by Bess McBride
“If I don’t marry you, apparently!” Clara’s voice was bitter.
Roger shook his head despondently but said nothing.
Clara turned back to Hickstrom. “So whom would you make him marry? Does he know her?”
“Miss Bell!” Roger protested. “Please!”
“Well, maybe you can learn to love this woman, Roger, if you believe that Hickstrom can force you into marriage.”
“It is not possible,” Hickstrom said.
“What’s not possible?” Clara asked.
“That he learn to love his bride. The curse is that he cannot love her, that she will not love him.”
“That’s really harsh, Hickstrom.”
“It is not my choice,” she said, “but yours. You hold the key to Lord Rowe’s happiness.”
“Please do not address me as Lord Rowe, for such is the reason I am doomed,” Roger ground out.
“But it is your rightful title, is it not?” Hickstrom asked.
“I cannot countenance such a notion, but some among us have contemplated whether you effected the demise of the twelfth baron. I ponder whether you somehow put me into the line of succession. Is it possible?”
Hickstrom raised a hand to her face and tittered again. “My word, Lord Rowe! I am not so magical as you might believe. You cannot truly suppose that I sent the old baron to his death and altered the line of succession to suit my own purposes.”
Roger let out a sigh. “It was a rational inquiry, Miss Hickstrom. You are possessed of great powers, though you deny such.”
Hickstrom beamed. “Well, is that all, my dears? I really must move on to those who need me more.”
“No, wait, Hickstrom!” Clara blurted out.
Hickstrom, on the point of turning away, paused. “Yes, dear?”
“I’ll stay the two weeks if you promise not to make Roger marry someone he doesn’t want to.”
“I think it is lovely that you will stay, my dear, but you may not negotiate on Lord Rowe’s behalf, not unless you are willing to marry him yourself...as the fairy tale foretells.”
Roger’s heavy sigh stung, and Clara stomped her foot once again. “No! You can’t do this!”
“It is not I who is ‘doing this,’ dear.” She moved forward, then paused, as if she had forgotten something.
“Ah! I forgot to answer your earlier question. Miss Penelope Whitehead,” she said, tilting her head, as if contemplating something.
“I beg your pardon,” Roger said with a gasp. His face paled, then reddened.
“Who’s that?” Clara asked.
“Lord Rowe will know. Do enjoy your stay, Miss Bell. Good day!”
And the fairy godmother vanished.
Clara’s shoulders slumped, and she turned to Roger.
“I’m sorry. What do we do now? I don’t want to be responsible for your happiness...or unhappiness. And who is Penelope Whitehead?”
Chapter Nine
“I...I...” Roger stuttered. He swayed ever so slightly and Clara reached out to steady him, touching his arm lightly.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“No,” he expelled on a heavy breath. “No, I most certainly am not. I cannot imagine such a fate.”
“What fate? You mean marriage? Is this Penelope Whitehead someone you know?”
“I am acquainted,” he said, his tone increasingly mournful.
“Roger! You look like you’re about to faint!”
“I do feel lightheaded.”
“Well, here, sit down,” Clara said, pulling at his arm. She lowered him to the steps. “Put your head between your legs.”
Roger threw her a wide-eyed glance. “My head between my legs? Why would I do that?”
“I have no idea. It’s supposed to help with faintness.”
“No, I think I will not, but thank you.”
“So who is Penelope Whitehead? Is that the woman that Miss Hickstrom wants you to marry?”
Roger averted his face, looking away from Clara. “I believe Miss Hickstrom wishes me to marry you, Miss Bell. But given that impossibility, I think she has selected Miss Whitehead as my future bride.”
“Is she hideously ugly? Or just as mean as could be?”
Roger fell silent, staring toward the gate so long that Clara wondered if he was contemplating running.
“Roger?” she prompted.
“She is quite beautiful,” he murmured.
“Well, that’s promising,” she said.
When Roger spoke, he did so as if a dam burst. “I do not know if she is ‘as mean as could be,’ but she is a manipulative, scheming young miss. Marriage to a mere baron would not suffice for her. She wishes an earl or a duke but would settle for a prince. Her mother has trained her with lofty goals. I cannot imagine how Miss Hickstrom could convince her—no, force her—to marry a lowly baron.”
