“I am not as foolish as so many consider me,” he said aloud, looking into her eyes. “I have rented a little land to a friend, down in Cornwall. That will bring the estate five hundred pounds a year. If I consolidate the debts, pay some of them quickly to reduce the interest, in thirty years –”
“Thirty years!”
Charles laughed. “Well, what of it! You must remember, Priscilla, I am a duke. We think in decades, not years. Some of the trees on my land were planted by my father, and it will be our grandchildren who will enjoy them.”
The words made her shiver. “Grandchildren?”
He raised a hand to brush back some of the hair that had fallen over her eyes and nodded. “My mother has her own home, the dowager house. We can make a home for ourselves. A new beginning for us.”
Priscilla laughed dryly. “I am not certain that encouraging your mother to leave and move into a smaller home would do much to improve her opinion of me – and it needs improving.”
There was a rueful tone in her voice.
“That as maybe,” said Charles. “But she loves me and wants me to be happy. Debt or no debt.”
There was something in her eyes at that moment, a question she wanted to ask, but she was holding it back.
“Come on, ask,” he said softly. “I do not want you to be afraid of asking me anything, now that we are everything to each other. No more secrets, no more plans.”
Priscilla nodded and asked hesitantly, “How much is the total debt to the bank?”
“Almost thirty thousand pounds.”
Charles could barely believe it, but that was what his accountant, Mr. Birch, had said. Thirty thousand pounds – it was an outrage that it had been allowed to accumulate to that amount.
He had expected Priscilla to be shocked, even horrified. It was a prodigious smile. But for some unknown reason, she was smiling.
“What?”
“We never really discussed my dowry, did we?” she said quietly.
Charles blinked. It had never occurred to him, just like it had never passed through his mind that having Priscilla in his arms, pinned against a wall, would put such tempting thoughts into his mind.
Trying to concentrate on the conversation at hand, he said, “Well, no. I heard from someone – I cannot remember who, do not ask me – that it was two thousand pounds. You have mentioned it before, haven’t you?”
She laughed, and there was real joy in her voice. “Oh, Charles. I had thought so, but today I have discovered I was utterly mistaken.”
He stared. “Utterly?”
“Utterly,” Priscilla confirmed. “I have, according to my mother, ten thousand pounds to my name. If only I had known weeks ago. We could have avoided all this pain and confusion.”
Charles could not take in her words. Ten thousand pounds? It was a mere third of the overall debt, but the reduction of interest alone would be a lifesaver, preventing him from even considering the sale of…
“No,” he said firmly.
The smile disappeared from Priscilla’s face. “What do you mean, no?”
Charles sighed. He could not go on promising himself he would be a better man and then, at the first opportunity, act like a bad one.
“That is your dowry,” he said heavily. “Intended for our future daughters, if God is good enough to bless us with girls. I will not take it from you.”
Priscilla blinked. “You – you won’t?”
He shook his head. “I am going to do this right, and teach our sons by example what my father never taught me. When you find yourself in a fix, no matter whose fault it is, you work hard and honestly to escape it. I love you, Priscilla, for you. Dowry or no dowry, the moment Miss Lloyd broke our engagement, my first thought was not about finding another dowry to marry. It was finding you.”
Finally, he was able to allow his passion to overwhelm him. Priscilla gasped as he kissed her deeply, his tongue ravishing hers, teasing her with pleasure – his hands on her waist, caressing her through the gown, wishing desperately that it was gone.
“I love you,” he murmured, kissing down her jaw and neck as she moaned, her head tilted back. “I love you, Priscilla, for you. All of you. I want all of you.”
“Well, you will have to wait for that until you marry me,” she managed to gasp. “I’ve learned my lesson – you’re not mounting me anytime soon.”
Charles grinned as he looked into her eyes. “Do not tempt me to take you right here, right now.”
She kissed him in response, desperate for his touch. It was only after a few more moments that Charles remembered that the most important words of all had not yet been said.
