A Matchmaking Miss

by Joan Overfield

  A Matchmaking

  Miss

  Joan Overfield

  A Matchmaking Miss

  Joan Overfield

  Copyright 1992, 2014 by Joan Overfield

  To my great-nephews

  Anthony Keegan and Tyler Jackson:

  Welcome to the family, guys!!

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Calcutta, India, 1817

  The black-edged card fluttered from Joss Dunstable's fingers as he stared sightlessly into space. From his office in the warehouse, he could hear the voices of his laborers calling out in melodic Hindustani as they loaded the crates of tea on the huge carts that would take them down to the harbor. His windows were open, and in the distance he heard the Moslem holy men crying out the call to midday prayer, a sound which was answered by the delicate tinkling of brass temple bells floating on the scented breezes. These were the sounds he had been hearing every day for the past ten years, and he'd thought to hear them for the rest of his life. But now . . . he sighed heavily and picked up the card again.

  He was rereading it when the door was thrown open and a dark-skinned man with brilliant blue eyes came striding toward him. "Do you mean to sit in here all day?" he demanded, his deep voice faintly shadowed by the lilt he'd inherited from his half-caste mother. "I know that last run left you rich as a nabob, but there's still a fortune in tea belowstairs waiting to be —" He broke off at the look on Joss's face. "What is it?"

  "I've finally had news from home," Joss answered, handing the card to his friend and partner, Rajana Fitzsimmons.

  Raj took it at once, his expression growing solemn as he read the death announcement. "Ah God, Joss, I am sorry," he said, raising his eyes to meet Joss's somber and remote gray-green gaze. "I did not know."

  "Nor did I," Joss answered, thrusting an impatient hand through his dark red hair as he rose to his feet. "Did you see the date on the card? Frederick was dead a good four weeks before they saw fit to inform me, and the thing was another five months in getting here. My brother's been dead half a year, and I've only just now heard of it."

  Raj heard the bitterness in Joss's voice, but wisely said nothing. He knew his partner was estranged from his high-born family, and knew also that the estrangement cut deep, but he respected him too much to press for information. He glanced down at the card again, his brows wrinkling at the message scrawled across the bottom.

  "It is time you came home," he read aloud. "All has been arranged. M. Stone. Who the devil is M. Stone?"

  "My brother's man of business, I think," Joss replied indifferently, his back to Raj as he gazed out the window at the distant rooftops. "At least his is the name on the yearly reports I have been receiving from Kirkswood for the past five years. God knows Frederick could never be troubled to write me."

  "Ah, I thought he must be a solicitor," Raj said, in a half-hearted attempt at humor. "Why is it, I wonder, that the more book-learning a man has, the poorer is his writing? I've seldom seen a worse hand — except for yours. What does he mean by 'All has been arranged'? Your passage home?"

  Joss nodded, thinking of the brief note that had accompanied the notice. "A private cabin on the Sea Star," he said, his lips twisting in a bitter smile as he recalled the cramped quarters he'd shared with three other men on the voyage out. "Rather fine accommodations for the prodigal son, don't you think?"

  "Considering that the prodigal now owns a fleet of packets, 'tis more strange I'd be calling it." Raj crossed the room to stand beside Joss. "You're going home, then?" he asked quietly.

  Joss gave another nod, feeling the familiar pain tearing through him at the thought of the rolling green hills of his boyhood. "And soon. Frederick was the elder son," he said, tracing the latticed pattern in the window screen with the tip of his finger. "Things are bound to be in a damned coil with his death, and God knows how long it will take to set them right."

  Raj realized how much he would miss Joss, but he knew him too well to think he'd shrug aside his responsibilities. "Have a safe journey," he said instead, clapping a friendly hand on his broad shoulders, "And I promise not to bankrupt us while you are gone."

  "Actually, I was rather hoping you'd come with me," Joss said, flicking him an unreadable look. "You haven't been back to England since you left school."

