Catch of the Season (The Marvelous Munroes Book 2)

by Regina Scott

  “Well,” Allison said with a grin, “there have been a great many times when you should have begged my pardon, but when I’ve confessed that I love you isn’t one of them. I do, you know. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to realize it.”

  Geoffrey blinked, took a step toward her, then belatedly realized he still held the baby. With a nervous laugh, he handed her back to Allison. Smiling, Allison accepted the baby and returned her to her joyous parents.

  –

  When Allison pulled back out of the carriage, she was surprised to find Geoffrey nowhere in sight. Craning her neck, she peered around the side of the carriage.

  “Up here,” Geoffrey called from the driver’s box.

  Allison frowned up at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Do you think your sister can manage a short drive?” he asked. “I’d like to take us to the Abbey.”

  “I’ll tell them,” Allison said. She climbed back into the carriage not a little perplexed. Here she had just declared her love for the man, and he hadn’t so much as acknowledged it! She crossed her arms on her chest and sat in the stuffy carriage, while Alan and Genevieve billed and cooed over each other and their baby. By the time they had rattled their way up the drive to the Abbey, she had worked herself into quite a fit of pique.

  The Munroe coachman was not as skilled as Jack Coachman in getting his horses harnessed and ready. Mrs. Munroe was still pacing in front of the stables, for once in her life actually looking a bit flustered, when Geoffrey drove the carriage into the coaching yard. She was more than delighted to hustle the couple and new grandchild into the Abbey. Perkins seemed rather put out about the entire unorthodox state of affairs. Chimes merely winked at Geoffrey, throwing up a carpet bag that Geoffrey made fast to the luggage rack.

  Allison frowned, wondering what that was all about, but Chimes was fairly dancing with glee.

  “Even her ladyship is put out with Perkins this time,” her man confided. “I daresay he won’t be with us much longer.”

  “Congratulations,” Geoffrey replied with a smile.

  “Congratulations yourself,” Chimes chuckled. “I’m pleased to be able to say I said it before any of them. I understand you can make the trip by two days with a coach like this.”

  Geoffrey’s smile widened.

  A trip? Where was Geoffrey going? Allison started for the Abbey, feeling forgotten. She was delighted for her sister and Alan, exhausted from the birth, and depressed beyond anything that Geoffrey hadn’t cared enough to respond to her declaration. Her capricious behavior this Season had obviously destroyed any affection he felt for her. Either that or he had simply run out of patience waiting for her love to bloom.

  Before she could let the tears she was holding back fall, Geoffrey caught her arm. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he declared, swinging her back toward him.

  Allison grunted as she bumped against his solid chest. “What?” she snapped, knowing she must be pouting. “Have you deigned to notice my existence at last?”

  He grinned at her. “I’ve noticed your existence since you were born, moonling. I noticed it and I rather liked it. Now, I’m going to do what I should have done long months ago.” He tightened his grip on her, and Allison’s blood raced, realizing he was going to kiss her again. Before he could make good on the threat, however, he paused. “Do you want a huge wedding?”

  “Wedding?” Allison squeaked. She threw her arms around him and hugged him. “Oh, Geoffrey, you do love me!”

  He returned the hug, arms strong and sure. “Of course I love you, moonling. I may not have been able to say it, but I’m about to prove it.”

  “How?” Allison asked, pulling back, his tone sending shivers up her spine.

  He kissed her once, sending fire throughout her chilled body, then twice, warming her to her toes, then a third time as if for good measure. “We’re eloping to Gretna Green,” he murmured against her hair. “By the time anyone can protest, we’ll be married.”

  “Oh, Geoffrey,” Allison cried, “why didn’t you think of that sooner?”

  Epilogue

  Allison dangled the red ribbon in front of her namesake’s dear face and watched the baby’s dark blue eyes widen.

  “She looks just like Alan,” the dowager Mrs. Pentercast proclaimed.

  “My dear Fancine, you never could see what was in front of you,” murmured Mrs. Munroe. “She clearly resembles Gen.”

  “You’re both fair and far off,” Geoffrey declared, climbing down from the ladder where he had been hanging the last of the kissing boughs in the Abbey withdrawing room. “If she looks like anyone she looks like me.”

  Mrs. Munroe sniffed. Mrs. Pentercast smiled at him indulgently. Allison gazed at her husband thoughtfully.

  “I do believe you’re right,” she replied, trying to keep from grinning. “Her face is nearly as puckered as yours when you’ve come in from the winter cold after checking for the fourth time that those six draft horses are cared for. And there is a certain smell about her that reminds me of you, particularly when she needs changing.”

  Geoffrey scowled at her, and she gave it up and let out a peal of laughter. Geoffrey held out his arms demandingly.

  “I’ll not have my niece influenced against me. Bring her here.”

  Still chuckling, Allison rose and did as he bid. He accepted the baby and darted in to kiss Allison on the cheek. When she started, he grinned, nodding up at the kissing bough overhead. Allison shook her head, smiling wryly.

  Chimes pushed open the door to admit himself, Alan, and Genevieve. Alan stomped his feet as if to ward off the winter chill, and Genevieve hurried to take back her daughter. Chimes dragged the Yule log into the room and plopped it down next to the fireplace.

  “And will you demand to be first to sit on it, Master Geoffrey, as you did last year?” he asked, dusting his hands off on his already rumpled black coat.

