Wedding of the Season

by Guhrke, Laura Lee

  “Hard as nails, hmm?” Julia smiled. “Fair enough. But answer my question. What if Will doesn’t give up? What if he decides to stay and work to change your mind? Then what will you do?”

  He’d threatened to do that very thing, but she wasn’t any more impressed by it now than she’d been before. She stopped pacing. “We are talking about Will,” she reminded. “Expecting that man to stick to his promises and act responsibly is more foolish than waiting for pigs to sprout wings.” When Julia continued to look at her as if waiting for a serious answer, she shrugged and gave it. “I’ll just refuse him again.”

  “Yes,” Julia said, nodding as if that was the answer she’d been waiting for. “That would be the next move in the game, wouldn’t it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “How can I explain? You and Will are a bit like . . . like peas and carrots.”

  She scowled, folding her arms. “More like oil and water.”

  “Because you’re always quarreling? But my darling, you two like quarreling.”

  “What?”

  “You do. You enjoy it. Both of you do. Most men don’t. They want domestic peace. But not Will. He loves the challenge and excitement of it, and so do you. You both find it terribly exciting, and that’s what I mean by peas and carrots. You two have been quarreling and making up your entire lives, and loving every minute of it. You just might be meant for each other after all.”

  “Nonsense!” She unfolded her arms and started pacing again, unaccountably nervous at the prospect. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s not stupid. You loved each other once.”

  She rallied, shoving fear aside. “No, Julie,” she corrected. “I loved him. He did not love me. And it’s moot anyway because I don’t love him anymore.”

  Julia gave her an impish grin. “You were giving a fine imitation of it this afternoon.”

  Beatrix felt her face coloring up, and she stopped pacing by the window, turning toward it so Julia couldn’t see her face. “That’s not love,” she said over her shoulder. “That was a momentary madness. And besides,” she rushed on, wretchedly self-conscious about the entire humiliating episode, “It’s not as if anything else has changed. Married people have to live in reasonably close proximity.”

  “I don’t see why. Yardley and I don’t.” She paused and grinned. “At least not if I can help it.”

  “I’m serious, Julie. To be married—happily, at least—two people have to want the same things, share the same view of their life—” She stopped, appreciating that particular view of marriage hadn’t served her any better than passionate, violent infatuation. “The point is,” she went on after a moment, “marriage and I are clearly not meant for one another. It seems I’m meant for a different destiny.” She sighed. “I just wish I knew what it was.”

  “So even if Will mends his ways, even if he loves you madly and intends to prove it, you’ve decided on spinsterhood?”

  “I haven’t decided anything, but whatever my future holds, Will just isn’t part of it.”

  “You know, darling,” Julia said as she stood up, “that might be taken for famous last words.”

  She ducked when Beatrix threw a pillow at her. Still laughing, Julia darted out the door.

  In winning Beatrix over, Will knew he would need all the allies he could muster. In light of that, the first thing he needed to do was make peace with Paul. They’d been best friends all their lives, patching up quarrels with nothing more than a handshake, but this wasn’t just another fight. Still, he hoped that once he explained his intentions, Paul would be able to forgive him for what had happened this afternoon.

  Paul was in his bedroom, Will was told, dressing for dinner. When he knocked and heard Paul’s answering permission to enter, he didn’t do so. Instead, he opened the door just enough to look inside. “Mind if we talk?”

  His friend looked away. He nodded to his valet, who had paused in the act of doing up his tie. “Go on, Fitch,” he ordered.

  The servant resumed knotting his black silk napoleon, but Paul did not turn his attention to Will, or even glance in his direction. Instead, he kept his gaze on the mirror past his valet’s shoulder and said nothing.

  Will looked at the other man’s rigid profile, took a deep breath, and said what he came to say. “It’s not a dalliance, Paul. It never has been. You know that.” When his friend still didn’t look at him or reply, he said the most important thing.