  "Since I was thrown out, you mean," Raj corrected with a laugh, touched that Joss would want him with him. "And the same might be said of you. Well, I suppose it could be done. When would we be returning? Next spring?"

  "I'm not sure."

  Something in those words brought Raj's eyebrows together. "You are coming back?"

  It was then Joss swung around, his face taut with the struggle that was going on inside him. "Frederick was my older brother . . . my only brother," he stressed, his voice harsh. "And he died without a son to inherit the title."

  Although Raj's mixed blood made him an outsider to the closely knit British colony, he still knew enough to understand what Joss was saying. His blue eyes grew wide. "Do you mean? . . ." His voice trailed off in disbelief.

  Joss's lips twisted as he considered the irony of the situation. "Precisely," he said, with a hard laugh. "You are now looking at Lord Jocelyn Branleigh Dunstable, sixth marquess of Kirkswood."

  Chapter One

  Norwich, England, 1817

  "Blast it to flinters!" This inelegant expression burst from Miss Martha Stone's lips as she studied the ledger before her. She'd been adding and subtracting the figures since breakfast, but no matter how creatively she juggled them, the result remained depressingly the same.

  "What is it, Stone?" Lady Louisa Dunstable, marchioness of Kirkswood, enquired, not glancing up from her perusal of the latest fashion gazette. "Surely you're not still fussing with those tiresome accounts? You'll ruin your eyes."

  "Unfortunately, my lady, my eyesight is far too keen," Matty answered, closing the books with a discouraged sigh.

  That brought Lady Louisa's head up, her delicate features softening at the look on her companion's face. "Oh dear, that does sound ominous," she said, with a gentle laugh. "Well, there's no need to look so glum. I have a few more baubles left to sell, if we must."

  As usual, the marchioness's warm generosity brought a scowl to Matty's face. In the twelve months since the death of her employer's irresponsible husband, Matty had seen the young widow reduced to selling off her jewels one by one. At first it had been to settle the mountain of debts the marquess had left behind, but in the past seven months she'd done so in order to keep the wolf from their door. Such injustice made Matty burn, and not for the first time she wished she could get her hands around the late marquess's throat. The drunken dolt, she thought with disgust. How typical of him to die and take the easy way out of the mess his thoughtlessness had created.

  "Or perhaps you might send another letter to that nice Mr. Hedgehog, in London," Lady Louisa suggested, unaware of her companion's dark thoughts. "I am sure if you explain things to him he will see his way clear to advancing us something from next quarter's allowance."

  "It's Mr. Hedgerton, my lady," Matty corrected, although privately she thought the marchioness's name more than apt for the prickly, difficult little man she'd been wrangling with for the last year. "And I fear it will do little good to contact him. He insists his hands are tied by the terms of your husband's will, and he refuses to advance us so much as a s
ou. Until we hear from the new Lord Kirkswood, we shall have to look to other sources for our income."

  "Then we must wait for Joss," Lady Louisa said, accepting Matty's explanation with a tranquil smile. "In the meanwhile, why don't you take my mother's pearls into town? I am sure they should fetch a pretty penny."

  "My lady!" Matty protested, her brown eyes growing wide with distress at the thought of her employer hocking the creamy pearls that had been in her family for three generations. "You can't do that!"

  "Of course I can." Lady Louisa gave one of her sweet smiles. "They're mine, and not part of the estate."

  "But — "

  "Don't fuss, Stone," Lady Louisa interrupted, crossing the room to sit beside Matty. "They're only pearls, you know, and lovely as they are, we cannot eat them. Besides, I am sure once Joss finishes with his business in London and returns home, he will be more than happy to retrieve them for me. It will all work out in the end, you'll see."

  Matty glanced down at her clenched hands, wishing she could share her employer's naive optimism. Unlike Lady Louisa, who had been pampered and cared for practically from the moment of her birth, she was too well versed in the harsh realities of the everyday world to put her faith in an indolent dandy who looked to be every bit as irresponsible as his late brother. The new marquess had been back in England for well over a fortnight, and so far their only communication from him had been a hastily scrawled note announcing his plans to return to the country "when time permitted."