“Does she live in the area?”
“She does. She regularly attends the country social gatherings. Her mother is an absolute shrew. The father is no more than a source of income, a mere shell of a gentleman with nothing to say for himself. I imagine young Miss Whitehead will follow in her mother’s footsteps. A more unhappy family I cannot imagine.”
“Oh, Roger,” Clara commiserated.
“Indeed,” he said, throwing her a sideways glance before turning his face forward to stare at the space where Hickstrom had vanished.
Clara stiffened. “Roger.” Her voice rose at the end, as if in warning.
“Yes, Miss Bell?”
“You...you aren’t thinking that I’m going to bail you of that by marrying you, are you?”
Roger lifted his chin, his cheeks stained red, his blue eyes dark. “Please do not take offense, Miss Bell, when I repeat once again that I do not wish to marry anyone.”
Clara felt the sting of his words. She wholeheartedly agreed with his sentiment, but something about his tone that time hurt. She dropped her eyes to the ground.
“Yes, I know. We had agreed on that. Neither of us wants to get married...to anyone.”
“Precisely,” he said, his tone still crisp.
Clara had an inordinate desire to clear the air with him, fearing that she had hurt his feelings in some way, but she pressed her lips together. “Well, I guess I’ll cancel my walk. I’ve been away long enough, and I’m just not in the mood.”
Roger said nothing.
“Okay, well, I’ll be going now,” Clara said, hoping he would say something, anything to ease the distance between them. She drew in a sharp breath. Distance? Had they been close? What was she thinking?
Still, Roger said nothing.
“Okay, have a nice day,” Clara said. She gave Roger one last look out of the corner of her eye and rose to hurry down the steps and toward the castle. Roger didn’t call out to her, nor did he come up behind her, take her arm and offer to accompany her.
She fumed all the way back to the castle. Hadn’t he told her she shouldn’t walk unaccompanied? Wasn’t he supposed to stand when she did? The way he and St. John had bounced up and down and bowed every time she or Mary entered or left a room told her he should have done something besides sit on the stairs in a sulk and watch her walk off. After all, he was no modern guy. Folks in the nineteenth century had rules. Nice ones, as far as she was concerned.
She pressed her lips together. Maybe she should have curtsied to him. She had seen the maids and the housekeeper curtsying often. Should she have curtsied? Especially since he had become a lord?
Clara promised herself she would curtsey the next time she saw him. She would show him that she could have decent manners, that she could adapt to a more refined environment than she was used to.
It wasn’t until the castle doors came into view that she wondered what she had been thinking about. She had no need to prove anything to anyone. She cleaned houses for a living. Curtseying wasn’t a particular requirement in that job. If she ever cleaned Buckingham Palace, then she would curtsey to the Queen of England. She had decent morals, w
as kind to most, fair to her partner, ethical in her job and polite to strangers. If Roger didn’t think she was good enough, well then, that was his problem, not hers!
Clara stomped up the imposing stone stairs to find a footman had opened the door.
“Lady St. John asks that you join her in the drawing room,” he said. “Lady Halwell has come to call.”
“Lady Halwell?” Clara repeated.
“Yes, miss,” the footman said. He escorted Clara to the drawing room and opened the door for her.
Clara entered slowly, searching the room for Lady Halwell. She saw a stunning woman dressed in an elegant chocolate gossamer empire-waist dress. Auburn hair similar to Mary’s was piled on top of her head. Her gray eyes regarded Clara warmly.
“Clara!” Mary said, rising. “There you are. I sent a note over to Rachel to come meet you. Rachel, here’s our newest little traveler, Clara Bell.”
“Oh! You’re Rachel!” Clara said. “When the footman said Lady Halwell was here, I thought you were an...I don’t know. An older lady or something.” She stuck out a hand, then pulled it back and tried an awkward little dip. “Well, I forgot you married an aristocrat, Lady Halwell. Mary mentioned that.”
