oh?” Her voice was little more than a breath now as it all became clear. So vividly, horribly clear.
“Mmm.” Prudence fussed with her hair some more, ever the perfectionist. “She is not the most obvious choice, what with her recent scandal.”
“Scandal?” Madeline echoed.
This was enough to set Prudence talking about poor Miss Farthington and her broken engagement which had caused such a stir. She was not quite ruined, but her reputation was tainted by the scandal of it all.
“Poor Miss Farthington,” Madeline managed when there was a pause.
“Indeed. But, Damian still has high hopes that perhaps she will be the one to catch Uncle Edward’s eye. He might be a marquess but he would be the first to overlook the poor girl’s bad fortune.”
“He sounds like...quite an admirable gentleman,” she said quietly. All the while her mind was calling up image after image of the kind, formidable man who’d come to her aid.
“Oh, he certainly is,” Prudence said. “He could have had his pick of ladies after his wife died but he chose to remain unwed, for reasons he’s never properly explained. At least not to Damian.” Prudence paused to flash her a mischievous grin. “It drives Damian mad because he does not wish to be the heir, you see. Poor Uncle Edward is forever trying to escape my husband’s attempts to get him wed. Damian is a frightfully relentless matchmaker.” She laughed and gave a shake of her head. “But we both have high hopes that Miss Farthington will be the one to win his heart.”
Win his heart. That very real memory of the gentleman’s furrowed brow as he considered her now turned to a fantastical one. A vision of that same furrowed brow easing as he smiled. Those dark, laughing eyes filled with tenderness as he tugged her close. As he leaned in even closer, as he—
“Miss Grayson, are you all right?” Prudence asked. “You seem rather flushed.”
“Do I?” Madeline’s murmur came out a bit stifled but as casual as she could manage. Which likely wasn’t all that casual at all considering her chest was doing something odd.
Something painful.
“I’m fine,” she added with a smile. Or rather, she would be fine when this madness passed. And it would. It would have to. “So, you believe this Miss Farthington to be the one, then? The one who will capture the dashing marquess’s heart?”
She aimed for a teasing tone, though she wasn’t quite certain who she was hoping to fool with her carefree demeanor.
She certainly wasn’t fooling herself.
“Mmm, she is quite lovely,” Prudence continued. “And as Uncle Edward is such a kind soul, he would never hold that broken engagement against her. In fact, it would likely work to her advantage.”
“How so?” Madeline asked.
“He wouldn’t be able to resist,” Prudence said with the utmost smugness. “He couldn’t pass up the chance to be some damsel in distress’s very own savior.”
A flash of warm brown eyes, the scent of that overcoat, and the feel of his arms.
She blinked rapidly against the onslaught of memories. If there had been any doubt remaining, it vanished under a wave of resigned horror. And yet she asked... “A white knight, is he?”
“Oh yes.” She shook her head with a rueful smile. “Though he doesn’t dress the part, most of the time. Do you know, I saw him leaving here earlier and told him he looked like a harbinger of doom with his giant black overcoat.”
Madeline attempted to smile in return as Prudence laughed.
So the gentleman who’d saved her had been a marquess. And her friend’s uncle.
All of those were enough to make her stomach twist in horror, but what was more alarming. Indeed, what had her heart twisting just as surely as her stomach was another fact altogether.
The marquess was meant for someone else.
Chapter Three
Edward Lansing, the Marquess of Ainsley, had never considered himself a particularly religious man. He had little regard for holidays, in general, and was most definitely not a believer in miracles—of the Christmas variety or otherwise.
Until today.
Until her.
“So you have met her then? Miss Farthington?” Damian’s eyes were bright with excitement as he joined Edward before the fire.
Edward had changed out of his wet clothes and was now warming himself with some much needed brandy in his study as they waited for the others to come down and join them in the drawing room.
“Well?” Damian prompted. “What did you think of her?”
Edward shot his nephew a sidelong glare. Some people had marriage-minded mothers to goad them into matrimony and heirs.
Edward had his nephew.
He knew better than to encourage Damian. Usually.
