The Autumn Bride

by Anne Gracie

  Lady Beatrice was sharp as a razor. “About what we discussed the other day? Your sister and society?” Abby nodded.

  “Then tell us, my dear. Clara won’t mind.”

  Abby explained her idea.

  “A literary society?” Lady Beatrice exclaimed, screwing her nose up. “Where they discuss books nobody wants to read, and everyone pretends they’re all very learned and compete to say the most intelligent things?” She grimaced. Her old friend nodded in agreement.

  Abby leaned forward eagerly. “Ah, but this won’t be that sort of literary society. It will be fun.”

  “Fun?” Lady Beatrice asked doubtfully.

  “It’ll be much the same as we already do—one of us will read a chapter at a time, aloud, and then we’ll have conversation, tea and cakes, just as we usually do.”

  Lady Beatrice’s eyes narrowed. “No clever remarks? No looking for metaphors and themes and hidden dratted meanings?”

  “Not if you don’t want them,” Abby said. “It will be your literary society, after all, and you will make the rules.” Lady Beatrice clearly liked the sound of that.

  “Just for the story, then, and the company?” Lady Beddington asked.

  Abby nodded. “What do you think?” It wouldn’t exactly introduce Jane to eligible men, but at least they’d have made some connections with their mothers and aunts.

  “A literary society for people who don’t want to be improved,” Lady Beatrice said thoughtfully. “Just a good story, with wine and cakes . . . I like it.” She looked at Abby and added, “The kind of thing an eligible young man could be prevailed on to escort his mother to.”

  Abby grinned at her optimism. “I’m not so sure of that. It’s not really a young man’s cup of tea—”

  “Nonsense, we only need to get them here the first time. Once they meet those pretty gels, they’ll be fighting to come back.”

  Abby laughed. “I like your optimism.”

  “So when do we start? Officially, I mean,” Lady Beatrice said. “I’ll send out invitations, to start with—”

  “And I’ll spread the word,” Lady Beddington said. “Oh, this will be fun, Bea.”

  Lady Beatrice rubbed her hands. “It will, indeed. I think it’s a splendid idea, Abby. And, Clara, I don’t think we should mention this to my nephew. He has a tendency to fret, and is sure to say it will be too much for me, which, of course, it isn’t.” She winked at Abby. “Now, my dear, Clara’s waiting for you to read her that first chapter and then it’ll be time for dinner.”

  * * *

  “Well, well, well, it’s been a delightful evening altogether,” Lady Beddington declared as the dinner was drawing to a close. “I can see what you mean about these gels enlivening the house. I wish I had nieces who came up with delicious schemes, but I don’t have any—” She stopped, thought for a moment, then turned a perplexed face to Lady Beatrice. “Thought you were an only child, Bea. Or are the girls your late husband’s nieces?”

  Abby waited for Lady Beatrice to reply. A courtesy aunt was how she and the others had decided to deal with Lady Beatrice’s continuing assertion that they were her nieces—the kind of aunt who was a dear friend of the family, and called “aunt” for affection, not blood.

  Abby glanced at Lord Davenham. He leaned back in his chair and regarded his aunt with a sardonic, let’s-see-you-explain-this expression.

  “No, of course not,” Lady Beatrice said. “They’re no relation at all to Davenham—or to dear Max.”

  Lady Beddington looked confused. “Then—”

  “They’re my half sisters’ gels, of course—Griselda’s.”

  “Griselda?” Lady Beddington blinked.

  Griselda? Abby and Jane exchanged glances.

  Griselda? Max frowned.

  “My mother’s child by her second marriage,” Lady Beatrice said smoothly.

  “Aunt Beatrice, will you have some of this delicious asparagus?” Max interrupted. What the devil was she playing at?

  “Thank you, no, I detest asparagus.”

  Lady Beddington persisted. “I never knew your mother married again.”

  “She didn’t.” Max fixed his aunt with a stern look.

  “No, not immediately,” she agreed placidly. “Though you shouldn’t be airing our dirty linen, dear boy. Still, we are among friends, are we not? And in the end, they did marry just in time for Griselda to be born. It was very romantic—and perfectly respectable.” She beamed at Miss Chance.