  "It's not right!" she announced suddenly, her dark eyes fierce. "His lordship is the marquess now, and Kirkswood is his responsibility! The estate is in danger of collapsing about our ears, and yet he can't even be bothered to make a half-day's journey to see all is well!"

  "I think you are being too hard on his lordship." As was her way, Lady Louisa was ready to see the good in anyone. "He has been out of the country since he was scarce a man; naturally he will want some time to kick up his heels before taking the reins of the estate. Until then, we shall simply have to rub along as best we can."

  "But it is wrong," Matty insisted, far from mollified. "Lord Kirkswood ought to fulfill the obligations of his rank if he is going to enjoy the privileges."

  "Well put," Lady Louisa applauded. "However, I am surprised you are so anxious to have him home . . . Mr. Stone." When Matty gave a guilty start, she added, "Yes, I am aware of the rig you have been running, and I must say I am surprised. How do you think his lordship is going to react when he learns that the M. Stone he's been corresponding with is a lady?"

  Matty had the good grace to flush. "I wouldn't have had to dissemble if that miserable little solicitor wasn't so full of himself," she muttered, still burning at the memory of the condescending letters that had arrived after the late marquess's death. "And as for his lordship, it isn't my fault he leapt to the same conclusion."

  "A conclusion you have made no effort to correct." Lady Louisa's blue eyes took on a decided sparkle.

  "I thought he would pay me more mind if he believed I was a man," Matty admitted, feeling like a child caught in the midst of pulling a prank. "Now I do not think it would have mattered one way or the other."

  "Perhaps." The marchioness inclined her blond head as if conceding the point. "But in any case, I fear there is little we can do but wait on his lordship's leisure. After all, you can hardly go down to London and kidnap him." And she gave a merry laugh at her bon mot.

  Matty remained silent, her ever-agile mind spinning with a scheme. She considered the dangers, the risks, and a smile of unholy delight stole slowly across her face. "My lady, what a perfectly wonderful idea!" she exclaimed, turning to the marchioness who was now regarding her with horror. "That is exactly what we shall do!"

  The letter was waiting in Joss's study when he and Raj returned from their morning ride in Hyde Park. One look at the familiar handwriting scrawled across the front, and the hard-won peace he had found vanished under a wave of fury. "Not another one!" he exclaimed, flinging his hat onto the desk in a show of temper. "The devil take this fellow Stone! When will he leave off pestering me?"

  "When you do your sacred duty and return home," Raj replied easily, his lips curving in a smile as he leaned back in the red leather wing chair facing the massive desk. "And you needn't look daggers at me," he added, when Joss shot him a sour glance, "I was but quoting his last missive. Say what you will of the man, he does have an interesting way of turning a phrase."

  "Aye, but must he feel compelled to turn it in my direction?" Joss picked up the letter, tapping it against the palm of his hand. He didn't need to open it to know what it would say. Like its predecessors, the letter doubtlessly contained a politely worded request that he present himself at Kirkswood without further delay. No details, no explanations, just the clipped command to return home at once. Well, damned if he'd let some officious steward tell him what to do, Joss decided, tossing the letter back onto the desk.

  Raj watched him, his blue eyes thoughtful. "Are you quite certain all is well with the estate?" he asked, studying the toes of his new Hessians. "Perhaps your Mr. Stone has a reason for requesting your company so earnestly."

  "I've already thought of that," Joss said, turning and pacing the room. As always, the thought of returning to Kirkswood had a disquieting effect upon him, and he found himself unable to remain still. "After receiving the first letter I went to my solicitor, and he assures me everything is fine. He agrees with me that this Stone is naught but a hysterical old fool, and he suggests I replace him."

  "Mmm."

  The noncommittal response stopped Joss's pacing, and he turned to find Raj frowning into space. "And what is that supposed to mean?" he demanded suspiciously.

  Raj gave an indifferent shrug. "Nothing."

