Always the Rival (Never the Bride Book 7)

by Emily E K Murdoch

  Priscilla sighed as her mother departed. Any other mother would be desperately attempting to hook a duke – a duke! – into the family by marriage.

  Not her mother. Mrs. Seton saw Charles as part of the family, just another young scamp running around as they always had. It would not occur to her that Charles could be a match for her daughter.

  The door closed behind her, and Charles turned back– and only then did Priscilla realize just what a sight she was.

  Embarrassment curled around her heart as she raised the clean handkerchief to her face. This was not exactly the circumstances she wished to spend more time with Charles in!

  Red streaming nose, red eyes, and a throat that did not permit her to speak without a scratchy hoarseness. No gentleman in the world would be able to see any beauty in her now!

  Charles grinned. “You look just like you did when we attempted camping that one time, and you came down with a cold. Do you remember?”

  Despite herself, Priscilla laughed. “The old major lent us a tent he had taken to France, didn’t he? The three of us squeezed in, I remember. Really, we should have asked for two.”

  “I do not think he had two,” mused Charles. “It had seemed such a warm day, but by the middle of the night, the dew was up, and I think both you and Mary came down with rotten colds.”

  “What a thing for you to remember,” she said ruefully, tucking the clean handkerchief up her sleeve. “Though you seem to have fonder memories of that adventure than I do.”

  He grinned, his hair falling over his eyes, making Priscilla’s heart quicken. “We blew our noses like trumpets for a whole week, and I still think your nose is redder now than it was then!”

  Priscilla did not bother to respond to his rudeness but threw a cushion, which hit Charles full in the face.

  He emerged from it laughing. “Well, it is!”

  “A young lady does not wish to hear such things about her complexion,” Priscilla said primly. “But I am sure you are right. I have not even been able to bring myself to gaze in a looking glass this morning, but it feels red if that is possible.”

  He was still smiling, and Priscilla felt her cheeks threaten to become just as red as her nose.

  “I apologize for not being good company this afternoon,” she said, trying to force herself to remain calm, even aloof. “You may find you enjoy yourself better elsewhere.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she cursed her own folly. What was she doing, encouraging Charles to seek better entertainment? What if he decided to visit Miss Lloyd?

  But instead of leaping up and agreeing he would leave, he shrugged. “I am not sure about that. You can still listen to me talk, can you not?”

  Priscilla frowned. “I can still speak, Charles, you cannot silence me that easily!”

  He grinned, and once again, that discomforting fluttering made her heart contract. Just looking at him was enough. Why had she not felt this months ago, years ago?

  Something about Charles made her weak in the knees, and though a new sensation, it was now all-consuming.

  If only she could make him feel what she did.

  She took in his blue eyes, sparkling with mischief, the way he lounged in every situation, always at home, always certain in the knowledge he was welcome. There he was, sprawled across a settee, and he looked more at home than she did.

  If there was a way to force him to love her…but, no. Priscilla knew she could never do such a thing. She needed Charles to want her freely, without hindrance.

  “No, I knew I could never silence you,” he retorted. “You always were a chatterbox, Priscilla, and even now, when you have a cold, and I bet your throat feels like sandpaper, you will still have plenty to say.”

  She smiled weakly. He had been a constant in her life now for…what, fifteen years, twenty?

  Her entire life, and now she was going to lose him to Miss Frances Lloyd. Her entire world would change.

  “And did you enjoy the ball?”

  Pulled from her reverie, Priscilla coughed as she thought desperately of something to say. Thankfully at that moment, she was rescued by Mrs. Busby, entering with two large silver trays.

  “Y-Your Grace,” she said, curtseying low and almost dropping both trays to the floor.

  Charles rose and bowed to the housekeeper. Before a platter left her hands and hit the floor, he removed it from her shuddering hands.

  “Why, thank you, Mrs. Busby,” he said seriously. “I know I was not expected, and it is very gracious of you to feed me with such little notice.”