  Lady Beddington shook her head. “Well, well, well. I had no idea. I always thought she died shortly after you married Davenham.”

  “She did.” Max leaned forward. “Have you attended the opera recently, Lady Beddington? I believe the current Mozart is held to be very good.” He had no idea what was playing at Covent Garden. He didn’t care, as long as the subject was changed.

  “No, Max, dear, it’s no use trying to conceal the facts any longer. Mama ran off with an Austrian count,” his irrepressible aunt responded, carefully spearing a single green pea. “My father divorced her, of course, and had it all hushed up. Papa gave it out that she’d died.”

  She had died. Max had seen the grave. He frowned at Aunt Bea. This was getting out of hand.

  She smiled at him sweetly and ate the pea with an air of triumph. “It was soooo romantic. The count was terribly handsome, of course—one of those tall, golden-haired Austrians with eyes of ice blue. He was utterly mad about my mother. Griselda took after him. Jane has her hair and eyes.”

  Jane choked.

  “Is that so, Miss Chance?” Lady Beddington said.

  Miss Chance hesitated, glanced at Max, her expression a mixture of amusement and helplessness, and said to Lady Beddington, “Jane is the very image of our mother.”

  Aunt Bea’s glance drifted to Damaris’s dark hair, and Max leaned forward and tried to catch her eye, hoping to head off the next outrageous lie. But she had the bit between her teeth and was running with it.

  “Griselda married a Venetian, a marchese—that’s Italian for marquess, my dear,” she explained to Daisy. “Tall, dark and divinely good-looking too—the women in my family have always been lucky that way, marrying the handsomest of men. Dear Damaris has her father’s features and coloring.”

  “What was this Italian marchese’s name?” Max asked sardonically. He glanced at “dear Damaris,” who had developed a sudden fascination with the weave of the damask tablecloth. Her face was hidden; her shoulders were shaking.

  “Venetian, dear boy, not Italian. They don’t like it when you get them mixed up. Venice is the place with the canals,” his aunt explained kindly.

  “And his name, this divine Venetian?”

  There was a short silence. His aunt’s gaze went momentarily blank as she tried to think of a suitable name. Then, “Angelo,” she said airily.

  “I meant his surname,” Max said with silky satisfaction.

  She arched her brows. “Why, Chance, of course.”

  “Very Italian-sounding name, Chance,” Max said dryly.

  His shameless relative didn’t bat an eyelid. “Well, naturally in Venice it’s pronounced ‘Chancealotto’”—at this point Miss Abby choked—“but here, we Anglicize it to Chance, those Italian names being quite hard to pronounce.”

  “Venetian.”

  “Quite so, dear boy, I’m glad you’re paying attention.”

  “Oh, believe me, I’m fascinated. It’s like something out of a novel.” Max noted that Miss Abigail too was now enthralled with the tablecloth. As was her sister, Miss Jane. Miss Daisy was watching the whole thing with jaw agape. As well she might, he thought grimly.

  “Isn’t it just? Wonderful things, novels—as Clara has just discovered. Have some more asparagus, dear boy. You look a little liverish.”

  “Well, I’m amazed,” Lady Beddington said. “And to think I’ve known you all these years, Bea, and I’d never even heard of your half sister, Griselda.”

  “Not surprising, since—”

 
; “Since Papa didn’t like us to speak of her. Of course, poor Max was raised believing Papa’s lies.” His aunt added in a forgiving tone, “He still finds it hard to accept the truth, poor boy.”

  Max’s lips twitched despite himself. She was outrageous. “That’s enough, Aunt Bea,” he warned her.

  “How wonderful that you have her daughters with you now.” Lady Beddington smiled at the girls. “You always wanted daughters, I know, Bea. Will you be bringing them out this season? How exciting.”

  “No,” Max said firmly. This was one piece of nonsense he was going to quash once and for all. “There are no plans of that sort. Whatsoever.”

  “We’ll see,” Aunt Bea said sweetly.

