by Laura Landon
Nellie closed her eyes and smiled.
Hugh Wythers looked around the ballroom and searched for another marriage-minded debutante who might fit his requirements. Of course, focusing was deucedly difficult when one had consumed as much liquor as he had tonight. But what did he expect? He’d just discovered the second love of his life was about to announce her engagement to someone else.
Well, that might be a slight exaggeration. No female would ever be the love of his life. The only female he intended to claim to love was one wealthy enough that her dowry would support his extravagant lifestyle in London so he wouldn’t have to live a hellishly boring life in the country.
He never intended to actually love her. He only intended to play the part of a loving husband while enjoying the substantial quarterly income from her massive dowry.
He reached for a glass from the tray of a passing footman and took a long swallow. Bloody hell. Charlotte . . . or Carlotta . . . or . . .
Hugh took another swallow from his glass. What the hell was the name of the chit who’d just rejected his offer of marriage?
He finished the liquor in his glass and staggered about looking for a place to discard it. He was running out of time. The Season was three-quarters gone and all the eligible young debutantes would go to the country for the summer. And so would he.
A knot lodged in his gut. Soon he would have to retire to the country the same as all the other landholders and pretend interest in the running of his estate.
Catherine . . . or Constance . . . or . . . whoever the hell she was had been the second wealthy debutante in a week who’d turned down his offer.
He couldn’t believe it. Females usually fell at his feet. He was rumored to be one of the most handsome men in London. Surely that should be enough to get him a wife with a massive dowry. So why had two females already turned him down?
Hugh looked around for another servant with a full tray of liquor. He needed another drink.
Instead of spotting another servant, though, he eyed a wall of muscled shoulders and chests coming his way.
“There you are, Hugh,” Captain Caleb Parker said, stepping to his right side.
“We’ve been looking all over for you,” Lieutenant Jeb Danvers said, stepping to his left.
Captain Ford Remington and his wife, Lady Calinda Remington, stopped in front of him.
“Hello, Lieutenant,” Lady Calinda said, smiling at him.
“My lady, itsha pleasure to shee you.” Hugh nearly fell as he attempted to execute a bow. He stumbled to the side, and several hands reached out to steady him.
Hugh held up one finger. “I can manage, friends,” he slurred as he staggered again. “I’m not drunk. I’m just a little . . .” Hugh stopped as he struggled to find the right word he needed. “. . . just a little . . . tipshy.”
“Yes, Hugh,” Ford said. “You are indeed a little tipsy.”
“Lieutenant,” Lady Calinda said, hooking her arm through his. “Would you care to accompany me outside?”
Hugh smiled. “Can we leave your husband in here?”
Lady Calinda laughed, and it was like music to his ears—all harps and harpsichords.
“No, Lieutenant. I’m sure he will want to accompany us.”
Hugh gave his friend a dark look, then took his first unsteady step toward the terrace.
He attempted to walk a straight line. He didn’t want his friends to think he was completely sotted, something he seldom was. Hugh was known to be able to hold his liquor. Except tonight. Staying sober tonight seemed an impossible feat.
He finally reached the outdoors and breathed in a gulp of fresh air. He thought that would make the world stop moving so unsteadily, but if anything, it only caused it to spin more erratically.
“Can you believe it?” he announced to his friends. He leaned against the railing to help hold himself steady. “Lady Charlotte is going to marry that . . . that dunderhead . . .” Hugh paused while he struggled to remember the dunderhead’s name. Finally, he placed his hand atop Jeb’s shoulder and leaned close. “Do you know who she’s going to marry?” he asked.
“Treverton,” Jeb answered. “It’s Lady Claudine, and she’s going to marry Lord Treverton.”
“Claudine! That’s who I was going to marry. That’s right. It’s what I get for choosing a female everyone else in Society wants.”
“Maybe you’re fortunate, Hugh,” Caleb Danvers said. “I hear she’s difficult to please.”
Hugh shook his head. “But she has a large, large, very large dowry,” Hugh slurred as he threw his arms open wide. “And I need a big, big dowry if I don’t want to end up living in the country.”
“Perhaps living in the country wouldn’t be so bad.” Ford pulled Hugh back when he started to lean too far over the railing.
“Wouldn’t be so bad?” he asked in disbelief. “Have you ever been there?”
“Where?” Jeb asked.
“The country!” Hugh bellowed. “The country! There’s nothing to do there except watch the cows and sheep eat grass!”
His three fellow traitors and Lady Calinda all laughed. “I’m sure there’s more to do than that,” Lady Calinda said. “My father and brother spent a great deal of their time fishing and hunting and riding each year. And of course, overseeing the estate. Then, every summer we would invite guests for a two-week-long summer party.” Lady Calinda looked up at him with excitement in her pretty blue eyes. “You could have a party and invite all of us,” she suggested.
Hugh burst out of the circle of his friends and staggered across the terrace. Such a life sounded absolutely horrid.
He needed to think. He needed to form another plan. He needed a drink. He stopped beside Caleb. “Would you be a good chap and find someone with a tray?”
“In a minute,” Caleb answered. “I will in a minute.”