Rachel laughed and returned the curtsey. “Well, look at you! Curtseying and everything already.”
Clara’s cheeks heated up. “I’m trying,” she said with a wobbly smile. “I might have just made Roger mad by not curtseying.”
“What’s this?” Mary said. She pulled Clara to sit down and leaned forward to pour a cup of tea from the ubiquitous service.
“Roger? Mary said you’d gone for a walk,” Rachel said. “He’s such a nice man, isn’t he? How could he get mad at you? Why would he? Curtseying?”
Clara pressed her cup of tea to her lips, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. The two women looked at her, both appearing to be the epitome of any ladies she’d seen in historical paintings. Only their speech seemed modern.
“I told Rachel about Hickstrom’s latest matchmaking scheme, that it involved you and Roger,” Mary said. “I also told her your fairy tale involved a baron and that Roger has become a baron seemingly overnight.”
Clara nodded, unsure of what to say. The two women knew each other well. Clara was just a stranger, and an unhappy one at that. She took another sip of tea.
“So what’s this about making Roger mad?” Mary asked.
Clara took a deep breath and explained that she had met Roger at the gate, that they had called upon Hickstrom, who had come. She told them about Hickstrom’s repeated agreement to send her home in two weeks and that Hickstrom had spoken of a Penelope Whitehead, that Roger would marry Penelope Whitehead if Clara didn’t agree to marry him. And that information had upset Roger.
“Well, any notion of marriage upsets him, I guess,” Clara said, wishing her cheeks would cool down.
“Penelope Whitehead!” Mary said. “Are you kidding?” She exchanged a glance with Rachel.
“So is that a fate worse than death?” Clara asked.
Both women nodded solemnly.
“I cannot see Roger with Penelope. She’s awful!” Mary said.
“Really?” Clara asked, alternatively pleased and dismayed. She didn’t understand why she would be pleased and chose to ignore that emotion. “He said she was beautiful.”
“Yup,” Rachel said. “Beautiful and soulless. I mean, I don’t know if anyone can really be soulless, but she is a shallow, vain, nineteenth-century version of a mean girl. She treats her father like dirt. So does the mother.”
“Could Roger rehabilitate her in some way? You know...people can change when they fall in love.”
Mary shook her head. “I can’t imagine Roger falling in love with Penelope...at all. He’s such a kind man, a gentle soul, really. Why would Hickstrom pick her?”
“Well, she didn’t pick her, did she?” Rachel said with a quirked eyebrow. “She picked Clara. Penelope is the punishment, the curse.”
“That woman,” Mary said with a shake of her head. She threw Clara a sideways glance. “So what are you thinking?”
“Me?” Clara squeaked.
Mary nodded, and Rachel watched her.
“I can’t be responsible for what Hickstrom does. I can’t be responsible for Roger’s happiness. I didn’t do this! I didn’t bring this so-called curse down on him. Do you guys seriously think she can make people get married? That she can make Roger marry someone he doesn’t want to?”
They nodded in unison, both of them with grave faces.
“Oh yes. She can do anything she wants...and she will. She’s pretty merciless about making people fall in love.”
Rachel and Mary exchanged a look—a combination of exasperation and something else. Happiness?
“She hasn’t been wrong so far,” Rachel said, “at least not in her intentions, but her methods stink!”
“No kidding!” Mary agreed. She turned to Clara. “So you don’t think there’s any way you could fall in love with Roger?”
Clara buried her face in her cup of tea, giving her head a small shake. “I can’t marry someone I don’t know, and I’m sorry, but I don’t belong in the nineteenth century. I mean—I’m little more than a maid in my time!”
“You’re a business owner,” Mary said, “but that wouldn’t matter. You’d be a baroness.” She reached over to pat Clara’s knee. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t bug you. You should have heard me screeching when I found myself thrown back into the nineteenth century. Rachel too. I’m glad you’re staying for the two weeks though. It will be wonderful to catch up on the news from home. Let’s change the subject now. Tell us what’s been going on in the past year.”
Clara tried to remember what had changed in the year after Rachel and Mary had left. She was just answering a question about severe weather patterns when a knock at the door brought a footman.