  “No, we won’t.” Max had had enough. He hadn’t wanted to embarrass Aunt Bea in front of her old friend, but she’d pushed things to the limit. “Lady Beddington, I must apologize for my aunt. She’s been playing a joke on us all, funning, with her made-up nonsense, but I think we’ve all had enough. Her mother never did remarry—she died, as you thought, and was buried in England. And there never was any half sister Griselda, nor any Venetian marchese or Austrian count.”

  “Oh.” Lady Beddington looked uncertainly at Aunt Bea.

  Aunt Bea rolled her eyes and shrugged as if to say, Don’t believe a word.

  “I assure you it’s the truth,” Max said. “These young ladies are my aunt’s guests, but they are no relation to her. Or to me.”

  He looked at Miss Chance, a silent order for her to confirm his version of events, but to his annoyance she and the others all still seemed inordinately interested in the blasted tablecloth.

  “And she will not be bringing them out next season. Or any other season,” Max added as his aunt opened her mouth.

  He rose. “Now, Lady Beddington, it’s been a delightful evening, but my aunt is still under the care of her physician, and needs her sleep. May I escort you to your carriage?”

  Lady Beddington took her leave of them all, vowing to return the following day for the next reading of the book. She added with a mischievous glance at Abby, “And I might bring a friend.”

  While Lord Davenham was putting Lady Beddington into her carriage, Lady Beatrice called for William to be fetched quickly so he could carry her upstairs, Abby assumed to escape her nephew’s wrath. The old lady could walk short distances now without assistance, but she still couldn’t manage stairs.

  But before William could lift her, Lord Davenham marched in and scooped her up without warning, saying grimly, “I’ll take her, William. I need a word with this aunt of mine.”

  She laughed and patted his smooth-shaven cheek. “So delightfully masterful you are, dear boy, but all this masculinity is wasted on an aunt. You should be carrying a pretty young thing up to bed, not an old woman.”

  “I should strangle you,” he told her.

  She laughed again. “Wasn’t it fun? You should have seen your face when I told Clara my mother wasn’t in her grave after all. And Griselda and her Italian marchese.”

  “Venetian,” he growled. “Venice is the place with the canals, remember?”

  Abby and the girls could hear her merry laughter as nephew and aunt disappeared up the stairs.

  “He’s not going to hurt her, is he?” Daisy asked worriedly. Daisy’s experience of men wasn’t exactly conducive of trust.

  “No,” Abby said softly. “He loves her.”

  “You can see she’s not worried one little bit,” Damaris pointed out.

  Daisy shook her head. “I never woulda thought that a proper lady like that would tell such barefaced whoppers in company!”

  “Yes, I must say he took it very well,” Jane said. “Don’t you think?”

  “Very well,” Abby agreed, her voice trembling a little. She met Jane’s gaze. “But really—Chancealotto?” She started laughing.

  Jane giggled. “You can talk! You said I was the living image of Griselda.”

  “I did not; I said you take after our mother, and that’s perfectly true.”

  “Yes, our mother, Griselda Chancealotto.”

  “Our mother, Griselda, the Marchesa Chancealotto,” Damaris corrected her, and then the three of them were laughing.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny,” Daisy said. “It’s just more lies; that’s what it is. Diggin’ us into a deeper hole.”

  “Don’t worry, Daisy,” Abby told her. “Only Lady Beddington believed it at the time, and she knows now it’s not true.”

  “And if everyone knows it’s not true, it’s not really a lie, is it?—Signorina Chancealotto,” said Jane, and that set them off again.

  Daisy scowled and shook her head gloomily. “I still don’t like it.”

  As she undressed that night for bed, Abby smiled to herself about the old lady’s fantastical fabrications. She climbed into bed, thinking about the literary society and hoping some eligible young men might be prevailed on to attend.

  Even if they didn’t, at least if Jane had met the mothers, aunts and sisters of eligible young men, they might introduce her to them at the park or somewhere.

  But as she blew out her candle and snuggled down in her bed, she thought of Lord Davenham carrying his aunt upstairs, still able to maintain his humor and his patience despite her outrageous behavior.

  She thought of the story Lady Beatrice had told her, of that little boy waiting loyally, grieving silently and alone—she could not rid herself of that image either.

  Her heart had gone out to that child, and now she saw echoes of the boy in the man—his obvious love of his aunt, his care for her, his protectiveness.