Hugh staggered to the side, then wove his way to the far corner of the terrace. He was desperate. Time was running out. He needed to find a female with a large dowry. A female who was desperate to marry.
Suddenly, he realized he’d had the wrong requisites in a bride. He spun around and staggered back to where his friends stood. “I know what I’ve been doing wrong,” he said throwing out his arms to emphasize his awakening. “I’ve been looking for someone pretty. Someone beautiful.” He cast his arms wider and staggered several steps toward the railing. “Someone every other male in Shoshiety wants.”
“Why don’t you come over here?” Caleb said. “You’re getting too close to the edge of the terrace.”
Hugh ignored the warning. “What do I care what my bride looks like? What do I care if she has two heads and a hairy chin?”
Hugh staggered, but caught himself on the cement balustrade that rimmed the terrace.
“Hugh,” his friends called out in warning, but he waved their concern aside.
“Listen. Don’t you see? All that matters is that she has a large enough dowry that I can live off it and never have to spend a day in the country.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” Ford said. “Now why don’t you step away from the railing?”
“Of course!” Hugh was so excited he could have leaped for joy. He turned in a circle then staggered, then . . .
“Hugh!”
He heard his friends call his name, then felt himself tumble through the air.
“Oomph,” he called out when he hit the ground. He landed with a thud and saw stars.
“Oh, my,” he heard a feminine voice say. “Are you all right?”
Hugh struggled to breathe. He fought to open his eyes, but his eyelids wouldn’t cooperate.
Soft gloved hands caressed his cheeks, then rested his aching head in a lap of silky softness. “Are you all right?” she repeated.
Hugh struggled to open his eyes. It took more than one attempt before he could focus. But when he did, he found himself staring into the plainest, most nondescript . . . dare he say, the homeliest . . . face he’d ever seen. A face just like he’d imagine
d—and she even had two heads.
“Just lie still,” she said in the voice of an angel.
But he couldn’t lie still. He’d just found the woman of his dreams. And he had to have her.
Hugh lifted his arm and wrapped it around the plain and unremarkable woman’s neck and brought her face down to his.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered, then pulled her mouth close to his and kissed her.
Hugh put every ounce of passionate effort he could manage into his kiss. He had to show her how serious he was.
She pushed against him at first, but he couldn’t let her break the kiss. Not yet. Not until she realized how much he wanted her. How important it was that she want him, too.
He kissed her until she relaxed atop him, then kissed her in all seriousness.
“Hugh!”
He heard several voices call his name but couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to stop him from doing something he enjoyed so much.
“Hugh!” they called out again. “Unhand her.”
Hugh reluctantly ended the kiss, then looked into the most ordinary, plain, unremarkable, nondescript, face he’d ever seen.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered before the lady in his arms pushed away from him. “You’re just what I need. You’re not at all pretty. In fact . . . you’re almost ugly.”
Suddenly, Hugh’s head hit the ground with a thud, and the lady he’d been kissing bolted to her feet.
Hugh knew he should rise, but he couldn’t. All he could do was lie on the ground, stare up at the stars . . . and smile.
He’d just found the answer to his problems.
Chapter 3
Hugh woke the next morning with a head that pounded as if someone was pealing the bells of Westminster between his ears. He didn’t remember how he’d made it home or remember climbing the stairs to his room. In fact, he remembered very little of the night before. Especially what he’d done after he’d heard that Lady Claudine was going to marry Viscount Treverton instead of him.
Hugh groaned in agony, then slowly opened his eyes. When he could at least focus on the colors of the room, he realized the reason he didn’t remember entering his room was that . . . he hadn’t. He hadn’t gotten any farther than his study.
He rolled to his side and fell off the sofa. The hard floor came up to meet him in a most unforgiving fashion, and he moaned in pain. He tried but was unable to move.
“When you can manage to sit up,” a male voice said from somewhere in the room, “I have a pot of white willow tea waiting for you.”
Without turning his head much, Hugh shifted his gaze in the direction of the voice.
“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t move.”
“I don’t doubt it. I’m surprised you’re even alive to face another day.”
“I’m not alive,” Hugh said closing his eyes. “I’m just too cowardly to give in to death.”
The owner of the voice rose from the overstuffed wing chair near the fireplace. Hugh heard footsteps approach until Caleb Parker came into view.
“I’m going to help you up if you promise not to cast up your accounts all over my shoes.”
“I never get sick from excessive imbibing.”
“I’ll let you explain that to the unfortunate servant who was assigned to clean out your carriage this morning.”
The words Hugh uttered were ones he never used. Even in front of his friends. “Help me sit,” he said, gathering all the strength he could muster to help Caleb lift his six foot three inch body.
Caleb stood behind him and slid his arms beneath Hugh’s armpits, then with a loud groan, propped Hugh against the sofa from which he’d fallen.
“Here.” Caleb handed Hugh a cup of tea laced with white willow. Hugh drank the restorative tea in almost one gulp and held out his cup for Caleb to refill. After replenishing Hugh’s cup a third time, Caleb sat in the chair opposite where Hugh sat on the floor.