Pulling himself away with a sigh, Charles smiled and slowly dropped to his knees. “Priscilla. My first ever real proposal, made by me, decided on by me. I love you, and the world without you has been gray and lifeless. Will you do me the incredible honor of becoming my wife?”
Priscilla laughed, pulling him up and kissing him fiercely before saying, “Oh, Charles. You have never had any rival for my heart. Yes, I will marry you.”
Epilogue
Priscilla glared at her reflection, which was not behaving.
“Charles! I still can hardly believe it. Are you sure?”
She sighed, her breath misting up the looking glass, and turned to look at her mother. “Very sure, Mother. Not only is he a gentleman of great worth, good family, and importantly one you actually like – but I will be marrying him in less than an hour!”
Mrs. Seton nodded, a worried look on her face. “I know.”
Priscilla waited for more, but no more words came. “Well, you have had just over a month to voice your displeasure, Mother. Why has it taken until this late in the day?”
She turned back to the looking glass and tried to make her veil straighter. It did not seem to matter what she did to it. Did they make them like this, purposefully?
In the reflection, she watched her mother pace up and down fretfully. Priscilla sighed. Her bedchamber was not that large and having her mother moving about like this was akin to being caged with a tiger.
You never quite knew what it was going to do next.
“It just seems…well, very sudden,” Mrs. Seton said as she moved about the room. “Very unlikely. I could never have predicted it, and you know that I love you, Priscilla, but this was not the match I had imagined for you.”
Her mother’s words were an understatement, thought Priscilla. How many other people were thinking the same? That Charles had somehow been hoodwinked? That she was rushing into this, desperate to catch him before he changed his mind?
“It was a surprise to me, too,” she said carefully, trying with one hand to tug the veil without disrupting the delicate curls that Mrs. Busby’s daughter and Annabelle had managed to create. “But I do love him, Mother. Surely that is enough?”
“Are you sure?” Mrs. Seton’s voice was sharp. “Now I speak plainly to you, Priscilla. You were never one to be easily led, I admit that, but you did have fits of fancy that would take you goodness knows where.”
Giving up on attempting to make the veil sit as it should, Priscilla abandoned the looking glass and turned back to look at her mother. Mrs. Seton was biting her lip, and her hands were clasped before her.
“You…I would not want you to simply…” Her mother did not seem entirely sure what she was trying to say, until she burst out with, “Well! I would not want you to simply throw yourself at the first gentleman who asked you!”
Priscilla smiled gently. How like her mother to assume she had accepted Charles out of desperation. It had not occurred to her that the closeness they had experienced as children then adults could possibly be something more.
“Mother, you are worrying yourself over nothing,” she said gently. “Please, listen to me carefully. I am happy. Charles makes me happy – happier than I think I have ever been. Being with him, being his wife, will bring me greater joy than I could ever know.”
A light blush tinged her cheeks at the
se words. She was not going to mention the pleasure she knew she would experience that evening. It had been a challenge, restraining herself from Charles’s tempting whispers for the last four weeks, but her self-possession would be worth it.
In just a few short hours, she would be his wife – and he could do whatever he wanted to her.
“Hmm.” Her mother did not look entirely convinced, but she threw up her hands. “Well, you are old enough to know your own mind, Priscilla. Just know that you have no need to marry if you do not wish it. Your home here, and your fortune, will protect you.”
Priscilla smiled. She rarely saw this protective instinct in her mother, and it was rather lovely, in a way, to experience it one last time before she ceased being Miss Priscilla Seton and became…
She swallowed. Priscilla Audley, Duchess of Orrinshire. It rolled off the tongue, but it did not sound like her. Priscilla Audley, Duchess of Orrinshire, was a great lady. Not someone who had attempted to catch the eye of her husband at his engagement picnic to another, and eventually been proposed to in an alleyway!
“Please, do not worry,” she said. “I am happier than I ever knew was possible, and it is Charles who makes me feel this way. He is the one I want, Mother, and I would not choose to leave you unless I was absolutely sure I had found someone perfect.”
