The Bridal Season

by Connie Brockway

  Chapter 3

  There are moments on stage when everything comes together.

  Then the kid in the front row coughs.

  Letty simply could not believe her good fortune. What with the train ticket first and then these poor, dear saps mistaking her for this Lady Agatha, she was having a hard time keeping herself from grinning like an idiot. Well, if life insisted on handing her flowers, she would simply make herself a bouquet.

  A day or so spying out the lay of the land, so to speak, then pack up Lady Agatha’s more portable precious pieces and bid a fond adieu to Little Bidewell. She nearly rubbed her palms together. And in the meantime, the scenery was decidedly better than one would expect in a backwater little burg like this.

  Sir Elliot March was, in the modern vernacular, yum. Even breathtaking in a reserved, elegant, and utterly toothsome sort of way. Letty, seated opposite the Bigglesworth ladies, kept having to forcibly drag her gaze from his broad shoulders to the landmarks her hostesses kept pointing out.

  Letty made appropriate noises of interest, but as she’d spent her first eight years on a country estate, trees didn’t exactly give her palpitations. The way Sir Elliot’s dark curls, ruthlessly combed into gleaming order, grazed his snowy white collar—now that caused some fluttering. She’d always been partial to the dark, courtly ones, but he… well, he raised the bar on masculine beauty. Blue-green eyes, black hair, a sensualist’s mouth, and an emperor’s nose.

  Not that she was the sort of girl to indulge in a spot of slap-and-tickle just because a man was good-looking. And a rude surprise that had been to any number of stage-door Johnnies, she thought cheerfully. Besides, Sir Elliot may not want to play slap-and-tickle with her.

  She frowned.

  Not that that was likely, and there was nothing of vanity in thinking it, either. To paraphrase the Bard, “A man was a man was a man.” When all was said and done, Sir Elliot March would prove no different from any other. They all wanted what they wanted, some just asked more graciously. And looked better doing it

  She sighed just as the carriage hit a deep rut in the lane.

  Eglantyne squelched a squeal and Angela gasped. Immediately, Sir Elliot drew the horses to a halt and swung around, his concern evident. “I’m sorry. Is everyone all right?”

  “Yes, Elliot. Thank you.”

  “Lady Agatha?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He turned back and flicked the reins, starting the team up again. Good manners were so…attractive. And Sir Elliot had really, really good manners.

  Of course, Letty thought, forcing down her enthusiasm, there wasn’t likely a whole lot more to do in a place like this other than practice elegant reticence. Sir Elliot would probably stutter into silence if he ever had to put more than a few polite phrases together.

  The jump the carriage had made had jounced her into the corner of the bench seat. From this angle she could see Sir Elliot’s profile. The final rays of the sun refracted off irises banked between thick, silky-looking black lashes. The firm contours of his lips were outlined against the sunset, as was the clean angle of his jaw. But it was his nose that bespoke his breeding.

  It was a fine, bold nose. A straight, aggressive nose, flaring at the nostrils. It was a nose that a man could proudly look down…and that’s just what his ancestors had done. Most likely on her ancestors.

  The thought sobered Letty. Her lips twitched in equal parts chagrin and amusement. If she had any sense at all—besides a disastrous sense of humor—she’d have as little to do with Sir Elliot as she could. From what she’d seen, he was the only one not so enamored with the idea of Lady Agatha Whyte’s sprucing up the Bigglesworth wedding that he wouldn’t take note of some little social misstep she might make.

  Another rut sent Fagin, newly christened “Lambikins,” tumbling to the floor. Eglantyne clucked her tongue sympathetically. Fagin, opportunistic little bugger that he was, immediately jumped into her lap and gazed mournfully into her eyes.

  Eglantyne responded with a spellbound widening of her eyes. With a deep sigh, Fagin laid his head gently on her flat maidenly chest. The poor old girl didn’t stand a chance. Fagin had perfected his melting gaze on the theater’s hardest hearts. Hesitantly, Eglantyne began stroking Fagin’s silky head.

  Another mortal felled by a canine cupid’s arrow! Letty thought before dismissing her dog’s newest conquest, and considering the plan that had sprung fullblown to mind as soon as she’d heard Eglantyne say the words, “your things.”