“Do you remember what happened last night?” Caleb asked.
“No.” Hugh took another swallow of his hangover remedy. “Do I want to?”
“No.”
Hugh growled another vile curse beneath his breath. “Are the authorities going to come to arrest me?”
Hugh was relieved when Caleb laughed.
“No.”
“Then perhaps I can handle knowing.”
Caleb refilled Hugh’s cup, then sat back in his chair. “Before we get into the more questionable events of the evening, why don’t you tell me what led you to drink so much that you lost memory of last night? We’ve been in our cups more times than I can count, and I’ve never witnessed you so drunk before.”
“That’s because I’ve never been so drunk.”
“Why last night? What happened to cause that?”
Hugh finished the bitter brew, then refused when Caleb offered more and set his cup beside him on the floor. It was time Hugh confided in someone, and who better than one of his closest friends?
“You know that my father gave me the deed to one of his estates.”
“Yes, Red Oaks. I’ve been there with you. It’s magnificent.”
“Yes, it is.” Hugh pushed himself from the floor and sat on the sofa. “What I failed to mention is that now that the estate is mine, I will no longer receive any financial assistance from my father.”
“None?”
“Not one farthing. Any money I require to sustain my lifestyle in Town will have to come from the profits earned from my estate.”
A frown covered Caleb’s face. “I’m not sure why that’s such a concern. From what I remember of Red Oaks, it appears to be a profitable estate.”
“It is. Because my father and my brother have seen to it. They’ve made every decision for the running of the estate and have handed down the instructions to the steward, who follows their orders.”
“Well, that seems manageable.”
“It would be, yes, if I had the slightest idea of how to manage an estate. But I don’t. I never paid attention when Father instructed Chad on what decisions to make.”
Hugh closed his eyes. “I don’t have the vaguest idea of how to rotate crops, or how many sheep can graze on how much land, or how to sell the wool sheared from the sheep, or even how or when to shear a damn sheep.”
“Oh,” Caleb said.
“Not only that,” Hugh said, sitting up and staring at Caleb. “I hate life in the country. I don’t want to live in the country. I’ll go bloody mad if I have to live at Red Oaks.”
“So what do you intend to do?”
“What I have been attempting since my father gave me this ultimatum—to marry a suitable female with a massive dowry and live in the City. The estate can go to rot and ruin for all I care.” Hugh leaned forward and propped his forearms on his knees. “I thought I’d found the perfect female a month or so ago. She was ripe with a massive dowry, but she rejected my suit and announced her betrothal to someone else.”
Hugh lifted his head. “But I didn’t let that deter me. I continued my search and found another suitable female.”
“The Lady Claudine who is now betrothed to Lord Treverton,” Caleb mumbled.
“Yes.” Hugh raked his hand across his face. “I was certain she would accept my proposal. I’d even spoken to her father, and he was more than agreeable. He liked the idea of having a war hero as a son-in-law, and I didn’t bother to explain I was far from being a war hero. That to many, I was considered a traitor.”
“We weren’t traitors,” Caleb argued. “That was only the role we played.”
“Nevertheless, I discovered last night that Lady Claudine intended to marry Lord Treverton. I no longer have a prospect for a bride, and I am running out of time.”
Caleb frowned again. “Would you care to explain why you were searching for an ugly bride? Lady Claudine is hardly ugly. In fact, most of Society would consider her one of the beauties of the Season.”
Hugh crawled to his feet. The room swayed for a moment, but eventually he was stea
dy enough that he could make it across the room and lean against the fireplace mantel. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” he said staring into the dying flames.
“All you could go on about was that you needed to find an ugly female. That your mistake was in searching for a beautiful bride. You needed someone plain, ordinary, and ugly.”
Faint recollections seeped into his mind. He vaguely remembered mentioning some sort of drivel about searching for an ugly bride. Had he really said something so inexcusable? So shameful? So reprehensible?
Hugh clenched his fingers around the edge of the mantel. The fog concealing his memory slowly lifted to reveal a woman’s face. A stranger to him.
“Tell me everything,” Hugh demanded.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“What I’m sure of is that I may have insulted someone I had no right to offend. Did I?”
“Yes. You did.”
Caleb slowly, in as gentle terms as Hugh was sure his friend could find, explained what Hugh had done. What he’d said. How he’d acted. If Hugh hadn’t been ill before, he was after his friend told him what he’d done the night before. He’d never felt more ashamed of himself than he did at that moment.
“Who was she?”
“Her name is Lady Annalise Lyman.”
“What do you know about her?”
“She’s the eldest of the Earl of Lyman’s six daughters.”
“Six?”
“Yes. From what I’ve discovered, she’s nearing her thirtieth year. She had three disastrous Seasons and retired to the country where she helps her father manage his estate. She’s returned to London only to chaperone her youngest sister during her come-out.”
“Do her sisters look like her?”
Caleb smiled at Hugh’s question, and Hugh turned to face his friend. “I didn’t mean that as it sounded. Truly, I didn’t. I am simply not familiar with the Earl of Lyman’s daughters.”