  Priscilla had to hide a smile. Mrs. Busby had not been with the Setons long, and she had arrived with excellent references. Still, she had never quite accustomed herself to the fact that the Setons, not nobility at all, were such close acquaintances of the Duchy of Orrinshire.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Busby,” she said aloud as the woman placed the second tray on the settee beside her. “That will be all. I have the bell if we need anything else.”

  Mrs. Busby bowed gratefully and left the room in a genteel run.

  Charles kept his chuckle low. “Dear Mrs. Busby. Still afraid of me?”

  “It is not fear, ’tis healthy respect,” chided Priscilla as she lifted the lid of her tray and breathed in the hearty chicken soup. “Now be quiet and eat your lunch.”

  They ate in silence, Priscilla becoming more aware of just how snotty she felt. Why on earth did Charles want to spend his afternoon with her in this state?

  “So,” he said finally, the last of his chicken soup and bread having vanished at an extraordinary speed. “Did you enjoy the ball last night?”

  She nodded and immediately ceased the movement as her head protested. “Yes, a most enjoyable evening, I thought. I hope your friend, Lord Westray, had a pleasant time.”

  Was it her imagination, or did Charles frown as she mentioned Lord Westray?

  The emotion, whatever it was, flickered and was gone. “Yes, old Westray knows how to have a good time,” Charles said gruffly.

  Priscilla smiled. “Just as long as you promise me that you will keep him out of my mother’s way, or he will find himself in an arranged marriage of his own!”

  The words were out before she could stop them.

  Despite the pain on Charles’ face, he said nothing but, “Indeed.”

  Priscilla sighed and pushed away her tray. “Forget what I said, Charles. Ignore me.”

  “How can I?” His voice was low and bitter, his gaze focused on his hands.

  She would have done anything to stop him from feeling this way, even if it meant never being with him. Anything to stop the pain in his eyes.

  “I…I do not know what to say,” she said honestly. “And this is a first for me. I always have something to say.”

  Was that a twitch of a smile?

  “I cannot believe it is happening, truly,” Charles said quietly. “It does not seem real.”

  Priscilla’s heart was thundering. What did he mean – did he regret the engagement? Was this the first time he would admit that he wished he were not marrying Miss Lloyd?

  But the moment passed in an instant. “Miss Lloyd is a very elegant woman, of course, a very good family. I am fortunate that she…”

  His voice continued, but Priscilla did not take it in. Charles could praise Miss Lloyd all he wanted, but she knew, she could see that his heart was not in it.

  Only his sense of duty.

  Pulling her handkerchief from her sleeve, she blew her nose again. “While you praise Miss Lloyd, do you mind passing me back that cushion?”

  Charles stopped. “You know, by rights, I should throw it back at you.”

  “But you will not, will you?” Priscilla said sweetly. “You would not attack a poor invalid on her sickbed, would you?”

  He sighed. “No, of course not. Here you go.”

  It was the slightest connection. Just one inch of his finger brushed hers, yet it was enough to set her body alight.

  At the ball, she could
have imagined it. The heat of the room, the pounding of her heart as they danced, the joy in movement, the excitement of the ball—it could have clouded her judgment, made her see something that was not there.

  But this was real. This was special, somehow, whatever connection they had between them. Couldn’t he feel it?

  Despite the rush of emotions pouring through her, it appeared that he did not.

  Charles leaned back. “You will be up to your feet in no time, and then I want a rematch.”

  Priscilla blinked. “A rematch?”

  “Conkers!” he said triumphantly. “I am determined to beat you this year.”

  Conkers. Of course, it was something as innocuous as their childhood game.

  “I wonder whether Miss Lloyd will play conkers with you when she is the Duchess of Orrinshire,” she said lightly, picking at the leftover bread on her plate.

  Charles frowned. “You know, I have no idea. I shall have to find out. I suppose you will beat her every time – you were always the best rival I ever had, and I suppose you can become hers, too.”