  The only possible clunker in her plan would be if the real Lady Agatha wrote a note and explained that she was on her honeymoon. Which eventually she would.

  It didn’t take a genius to see that Lady Agatha was a woman of high principles—a characteristic that made her the perfect dupe for people like Letty: One could count on how she would act. That being so, it would still be three or four days before a letter arrived, and Letty would be long gone by then.

  Still, Letty was glad she wouldn’t be here to witness Eglantyne’s disappointment. The sweet-faced woman obviously put a lot of stock in all this wedding rigmarole.

  Vehemently, Letty squashed the tiny pricks of guilt in her ruthlessly anesthetized conscience. These folks certainly didn’t need Lady Agatha’s things. Letty did. In the end, the Bigglesworths would be no worse off than before they’d mistaken her for Lady Agatha, and she’d be a good deal better.

  If she could pull it off. Which she might do if she was careful. And stayed away from handsome “sirs” with broad shoulders, elegant hands, and pretty eyes that held the memory of laughter in their depths.

  But why just the memory? Letty wondered.

  Eglantyne tapped her arm, distracting her from silly musings. “Almost here, Lady Agatha, watch for it now,” she said. “The Hollies.”

  They rode up a slight poplar-lined elevation and rounded a heavy flowering bank of rhododendrons, and there stood The Hollies, sprawled atop a grassy knoll. It was a broad, complacent, somehow happy-looking accident.

  Ells, projections, and porches gave evidence of years of haphazard, if fond, enlargement schemes. Part of it was covered in ivy; the rest bare and mellowed with age. Copper gleamed atop a set of cupolas and the myriad windows sparkled with the deep orchid hues of the setting sun.

  “I hope it is large enough for your plans,” Eglantyne said. “We’ve opened all the rooms. Even those that have been closed since last century. I’m sorry it’s such a hodgepodge. But it’s only a farmhouse. I do hope the marquis’s family think it up to snuff,” she said worriedly.

  “The marquis,” Letty repeated. Now this was getting interesting.

  Eglantyne looked at her with dawning inspiration. “Why, I never thought to ask before. But how absurd of me! You probably know the Sheffields,” Eglantyne said eagerly.

  Sheffields? Not bloody likely. She knew of them though, everyone did. Only thing the family had more of than money was starch. Starchier than wallpaper paste, they were. Too good for the likes of music halls.

  “No, I’m afraid I’ve never had that honor,” Letty murmured, her thoughts racing as she glanced at Angela. The girl’s face had pinked over becomingly and no wonder. The pretty little puss had won herself the Marquis of Cotton. And she looked such a naive, unprepossessing little thing.

  Well, well. Who’d have thought? Letty eyed the pretty puss with a new respect.

  “I’m sure it will do,” she said to Eglantyne.

  Only a farmhouse? Letty thought. Though she’d been raised in one of England’s grandest manor houses, she’d been a servant’s bastard, tolerated only because of her mother’s unparalleled skill with a needle. She’d never been allowed to venture into those parts of the house where the Fallontrues lived. Certainly, she’d never spent a night as a guest in anything as grand as The Hollies. It was so large it could have contained the entire row of attached houses where Letty had rented rooms.

  Until Nick had burnt it down.

  He’d be looking for her now. Searching. A
few questions at the right railroad station might lead him to her. And this time he might step over the line and hurt someone in order to bring her to heel. Maybe even her.

  For a while she’d been so lost in the unexpected boon of being mistaken for Lady Agatha, and then the gorgeous Sir Elliot, that she’d forgotten what had brought her here. Not a well-contrived confidence game, but chance and necessity. By the time they’d circled the old-fashioned lime-lined drive and drawn to a halt, her mood was sober.

  “We generally use the east door,” Eglantyne explained. “It leads into the oldest part of the house and, well, to be honest, we rather like the Great Hall. That must seem rather feudal and silly to you.”

  “No,” Letty said, automatically answering the anxiety in Eglantyne’s voice. “Not at all. In fact, feudal things are the latest craze in London.”

  “Craze?” Eglantyne echoed.

  “Yes, craze. You know. Rage. Fad. Too-too and all that,” Letty explained.