Mrs. Seton nodded. “And no bridesmaids?”
Even on this happiest of days, it was possible to feel a shadow of sadness. Priscilla swallowed. She had promised herself she would not permit her emotions to overwhelm her.
“No bridesmaids,” she said shortly, her heartstrings tugged by sadness. “No, I had…well, I had always wanted Mary to be my bridesmaid. We had agreed to it years ago when little. Now that she is not here… I am not going to try to replace her. No one could replace her.”
Mrs. Seton stepped across the room and cupped her daughter’s cheek. “I just wish your father was here to give you away.”
Priscilla swallowed, feeling the softness of her mother’s love just as close as her hand. She nodded, unable to control herself, unwilling to attempt to speak. She would not cry today, of all days.
Her mother straightened, and if Priscilla did not know her mother rarely showed her feelings, she would have said there was a tear in her eye.
“When you are ready, come downstairs,” she said briskly. “We can walk to church, for there is no threat of rain.”
Priscilla nodded, and before she had turned back to the looking glass, she was alone.
“Now then, Priscilla Seton,” she said sternly to her own reflection. “Do not lose your head.”
“What an excellent idea.”
Priscilla turned quickly to see who had disturbed her privacy, but she relaxed as she saw the ton’s matchmaker leaning against the doorframe. It was impossible to feel discomfort around Miss Ashbrooke for long. She had a way, somehow, of putting one at ease.
“Oh, ’tis just you,” she said aloud.
“I am going to decide not to take offense at that,” said Miss Ashbrooke with a smile, stepping inside the room and closing the door behind her. “I am never just anything!”
Priscilla could not help but laugh. It would take a great deal of force to prevent Miss Ashbrooke from getting her own way; she could see that. It was fortunate; indeed, Miss Ashbrooke was working for her rather than against her.
“Nothing can dim my joy today,” she said aloud. “And I did not exactly mean it that way.”
“I know what you meant. I must say it is a joy to see your joy,” said Miss Ashbrooke, good-naturedly, walking to the window and looking out at the sunshine. “I must congratulate you, you know. Few ladies of any age are able to ensure the gentleman of their choice, and you have done so against tremendous odds.”
Priscilla smiled. Against tremendous odds. Miss Ashbrooke was right. “For a while, I never thought I would be happy. I thought Charles was lost to me forever.”
“Nonsense. I had everything perfectly under control.”
She could not help but laugh at the certainty in the matchmaker’s words. “Miss Ashbrooke, I will not deny you are skilled at your craft, but I do not believe you can claim complete omnipotence in this matter!”
Miss Ashbrooke’s eyes twinkled as she looked at Priscilla. “A matchmaker never reveals her secrets – I would hardly want to put myself out of business! Suffice it to say, you did very well on your own for a while, but a few pokes and prods in the right direction did not hurt.”
Priscilla did not know whether to laugh or thank her. Miss Ashbrooke was such a strange lady; few friends, not married herself, and yet an expert in the ways of matrimony.
But before she could think of a response that would not offend, Miss Ashbrooke sighed heavily and left the window. “And now I must depart, or I shall find myself late to your wedding. Let me be the last to say, good day, Miss Seton.”
She was gone with a quiet click of the door, and Priscilla sighed deeply. Refreshingly direct as Miss Ashbrooke was, she was not entirely correct in taking all the glory for their engagement.
No, that was all down to them. Charles and her. True, it had taken them a little while to work it all out, and many tears had been shed before they had reconciled. But now they were going to get married.
Priscilla rose and felt her veil float about her shoulders. Today she was a bride. The most important bride in the land, for the Duke of Orrinshire was getting married.
As she descended the stairs, her mother smiled. “You look beautiful, Priscilla. Perfect for Westminster, though I say so myself, I would have expected a duke of the realm to be wed somewhere far more impressive than St. Gabriel’s in the village.”