  Priscilla smiled weakly but was rescued by the reappearance of Mrs. Busby with the tea tray.

  “Yes,” she said softly as Mrs. Busby bustled about pouring tea. “I am sure I will become Miss Lloyd’s best rival.”

  Chapter Seven

  “About time!” Charles’s voice carried further than he intended, but he had been waiting for an age for the woman striding toward them.

  Priscilla smiled as she quickened her pace, and all his irritation dropped away. What did it matter if he had been standing here waiting? Now she was here, that ball of bitterness melted from his stomach.

  “You know, we have been waiting for at least five minutes, Miss Seton,” Jacob Beauvale, Lord Westray, said in a mocking voice. “At least five minutes!”

  Miss Sophia Worsley, a newer addition to their social set, piped up, “At least twenty minutes, by my reckoning. See, there is the church clock chiming quarter past eleven, and I have been here since before the hour.”

  Harriet Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire – Harry, to her friends – was the last of their party, and she was laughing at the others. “The countryside is hardly going anywhere, Westray, I would not concern yourself. I am sure Miss Seton has a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

  Charles allowed the other three to chatter as Priscilla walked around the churchyard wall toward the gate. He had been impatient for her to arrive.

  All would have been for naught if Priscilla had been engaged this afternoon and couldn’t join them for the walk he had planned.

  “You look perfectly recovered,” Westray was saying as Priscilla closed the gate behind her and started walking up the church path. “Your cold could not have been too dreadful, then.”

  “No, thank goodness,” she said. “Two or three days at home, doing very little was sufficient to cure me.”

  Charles did not permit himself the luxury of looking at her. He was engaged to be married to Miss Frances Lloyd. Other ladies should not be attracting his eye—particularly those who evidently did not consider him a suitor.

  His heart overruled his head, and he took a closer look at Priscilla. Had she always been this beautiful? Had her blue eyes always been so bright? Had the corners of her mouth always lilted just before she laughed?

  How could he not have noticed these things until now?

  “…and I must apologize profusely,” she was saying as Miss Worsley linked arms with her. “Tardiness is never acceptable, especially amongst friends. But I must say Charles told me half past the hour, so if anything, you are all too early!”

  Westray laughed, a little too hard in Charles’s estimation, and the Duchess of Devonshire shook her head.

  “Really, that is so like you, Priscilla,” Harry said, beaming. “And very like you, Orrinshire, now I come to think about it. Goodness, you are so alike, are you not?”

  Charles felt heat rise to his cheeks as Westray, Harry, and Miss Worsley all turned to look at him.

  “Alike?” he said, playing for time.

  Priscilla was blushing. “I do not think we are anything alike,” she said. “Though I am not entirely sure who should be most offended by that!”

  “Well, then, in that case, I say we are alike,” he said magnanimously. “Though I am not sure how you see it, Harry.”

  Harry snorted. “You have never noticed? Goodness gracious, you were practically raised together, Orrinshire, I would be more surprised if you were not alike.”

  Westray was looking between them now with narrowed eyes, and Charles shifted on his feet.

  “Yes,” said Westray slowly. “Now that I come to look at you both, I do see the resemblance. ’Tis more how you hold yourselves, the way you jest. Practically brother and sister.”

  “No,” said Charles quickly. “Not brother and sister.”

  There was a moment of silence that continued for an awfully long time. Westray snickered. Charles felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise and forced down the urge to punch his friend in the face.

  Where had all this anger and aggression come from?

  “Shall we start then?” he asked, desperate to move the conversation on. “If we wait much longer, we will not have the light for the return trip.”

  “I am not walking in the dark,” said Miss Worsley, still arm in arm with Priscilla. “You know the land around here, Your Grace, surely you can find a route that does not leave us in the darkening evening?”

  Charles smiled at the formal tone.