  Joss thrust a hand through his thick red hair. "Don't act the enigmatic fakir with me, Rajana," he said, with an impatient sigh. "If something is troubling you, then for God's sake say so."

  Raj raised his head, his blue eyes sharp as he met Joss's. "You cannot hide forever, Joss," he said, his voice gentle. "You must return home."

  Joss's tanned cheeks paled, then turned a dull red. Had any man other than Raj dared say such a thing to him, he would be calling him out. But as it was . . . he turned away, unable to hold his friend's compassionate gaze.

  "They threw me out, Raj," he said, his voice harsh with pain at the decade-old memory. "I was just the second son, and they made it obvious that my presence was neither required nor desired. Am I supposed to drop everything and go dashing back to Kirkswood because Frederick is dead and now — now they have need of me?"

  Raj paused, weighing his words with his customary calm. "Your parents are dead, Joss, and now so is your brother. You are the marquess, and however that might chafe you, it is your destiny. You have no choice but to accept it."

  Joss stood in front of the desk, his back to Raj as he ran a finger across the silver top of the crystal inkwell. It had belonged to his grandfather, and he remembered being severely punished as a boy for presuming to play with it. "I'm not denying my destiny," he said at last, still tracing the lion carved into the heavy silver. "I know I must return to Kirkswood to take up my duties, and I will, Raj . . . someday. Someday; not now."

  "When?"

  The gentle question brought a rueful smile to Joss's face. There were times when he forgot that Raj had inherited more than his mother's exotic good looks. He'd also inherited her Eastern philosophy, and a mystic acceptance of life, and as usual, his relentless logic made Joss feel like a bloody fool. He turned around to face him.

  "The day after tomorrow," he said at last, knowing there was no other answer. "I'd leave sooner, but unfortunately I can't afford to miss Lady Burlingham's ball tomorrow night."

  Raj looked thoughtful and then gave a solemn nod. "Very well, then. But in the meanwhile, what of the letter? Will you answer it?"

  Joss glanced down at the letter. "Perhaps I will," he said, reaching out to pick it up. "And this time I mean to make it
plain to him that I am master at Kirkswood. If he persists in harassing me, I shall have him removed."

  "Can you do that?" Raj was pleased to see Joss had his fire back.

  "Of course." Joss sent him a wolfish smile. "As Stone himself is so fond of reminding me, I am the marquess, and I can do whatever the devil I please. If Stone cares for his precious position, he will not bother me again."

  "You sound rather sure of that." Raj was amused.

  "I am." Joss grinned again, thinking of the blistering letter he would write. "Trust me, Raj: we have heard the last of Mr. M. Stone."

  "I wish you would reconsider this," Miss Eloise Dickson complained, her expression guarded as she hovered at Matty's side. "They hang kidnappers, you know."

  Matty paused in the perusal of her prey long enough to send her old school friend a chiding look. "I'm not kidnapping his lordship," she denied, her lips curling in a teasing smile. "I am merely borrowing him for a few weeks."

  Eloise rolled her eyes heavenward. "Trust you to play fast and loose with semantics," she muttered, shaking her head in disgust. "The magistrates aren't Miss Bailey to be baffled by your sophistry. I doubt they'll look any more kindly upon your 'borrowing' the marquess than they would upon your kidnapping him."

  "I'll put him back when I am finished with him."

  Eloise would have liked to laugh, except that she knew Matty was in dead earnest. "This is madness," she said, fighting a reluctant smile, "and what is madder still is that I have agreed to help you. Have you any idea what Lady Burlingham would say, should she learn I helped you carry off one of her guests?"

  Matty felt a twinge of guilt as the possible consequences of her scheme occurred to her once again. She'd spent days laying her plans, carefully stalking the marquess as she looked for an opportunity. Learning he was attending the countess's ball had seemed like a godsend at the time. But now . . .

  "If this will jeopardize your position, I could always try some other night," she offered uncertainly. "It would be difficult, but I — "