  “I’m going to win her back.”

  That did the trick. Paul turned his head, causing the valet to stop again, and he stared at Will as if he were truly insane. “Win her back?” he echoed in disbelief. “Will, she hates you.”

  He thought of the smile she’d pressed from her lips when he’d offered to crawl on his belly in his best suit, and he shook his head. “No, she doesn’t.”

  “Mum told me that when you found out her engagement to Trathen was off, you asked her to marry you instead, but that she refused you.”

  “She did refuse, but that’s all right. I’m not giving up. I intend to persuade her to change her mind, marry me, and come to Egypt with me.”

  Paul laughed, shaking his head as if this were the stupidest notion he’d ever heard in his life. “She wouldn’t have you back, man, not in a thousand years. And as for persuading her to move to Egypt, I remember how that turned out the first time. Win her back? You haven’t a chance in hell.”

  “The odds of success do look rather slim at present,” he conceded. “But I’m doing it anyway. It’s the right thing to do. I just want you to know . . .” He paused and ran his finger around the inside of his collar with a little cough. “I want you to know that my intentions are honorable.”

  Paul raised his brows at that, looking understandably skeptical. “Well, that will make a nice change from what I witnessed earlier today,” he murmured dryly.

  Will didn’t flinch. “You are her closest male relation, so I wanted you to know I’m not dallying with her.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but instead he started for the door.

  Paul’s voice followed him. “You aren’t even going to ask my permission to court her?”

  “No.”

  “What makes you think you’ll be able to persuade her to go to Egypt with you this time, when she refused to go with you six years ago?”

  He paused, hand on the doorknob. “Because this time, I’m not giving up until she says yes.”

  “Pestering her to accept you. Hmm, that’s an interesting strategy.”

  He grinned at the other man as he opened the door. “I prefer to call it courtship.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Deciding to make one’s own destiny was all very well. Figuring out what that destiny actually was, Beatrix knew, was the tricky part.

  She didn’t go down to dinner that evening. Instead, she had it on a tray in her room, in no mood to be anywhere near Will. Besides, she wanted to think, to decide what to do next.

  All her life, she’d been raised with the firm belief that marriage and children were the inevitable course of her life. Now, however, she felt providence was telling her she’d best consider other options. Yet whenever she thought of the future that loomed ahead of her—of spinsterhood, with good works in the parish, helping Eugenia with the garden, sewing and sketching, gossiping and shopping in the village—in short, the life she’d been leading—she felt the same sense of emptiness she’d felt when Will had left for Egypt.

  Marrying him would have been the simple thing to do, the obvious thing, the easy thing, the thing everyone else seemed to want her to do now that Aidan was gone. Her family would be relieved to see her settled and secure and suitably married to someone, even if the last-minute exchange of one duke for another was a bit unorthodox. After all. . .

  One duke’s as good as another.

  Damn Will anyway. She stopped fiddling with the cold food on her plate, and set down her fork. Shoving the tray aside, she propped h
er elbows on her writing desk and her chin in her cupped hands, and stared out the open window into the moonlit night.

  Will didn’t love her, and she didn’t love him anymore, and as much as she hated to admit he was right about anything, he’d been brutally accurate in his assessment that she could not be happy in a marriage that wasn’t based upon love. That was why she’d had to keep talking herself into marrying Aidan.

  But if not marriage, what else was there? A woman of her position did not generally take on a profession. There were exceptions, of course. Lady Weston owned an employment agency, had owned it since before her marriage. Vivian was a very well-known modiste. Emma, Lady Marlowe, had worked as Marlowe’s secretary prior to marrying him, and to this day, she was a successful writer in her own right. Beatrix sat up a little straighter in her chair, feeling a spark of interest. What if she followed their example and took up a profession of some sort?