“That is what Lady Audley said,” Priscilla said wryly. “Nothing would please her more that we use the preparations for the society wedding for Miss Lloyd.”
Even her mother wrinkled her nose at that. “Take on the plans made for Charles’s first engagement? With just two days’ notice? Surely not.”
Priscilla was handed a bouquet by Mrs. Busby. “That is what I said. These are beautiful, Mrs. Busby, thank you!”
The housekeeper bobbed a curtsey. “From my own garden, miss. It does my heart good to see you so happy, and I hope you will not forget us when you move into the big house.”
Priscilla squeezed her hand. “I am only half a mile away. I am hardly moving to the moon!”
The grandfather clock started chiming, and Mrs. Seton glanced at it nervously. “Almost eleven o’clock! We will certainly be late now, Priscilla, and if we do not leave now, we will give Charles a heart attack. Come on now.”
St. Gabriel’s was but a ten-minute walk into the village. The sun was shining against all expectations, the autumn leaves shimmering. The whole world was so much more alive than it ever had been – or was she just noticing the beauty of nature?
The bells of the church were chiming, and the vicar was waiting outside, a look of panic on his face which disappeared as soon as he saw the bride approaching with her mother.
“Miss Seton, we were beginning to think you weren’t coming!”
“Really, Reverend,” Mrs. Seton said in her imperious tone. “We are but five minutes late, and ’tis traditional for a bride to be late to her own wedding! Why, I was half an hour late for Mr. Seton, and I received no complaints!”
The vicar nodded, chided. “Yes, I know, but we will already be five minutes late because of the request from the young lady – ah yes, here she is.”
“Young lady?” Priscilla and her mother said together, and then the younger Seton said, “Frances!”
Miss Lloyd had stepped around the church. “Thank you, Reverend. We will be in shortly.”
The vicar bowed and returned to his altar, while Priscilla simply stared.
Miss Lloyd, here, now? What could she possibly want – surely she had not decided to derail the wedding? Her shoulders tensed as she anticipated the worst.
“I will leave you two ladies to discuss,” Mrs. Seton said, aware of the discomfort in
the air. “I will see you after all of this.”
She leaned forward and kissed her daughter on the cheek before following the vicar inside the church.
Priscilla wished her mother had not abandoned her right in her hour of need. What could Miss Lloyd possibly be thinking? She had been invited, to be sure, but only as a matter of course. She had not expected her to actually be here!
“I know I am probably the last person you wish to see today,” Miss Lloyd said quietly. “And I do not intend to hold you up for long. I simply wanted to tell you…this is the day you deserve, Priscilla.”
Priscilla swallowed, her mouth dry. “You…you mean that?”
Miss Lloyd smiled. “I cannot pretend it has not been a strange few months.”
They laughed, and Priscilla felt some of the tension leave her shoulders.
“You have taken nothing from me,” said Miss Lloyd. “You have nothing to reproach yourself for. You and Charles are made for each other, and I am honored to be a small part of your story.”
Priscilla opened her mouth to reply, but Miss Lloyd had already slipped into the church, leaving her alone by the church door.
She took a deep breath. These were the last few moments of being Miss Priscilla Seton. In just a few minutes…
The church bells stopped chiming, leaving a silence that rang out across the village. Priscilla tightened her grip on the bouquet and stepped into the church.
The pews were absolutely packed. It had been one of Lady Audley’s arguments for Westminster Abbey, and only now did Priscilla understand. When a duke was wed, several hundred people were invited as a matter of course, and it was standing room only at the back.
Every head turned to stare, and as the organ began, the guests rose.
The nave in St. Gabriel’s was long for the size of the church, but she could see Charles at the end of it, waiting for her at the altar.
Within sixty minutes, they will be more to each other than she could have ever hoped for. Husband and wife. For the rest of their lives.
“I have been waiting for you forever,” he murmured with a mischievous glint in his eyes as she eventually reached him.
Always the Rival (Never the Bride Book 7) Page 20