  “Really?” Angela piped in, wide-eyed.

  Letty hesitated on the brink of recanting her claim. But the women were regarding her so hopefully and it only took a simple fib to make their day all the brighter, and besides, maybe feudal things were all the rage in High Society. Stranger things had happened. “Oh, most definitely.”

  “Hard on the heels of last year’s vogue for gladiatorial themes, no doubt,” Sir Elliot said.

  Letty’s gaze shot up to meet Sir Elliot’s. One of his dark brows was arched inscrutably. Apparently, he was capable of more than rote phrases.

  And in such a voice. Gads, it wasn’t fair that a man with such looks should be given such a beautiful voice. If sound could caress, she’d be purring right now. It was that silky and low, but masculine. Decidedly masculine.

  With an unfathomable quirk of his lips, Sir Elliot descended from the carriage and came round to the side. He even moved elegantly, Letty thought. Not like a slumming lordling, all slouching indolence and loose-limbed hauteur, but with precise military grace.

  He must have been devastating in uniform.

  He opened the carriage door and lifted out the steps.

  “Is it true, Lady Agatha?” Eglantyne—whom Letty was quickly marking down as being nearly flawless in her credulity—breathed. “I mean about the gladiator thing?”

  Letty pondered. She didn’t think so. Probably not. Besides, how would Sir Elliot know anything about anything, stuck way up here, twenty miles from nowhere? Or could he? Blast. “Ah, mmm.”

  Elliot handed Eglantyne down before extending his hand to Letty. He looked directly into her eyes. He had lashes that would make a girl weep with jealousy, and his gaze clearly revealed he hadn’t believed a word of what she’d said.

  I must remember, Letty thought, still staring, that just because a gentleman lives in a backwater burg does not mean he is gullible.

  Fagin, tired of waiting for her, squirmed under her skirts and, spying a rabbit, jumped to the ground and hied off after it.

  “Lady Agatha!” Eglantyne exclaimed. “Your little doggie!”

  But Letty could not pull free of Sir Elliot’s gaze, nor did she see any compelling reason to do so. Fagin was a London native. A bunny posed no threat to him. “Little doggie,” she muttered, “will be fine.”

  His big, warm hand wrapped around hers. She stared. “Lady Agatha?”

  Her heart tripped in her chest and her cheeks grew warm… Gads! She was blushing, she realized in horror. She hadn’t blushed in years!

  She erupted from her seat, snatched her hand from his, and clattered unaided down the steps.

  Next, Sir Elliot helped Angela Bigglesworth from the carriage.

  Letty’s gaze sharpened on Angela and thoughts of Sir Elliot momentarily receded. Angela Bigglesworth didn’t look to Letty like a woman who was about to achieve the matrimonial coup of the decade. Instead of gloating—which to Letty’s mind a woman who’d achieved more than God, economics, or Society had intended of her, had not only the right, but quite possibly the obligation to do—she looked more like a girl who’d found something unpleasant in her treacle pudding.

  Now that was interesting.

  “You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you, Elliot?” Eglantyne asked and Sir Elliot once more claimed the center of Letty’s attention.

  “Thank you, but I am afraid I must decline, Miss Bigglesworth. I’ve some work I must attend to.”

  “Well, at least we’ll see you at the picnic tomorrow,” Eglantyne said. “And remind the Professor that Grace has made some of those saffron buns he’s so partial to.” She leaned toward Letty. “The Professor is Sir Elliot’s father.”

  “We are spoiled by your attentions, ma’am,” Elliot said, and Letty had a glimpse of the affection he felt for his father. Why that sent a thrill through her, she didn’t know. Men with dueling scars, men with wicked smiles and brooding good looks, untamed men with wild ways—now those were the kind of men who had always thrilled her.

  Men like Nick? an inner voice sneered.

  She was potty, that was it. Fire, unemployment, and Nick Sparkle had all conspired to drive her daft. It was just that Sir Elliot was—no, she abjured herself—seemed so different from the other men she’d known. In her present state she was just as likely to develop a passion for the vegetable gardener.

  “I hope the business is not of a serious nature?” Eglantyne asked.