  Beatrix considered that for a few minutes longer, then left her room and went downstairs. The children were in bed by now, but everyone else was still gathered in the drawing room. Will was seated at the secretaire with quill and ink. Julia was at the piano, and Vivian was fitting yet another new design onto a mannequin. The older ladies were sipping sherry and talking, and everyone else was engaged in cards, backgammon, or chess.

  Conversation paused as she came in, and it was Julia, heaven bless her, who broke the awkward silence. “Trix, just the person I need,” she said in a natural, breezy way, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened today. “Come turn the pages for me. Vivian is terrible at it.”

  “Well, I do have my hands full,” Vivian defended herself around a mouthful of pins.

  Beatrix could feel Will’s gaze on her as she walked past the secretaire on her way to the piano, but she didn’t even glance in his direction. She positioned herself beside Julia’s seat to turn the pages, and as her cousin sorted through sheets of music to choose another song, she glanced at the evening gown of sky-blue and ivory silk Vivian was piecing together on the mannequin nearby. “That’s a lovely gown, Vivian.”

  The slender redhead removed the pins from her mouth. “Thank you. It’s for the spring collection.”

  Beatrix nodded, studying it. “Do you have artists sketch your designs for you?”

  Vivian looked a bit surprised by the question. “No, actually, I do all the sketches myself. I don’t think I could have anyone do the drawings for me. I create the design as I sketch it, you see. Why do you ask?”

  She took a deep breath. “I am thinking of ways I might employ my artistic skill in some sort of commercial enterprise.”

  “What?”

  Eugenia’s exclamation of dismay made her wince, and she could hear a few murmurs of surprise from the older ladies, but she was undaunted. “If you draw your designs yourself, I suppose I shall have to think of another way to employ my skills. Lucy?” She turned toward the bridge table. “Does your agency have any posts available for illustrators?”

  Lady Weston paused in card play, but before she could respond, Eugenia spoke again.

  “Dear Beatrix, why do you ask such questions? You can’t possibly become an artist!”

  Beatrix set her jaw and looked her aunt in the eye. “Why not?”

  Eugenia gave a little laugh. “Because it simply isn’t done, dearest! Not by ladies of our class. Your sketching is a lovely pastime, and quite enjoyable for you, I daresay. But you cannot employ that talent for money. It’s quite impossible”

  “Again, I fail to see why it’s impossible.”

  “Because it is!” Eugenia’s voice was rising in agitation. “If what happened to your mother isn’t sufficient to explain why—”

  “Trix,” Paul interrupted, his voice loud enough to override his mother’s high-pitched accents. “Perhaps we should discuss this another time? Here and now are hardly the appropriate place and time for a discussion about your future.”

  Beatrix appreciated the uncomfortable silence. She glanced again at Lucy, realizing that she had just put her friend in an awkward position. “Never mind,” she said, withdrawing before there could be any further argument on the topic. “You’re right, Paul. This isn’t the time. Since it’s a lovely night, I believe I shall take a walk on the terrace. Excuse me.”

  She walked over to the French doors leading onto the terrace and stepped outside. She stalked to the rail, breathing deeply of the ocean air, trying to cool her frustration. Damn it all, why did a woman’s life have to be so restricted, so narrow . . . so smothering?

  This, she realized with a new sense of appreciation, must be akin to what her mother had felt. Given her family’s expressed disapproval, she could not turn to her friends for assistance with any artistic venture. Marriage was no longer a possibility, at least for the foreseeable future, and unless she could persuade her family to see reason, she would have to defy them outright. Defying one’s family, her mother had learned, came with a high price, and it was one Beatrix really didn’t want to pay. On the other hand, she wanted a new life, a life of her own, and she had no intention of giving up. What she needed to do was find a way to bring her family up to scratch. But how?

  Footsteps sounded behind her, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she found Will crossing the terrace to stand beside her.

  “Do you really wish to be an illustrator?” he asked as he approached.

  “What I really wish is to be alone,” she said, and returned her gaze to the ocean view in front of her.