  Even the hostility he’d directed at Abby and her sisters was born of the need to protect his aunt. It was a powerfully attractive quality in a man.

  Miss Parsley was a lucky woman.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Facts are such horrid things!”

  —JANE AUSTEN, LADY SUSAN

  When Max went down to breakfast the next morning he found three of the misses Chance waiting for him. Of course they were pretending to eat breakfast, but they’d long since finished, he saw. They faced him with apprehensive faces.

  “I presume Miss Chance is with my aunt,” he said after they’d exchanged polite good mornings.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” Miss Jane said as soon as Featherby had served Max some bacon and eggs. “Abby’s, I mean.”

  “I know.” Max addressed himself to his breakfast. As he ate, he felt a mild kinship with the beasts in the Royal Exchange, his every mouthful observed by nervous spectators who any moment expected an attack.

  “We didn’t tell your aunt any of that tale,” Miss Damaris assured him. “Or ask her to pretend we were her nieces.”

  Max knew that. He looked at Miss Daisy to see whether she wanted to add anything. “It was all a lie,” she said, “but we never asked your aunt to tell it, I promise. You mustn’t blame Abby.”

  “I don’t,” he said, and buttered a slice of toast.

  “And Lady Bea didn’t mean nothing bad by it,” Daisy persisted. “She was just . . . just . . .”

  “Having fun,” Max said. “I know. Now, where is Miss Chance? I’d like to speak with her.”

  The girls exchanged worried glances. They really were very young.

  “I said speak with, not strangle,” he said dryly.

  “She’s gone out,” Jane said after a moment. “To the post office, I think.”

  “Thank you. Featherby, have my phaeton brought around to the front, if you please.”

  After a few moments of indecision and an exchange of silent grimaces and head jerking that they imagined he hadn’t noticed, the girls excused themselves and hurried from the breakfast room.

  Max finished his coffee and headed for the front door. The letter he’d left on the hall table the previous evening had gone, presumably posted. Good. When he’d first arrived in England, he’d written to inform Henry Parsloe he’d returned and would call on him at his home in Manchester at his earliest convenience.


  Last night he’d written a quick note to Parsloe to postpone his visit. With the situation with Aunt Bea and the Chance sisters, he’d have to delay his trip north, at least until after Aunt Bea was settled in the new house. Whether or not the Chance sisters would be coming with them, he still hadn’t decided.

  That Aunt Bea doted on the girls and wanted them with her was undeniable. She was, he suspected, a little unbalanced about them—witness the ridiculous Griselda fabrication last night. Thank goodness he’d been there to scotch that piece of nonsense.

  That the Chance sisters sincerely cared for Aunt Bea was also quite apparent to him now—and that was a problem. It seemed they had not a penny between them, other than the allowance from his aunt; they were as dependent on her as she was, in a different way, on them. Impostors or not, he couldn’t just throw them out.

  Whether it was wise to allow them to continue living in her house—in Max’s house—was far from clear.

  As for how they would all react when Max married Miss Parsloe . . . that was anyone’s guess. But marry her he would, so the sooner he got Aunt Bea happily settled into the new house, the better for everyone.

  And to that end, he needed the assistance of Miss Abigail Chance.

  * * *

  At Charing Cross, Max was about to hand the reins to his groom and cross the road to check whether she was still in the post office when he saw her come out of the building. “Wait here,” he told the groom. He was about to cross the road when he noticed something odd.

  A man had followed her out of the post office. Max saw the fellow turn to a group of wastrels loitering nearby and jerk his head in Miss Chance’s direction. A shabby-looking man casually detached himself from the group and set out after her. What the devil?

  Max had a finely honed instinct for trouble, and he didn’t hesitate; he crossed the road—cursing as the traffic slowed him down—and followed.

  Miss Chance turned left down a side street. Her follower did the same. Max quickened his pace.

  What was the fellow’s purpose? Miss Chance wasn’t an obvious target for robbery; dressed in that simple gray cloak and plain bonnet, she looked more like a governess than a woman worth robbing. She didn’t even wear jewelry—not so much as a gold or silver chain.