  “Please, call me Orrinshire,” he said gently, and her cheeks pinked. “Now, I suggest we start in this direction, which will bring us through woodland and then a little farmland – one of my tenants, he will not mind – which then circles back here. ’Tis only an hour, more than enough time to be completed in daylight. Before luncheon, even. You will have no need to fret, Miss Worsley.”

  They set off, Westray and Harry taking the lead. Charles found himself walking beside Priscilla, with Miss Worsley on her other side.

  “And the trouble is of course, that as a Liberal, he does not really understand the challenges that so many face,” Miss Worsley was saying earnestly. “If politics aims to be truly representative, as it should, then…”

  Charles allowed the conversation to wash over him as they joined a footpath that meandered into Orrinsbeck Woods. Politics had never interested him; it all seemed to be a lot of shouting with not much action. He had never taken up his seat in the House of Lords for just that reason, something his mother berated him about on almost a weekly basis.

  What was the point? A lot of stuffy old men with little understanding of the real world, and him, a gentleman with little understanding of the political world.

  It was hardly a recipe for success.

  “I believe the next election will change things dramatically,” Priscilla was saying, catching Charles’s attention. “The ongoing disagreements about the Enclosure Act will not continue in the same way, I believe, if the prime minister…”

  Charles tried not to stare as she spoke. She was remarkably astute, and about a topic which, traditionally, had been the province of…well. Not ladies.

  “I never knew you held such an interest in the political landscape, Priscilla,” he said aloud.

  Both she and Miss Worsley looked at him and grinned, making Charles feel a little like he had missed the punchline of a very funny joke.

  “Just because women cannot vote nor represent themselves,” Priscilla said with a smile, “that does not mean we have no interest in politics. If anything, the opposite!”

  Charles frowned as they turned a corner into deeper woodland. There were few birds singing in the trees this close to autumn, but a woodpecker beat against a tree a little way off.

  “The opposite?”

  Miss Worsley nodded as Priscilla continued, “Well, consider the situation. We must become more involved than society would deem necessary, precisely because we are unable to interact in any
meaningful way. It is only by being vocal in this manner that our representatives actually know what we want!”

  “Careful!” Westray shot back over his shoulder, evidently listening to Priscilla. Charles felt a spark of jealousy ignite in his bones. “That sounds like bluestocking talk to me, Miss Seton!”

  Instead of taking offense, as something wicked in Charles’s heart wished she would, Priscilla merely smiled. “A little logic never hurts, Lord Westray.”

  He grinned and turned back to continue conversing with Harry, and Miss Worsley mentioned something fresh, taking Priscilla into a different topic.

  Charles was consumed with pride in Priscilla, pride in her mind, her wit. Had she always been this elegant, this well-spoken, this charming?

  Her mind was first-rate, and he had always known that – hadn’t he always been the butt of her jokes as children?

  “What do you think, O-Orrinshire?”

  But this was different. Something within him reacted when he looked at her.

  “I said, what do you think, Orrinshire?”

  Charles’s attention snapped back to the present. Miss Worsley looked concerned, and it was only then that he realized she had been asking him a question.

  “I beg your pardon?” he said hastily.

  Miss Worsley laughed. “My, you must have been hundreds of miles away to mishear me. Perhaps thinking of Frances?”

  Her smile was knowing – a little too knowing. They had not been acquainted long, and he could not think of who this Frances was supposed to be.

  “Who?” he asked.

  Miss Worsley glanced at Priscilla and smiled. “Why, Miss Frances Lloyd, Your Grace. Your betrothed?”

  Damn and blast it! Of course she meant Miss Lloyd. But it would not do for that report to get back to his intended. Not that he would suspect Miss Worsley of such base gossip, of course. But then, you never knew.

  “Ah, I did not catch the name – yes, ’tis Miss Lloyd I am thinking of,” he said hastily.

  Miss Worsley started to prattle on about their wedding, a conversation that Charles was apparently not required to contribute to.