“Lady Whitehead and Miss Penelope Whitehead,” he said.
Mary’s gasp was audible as the door opened wide and two females walked in—one a short, stout lady sporting a lace cap over gray curls and a matching gray dress, the other a petite, elegant blonde with porcelain skin, dainty pink cheeks and Delft-blue eyes. Her gown of pink satin shimmered against her skin.
“Lady St. John,” Penelope said, gliding in and stopping before Mary with a graceful curtsey. “Mother and I were just saying how remiss we had been in not visiting you, and here we are!”
Her voice held a strident note at odds with her words. Clara noted right away that Penelope’s beautiful eyes held a calculating look.
The absolute coincidence of the arrival of the Whiteheads was too much for Clara to believe. She suspected Hickstrom had a hand in the matter.
“Lady St. John!” Lady Whitehead said. “So good of you to receive us! And here is Lady Halwell! I know you two to be the best of friends, the pair of you from the Colonies.” Lady Whitehead curtsied, but it wasn’t pretty. Her voice was a gravely version of her daughter’s, insincere and shrill.
“Lady Whitehead, Penelope, how kind of you to call,” Mary said with a responding curtsey.
Clara marveled at the change in Mary’s voice and mannerisms. She was the complete nineteenth-century lady.
Rachel inclined her head, then resumed her seat. She too seemed to have altered her previously open personality and now regarded the Whiteheads with a flat expression of polite attention.
Lady Whitehead and her daughter seated themselves on the opposite sofa, declining tea.
“Yes, well, we have been so busy since we removed to the country. London was such a bore in the summer, and now we know why,” Penelope said. “Everyone is here! As you must know, my father, Lord Whitehead, has rented Balder House, and we are settled there. It is not so grand as Alvord Castle but does compare very favorably with Halwell House.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “I know we have not yet called upon you, Lady Halwell, but knowledgeable people have informed us that our houses are not dissimilar.”
She smiled. Clara noted again
that her smile did not reach her eyes.
Rachel returned the smile but said nothing. She certainly didn’t issue an invite.
“Penelope did insist that we must visit this morning, as if there were some urgent matter,” Lady Whitehead said, “yet she could not say what. And who is this, pray tell?”
She turned her attention to Clara, who had expected as much.
“This is our friend, Miss Clara Bell, who is visiting from America,” Mary said.
Lady Whitehead and Penelope inclined their heads, and apparently finding Clara of little interest, turned away to look at Mary.
Just as Penelope was about to speak, the door opened. St. John, Roger and another tall, handsome man strolled in. From the way the stranger’s eyes flew to Rachel, Clara imagined this was Rachel’s Lord Halwell. He moved to stand behind her on the sofa and placed a hand on her shoulder, which she acknowledged with a pat. Thick chestnut hair framed a friendly face. Blue eyes sought out Clara, and he smiled and nodded in her direction.
She returned the smile.
“I trust we do not interrupt,” St. John said in a reserved tone. “Lord Halwell was just leaving and needs to collect his wife.”
“Not at all,” Lady Whitehead said, as if she were the hostess. “Penelope and I were just telling Lady St. John that we had been remiss in not visiting and were compelled to come today, though we could not say why.”
Someone coughed, and Clara saw Roger, behind St. John, with his hand to his mouth.
“Forgive me,” Roger mumbled. He didn’t look at her but kept his eyes down on the floor.
“You know Lord Halwell, but I think you have not met my estate agent, Roger Phelps,” St. John said. He quirked a dark eyebrow. “That is...Lord Roger Rowe. Forgive me. Lord Rowe recently inherited his title.”
“Lord Rowe, is it?” Lady Whitehead said, instantly casting a speculative glance between Roger and her daughter. “Is there a Lady Rowe?”
The gasp in the room was palpable, but Clara had no idea who had gasped. St. John’s expression was disapproving, to put it mildly. Lord Halwell quirked what appeared to be an amused eyebrow. Roger ducked his head. Rachel pressed her lips together, and Mary’s eyes widened. Clara had the distinct impression that she had been the one to gasp. She put a hand to her mouth.