  Of course he didn’t listen. He moved to stand beside her at the rail, and when she cast a sideways glance at him, she found him watching her. “Do you want to be an illustrator?”

  “I thought I might, but my family isn’t taking to the idea, as you have plainly seen.”

  “Excellent,” he cut in as if her family’s concerns were of no consequence. “I’ll hire you.”

  “You want me to draw something for you?” She returned her gaze to the water, remembering all the sketches she’d done for him of the Roman antiquities he’d dug out of a barrow at Sunderland years ago. “Artifacts, I suppose?”

  “Yes. I brought quite a few pieces back with me. They belong to the Egyptian Antiquities Service, but I am presenting them on loan to the British Museum for an exhibition. The intention is for the exhibit to generate interest in the work we’re doing at Thebes and raise funds, perhaps even gain a sponsor. But Lord Marlowe has now agreed to sponsor the dig.”

  “So for what purpose do you need sketches?”

  “Marlowe wishes me to write a series of articles about our excavation work, complete with photographs and detailed illustrations of the various pieces we’ve found. I’m certain I can convince him to employ you for the illustrations. In addition, the museum will want sketches for the catalog that will be published for the exhibition itself.”

  “I see.” She paused a moment, tempted, even a bit excited by the idea, but she knew it was impossible. “I can’t work for you.”

  He leaned one hip against the rail and folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t see why not. You want to be an illustrator. I’m in need of one. Seems pretty straightforward to me.”

  “You can’t really think employing me would be a good idea.”

  “On the contrary,” he said, smiling. “I think it’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever had.”

  “But I hate you!”

  Much to her irritation, his smile widened. “You don’t hate me,” he said, sounding so damned confident about it that she wanted to kick him in the shins. “You want to hate me, but you don’t. Not really. And besides,” he went on before she could argue the point, “if you intend to be an artist with commercial ambitions, you will occasionally have to work with people you don’t like. One of the more tiresome aspects of earning one’s living, I’m afraid.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, she supposed. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Very wise of you,” he said gravely. “I’m quite untrustworthy, as you know from past experience
. But I promise to behave myself, unless of course you cast aside your sketchbook, fling yourself into my arms, and beg me to make love to you, in which case I simply can’t be responsible for my actions.”

  She made short shrift of that possibility with a derisive snort.

  “It could happen,” he insisted. “I live in hope.”

  “My family doesn’t approve of me becoming an artist. They’ll never agree to this arrangement.”

  “Why? Because they’re afraid you’ll run off to Paris with some man? That you’ll become morally corrupt and wanton?”

  “Given what happened this afternoon,” she said, giving him a wry look, “Paul, at least, has some justification for that fear.”

  “Leave Paul to me. I’ll convince him to let you do it. He already knows my intentions are honorable.”

  “You, with honorable intentions?” She was trying to sound scornful, but much to her mortification, the words came out in a breathless rush. She swallowed hard and tried again. “That must be such a novel concept for you.”

  “I can be honorable, Trix. Do I need to remind you of the three-button rule?”

  She shook her head, knowing she was running out of excuses. “I told you, it would never work. All we ever do is argue. And after what happened today, it would be awkward and . . . and embarrassing for us to work together.”

  “I kissed you. So what? People kiss all the time. You would be shocked if you knew who kisses who at most country house parties. And we have certainly done our share.” He shrugged. “I don’t feel embarrassed. I don’t feel awkward.”

  But she did. Memories of the kiss they’d shared this afternoon, as well as all the kisses from years ago, flooded her senses, making her feel as if she must be blushing all over.

  She drew a long, deep breath and strove to think clearly. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Despite your family’s rather antiquated notions about professions for women, many well-bred ladies engage in commercial enterprise nowadays. Several of them are in that room, by the way,” he added, with a nod toward the drawing room. “And besides, if I’m the one hiring you, your family won’t care. In fact, I suspect they’ll be delighted.”