  “Oh, no. Just a small matter that needs some looking into, and I’d best get to it,” Elliot said. “If you ladies will excuse me?”

  “Of course.”

  Once more his gaze touched Letty’s face and she was visited by an unwarranted impulse to fuss with her hair and powder her nose. He tipped his hat and climbed up into the driver’s seat. “Miss Bigglesworth. Lady Agatha. Miss Angela.”

  “I am sorry Sir Elliot had to leave,” Letty said, watching him drive off. “You will miss his company.”

  “Oh, yes,” Eglantyne nodded. “But that’s what happens when a conscientious man holds an office of such responsibility.”

  “And what office might that be?”

  “Oh? Didn’t I say? Why, Sir Elliot is our local magistrate. He is responsible for all the criminal cases—” She stopped. “Lady Agatha! My dear, are you feeling all right?”

  Chapter 4

  If you forget your lines,

  you had better mumble with conviction.

  “The local magistrate?” Letty echoed faintly. The bloody local judge and jury for the whole bloody county?

  Her head swam with new interpretations for Sir Elliot’s sidelong glances and frowns of puzzlement, one that had nothing to do with her irresistibility as a woman. And then, just as she was castigating herself for her conceit, her sense of humor saved her and she stifled a laugh.

  “Yes. He was a barrister until a few years ago when he accepted the position, Little Bidewell being the county seat and all,” Eglantyne said.

  And who had his clients been, Letty wondered, linking her arm through Eglantyne’s, the local livestock? She was amazed a barrister could even make a living in a burg like this, but then maybe Sir Elliot didn’t need to make a living. He certainly dressed beautifully. And expensively.

  They mounted the front steps and the door swung open, held by a small, rosy-cheeked, redheaded maid who took one look at Letty, scuttled backward, and slammed the door shut.

  “Merry.’’ Eglantyne sighed and rapped sharply on the door.

  “Our Merry is in awe of titles,” Angela explained. “It was a full three months after he was knighted before she could bring herself to open the door to Sir Elliot.”

  The door abruptly swung inward with nary a sign of Merry to be seen. Lambikins, née Fagin, appeared out of nowhere and trotted past them into the hall as though to the manor born. Letty followed, looking around in delight.

  Feudal? This was positively arcane. The oak-coffered ceiling soared two stories overhead, while beneath her feet an enormous Oriental carpet glowed in the last of the sunlight pouring in through a
bank of west-facing windows. Tapestries, suspended from the minstrel gallery railing above, fluttered in the evening breeze. The headpiece from a suit of armor peeked sheepishly from behind a lush arrangement of potted palms.

  “Stop popping your head in and out of the door, Anton,” Eglantyne said, interrupting Letty’s looking about.

  “Confound it, Eglantyne, I wasn’t popping.” A slight gentleman with thin, snow-white hair appeared in a doorway at the side of the hall. The sharp upward tilt of his bristling white eyebrows stamped his face with an expression of perpetual surprise, while beneath them sparkled small, raisin-dark eyes. On his shoulders, fluffy white muttonchops bobbed like frothed egg white.

  “Ahem.” He cleared his throat.

  “May I introduce my brother, Lady Agatha?” Eglantyne said. “Anton Bigglesworth. Anton, Lady Agatha Whyte.”

  Anton crossed the room with a scurrying gait and, before she realized what he was about, grabbed her hand and shook it eagerly. “Pleased to meet you, Lady Agatha. Kind of you to… That is, it’s deuced nice… Er…”

  He flushed profusely.

  Poor old duffer. He didn’t have any better notion about how to go on than she. Though socially her inferior—or rather Lady Agatha’s—he was still her—or rather Lady Agatha’s—employer, and the social niceties of the situation were obviously right posers for him.

  “That is to say, I am honored…You do us a great fav—”

  She couldn’t let the poor little grub quibble himself into a stew like this. “Not at all, Mr. Bigglesworth. I am only too pleased to be able to offer my services.” He broke into a relieved smile. “Thank you. I suppose we ought to go into my office and see about paying you your fee?”

  “Father!” Angela broke in, scandalized. “Not now! Lady Agatha has traveled all the way from London. She must be exhausted. She’ll want to see her rooms and rest before dinner.”