But today... Well, today he was eternally grateful to his nephew for not having given up on his ceaseless matchmaking quest. His heart was still racing at the immensity of it all, that sensation he’d been so sure he’d never experience in his lifetime.
But then he’d caught sight of her railing against the sky, her lovely features twisted in anger and pain and—his heart had gone out to her. Not in the sense that he sympathized with her emotions—or rather, not merely that. He’d honestly felt his heart leaping toward her. As though it were hers and he’d merely been holding it for a while.
He hid his grin behind his snifter.
“Miss Farthington is pretty, is she not?” Damian prodded.
“Indeed.” Pretty? Yes. That was an understatement. Her beauty was undeniable. But it was not her beauty alone that had left him dumbstruck and shattered.
That was what it had felt like. As though some wall around his heart had come crumbling down with one swift blow. Miss Farthington. And to think, he’d asked Damian not to try and play matchmaker again this year, not to invite any prospective future marchionesses. His nephew had gone against his wishes, of course, when he and Pru had invited a marriageable young lady and her mother.
He frowned now at the brandy swirling in his glass. It was a testament to how thoroughly she’d addled his senses that he only now realized who had been missing. “Where was her mother?”
“Pardon me?”
He glanced over at Damian, who was enjoying a drink of his own, without the excuse of having been caught in the rain.
It had all happened so quickly. He’d bundled her into his cloak and helped her atop his stallion, taking them both to the warmth of his home. The servants had whisked her away from him and Prudence had been summoned and he...
Well, he’d forgotten all about the fact that she was supposed to be traveling with her mother in his haste to get her warm and dry.
He couldn’t quite hide a grin at the image she’d made, dripping wet and dazzlingly beautiful. The feel of her in his arms...
He drew in a deep breath and let it out with a happy sigh. He could only hope that he would be able to feel the weight of her in his arms again one day.
And one day very, very soon.
“Her mother? Lady Bradford?” Damian repeated. “She should be here as well. But tell me, how did you meet Miss Farthington?”
But Edward was too busy staring into the fire, an unfamiliar sensation making his lips feel as though there were invisible strings tugging at them. So this was what it felt like to be in love.
Interesting.
He chuckled and shook his head at his own wayward thoughts. Love? Truly? It was an infatuation at best. And yet, this was the most he’d ever felt for a woman in...oh, forever. He’d certainly never felt this way about his first wife, and after her death he�
��d not thought to ever feel much of anything at all.
He’d certainly never expected this—this light sensation as though a vice had been removed from his chest. This bright sensation as though his eyes had been opened for the first time in years, only to find that the world was more vibrant, more colorful, more beautiful than he’d ever imagined.
He let out a long exhale with a smile he could no longer deny. It was all such silliness, obviously. Just an attraction, an infatuation, and yet...
Was there anything wrong with that? Especially when the lady in question was the young lady who’d been brought here with the understanding, certainly, that this could be a good match.
He set down the near-empty snifter and he and Damian exchanged a look at the sound of movement in the hallway. The others were beginning to assemble. His nephew’s expression altered slightly at the sound of Prudence’s voice passing by—the wayward rake of his youth replaced by a smitten fool.
Edward watched his nephew with more than a little amusement. Now that was a lad who’d lost his head over a woman. Up until this afternoon he’d rather pitied the boy. Admired him for following his heart and happy for him that it had worked out, but he couldn’t deny that he’d also pitied Damian for falling into the trap that ladies called love.
But now...
He headed toward the door, unable to wait another moment to see the charming and vivacious Miss Farthington.
Well, now he supposed he was starting to understand why his nephew had changed so thoroughly, why his priorities had shifted so significantly and a fire of intent had glowed in his eyes.
He felt that same burn now as he headed toward the door. Nothing and no one could come between him and an evening spent wooing the woman he hoped to make his bride.
Possibly. Potentially.
He drew in a deep breath as his lips curved up again of their own volition.
No, definitely.
If he had his way he would make her his wife this very evening. Of course, they ought to get to know each other better first, and every ounce of reason in his brain told him it was impossible to fall in love so quickly, and yet...
The School of Charm: Books 1-5 Page 55