  Geoffrey drew Allison into the circle of his arms. “Not I, Chimes. I have a fine house, the beginnings of a fine stable, and I’m married to the catch of the Season. I have all the luck I need.”

  Allison felt a warm glow and knew it wasn’t from the flames rising from the fire.

  “Master Alan?” Chimes tried.

  Alan pulled his wife and daughter close and shook his head. “Nor I. There’s nothing I’d wish for I don’t have right here.”

  Chimes glanced about the room. His black-eyed gaze fell on the Allison’s mother. “Madam?”

  Mrs. Munroe stiffened and merely glared at him. Mrs. Pentercast giggled. “No, thank you Chimes, for both of us.”

  “What a pity,” Mrs. Munroe murmured, opening her fan and applying it gently, “that Perkins did not work out. He seemed such a splendid butler.”

  “There she goes again,” Chimes muttered, kicking the log into the fireplace and heading toward the door. “As if that man would stay where there were likely to be children. No sense of family that one.” He paused and rubbed his hands together, glancing over at Allison and Geoffrey. “You wait. Your turn will be next. I feel it in my bones.”

  Allison blushed under the knowing black eyes. She glanced up at Geoffrey, who was grinning at the old man, unaware. She cleared her throat. “Actually, I feel it in my bones as well. And elsewhere.”

  Geoffrey gazed down at her, grin fading and eyes widening as he took her meaning. “Are you saying…”

  She hugged him close. “It’s a good thing you’ve had so much practice at birthing babies, Geoffrey. You’re going to be a father.”

  Geoffrey kissed her soundly, then beamed. “Allison, that’s, that’s famous!”

  “And speaking of birthing babies,” Genevieve put in when congratulations had been passed all about. “I never did hear where you mastered the skill, Geoffrey. I own you did a marvelous job with my Allison. When did you learn?”

  Geoffrey’s eyes twinkled. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes!” she declared.

  “Yes, please,” Allison agreed beside him.

&
nbsp; “Then gather around the fire, and I’ll tell you the story of how I was exiled to Enoch McCreedy’s farm.”

  “A farm?” Gen asked, paling. “Does this have anything to do with animals?”

  Geoffrey grinned at her. “No ferrets, I promise. But I won’t make the claim about other animals.”

  Dear Reader

  I hope you enjoyed Geoffrey and Allison’s story. They were two strong-willed characters, but I’m glad they both realized they were perfect for each other. If you missed Alan and Gen’s love story, check out My True Love Gave to Me.

  If you enjoyed the book, there’s several things you could do now:

  Sign up for a free e-mail alert with exclusive bonus content so you’ll be the first to know whenever a new book is out.

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  Post a review on a bookseller or reader site to help others find the book.

  Discover my many other books on my website.

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of the next book in The Marvelous Munroes, The Marquis’ Kiss, where the Marquis DeGuis finds himself courting the last woman he’d ever expect to marry, the Original Margaret Munroe.

  Blessings!

  Regina Scott

  Sneak Peek: The Marquis’ Kiss, Book 3 in The Marvelous Munroes Series

  The very Original Margaret Munroe completed her circle of the dance floor and approached a group of older people watching the dancers at the Baminger ball. One of the gentlemen, a staunch military fellow, the Earl of Rillson, stiffened as she approached. Refusing to meet her gaze, he excused himself from the group and scurried away, face going nearly as pale as his white mustache. She vaguely remembered recently telling him he looked very well for a man of his age and habits. Was she to blame that he had liver spots and gout?

  Her stepmother had had apoplexy. “Honestly, Margaret,” she had chastised as soon as the embarrassed man was out of earshot, “can you never think before you speak? How am I to find you a husband if you cannot behave in a civilized fashion?”

  That was the problem, of course. The second Mrs. Munroe was determined that Margaret not waste her fourth season. Having married Margaret’s widowed father when Margaret was seventeen, Margaret’s stepmother had immediately set about to prove she was the perfect Society matron and just as good at arranging parties as the renowned Mrs. Ermintrude Munroe, Margaret’s aunt. Aunt Ermintrude was a legend for her good taste and impeccable breeding. Her one area of failure was that her daughters had not married well. Therefore, it was imperative that Mrs. Helen Munroe do better by Margaret. The quest had cost Helen more than five years so far. With her reputation at stake, she was getting desperate. Margaret must find a husband, before the end of the Season, which was only six weeks away.

  Margaret tried to remember that the relentless prodding toward finding a mate came from her stepmother’s firm belief that the only way to happiness was marriage. All women married; that was how one lived. No Munroe had ever remained a spinster; it was unthinkable. Helen could not be so ignoble as to fail in this sacred duty.

  Unfortunately for her stepmother, Margaret was equally certain that marriage would doom her to misery. She was smart enough to recognize that she had little in common with most young ladies her age. They minced through dances as if afraid to wrinkle their gowns; she gave herself over to the joy of the music. They perched on horseback and trotted along flower-bordered paths. She donned breeches in the country and slung herself across saddles built for men to pound across open fields. Only in London did she succumb to her stepmother’s pleas to wear a riding habit and use a sidesaddle. While the other London ladies paid house calls on each other and congratulated themselves on their proper breeding, she spent her days looking for the most despised of citizens and helping them return to useful roles in society. Her stepmother despaired of her. Even her father prophesied that only a husband would curb her strange tendencies. Yet, if her father and stepmother could not appreciate her many eccentricities, how could she expect a husband to understand her?

  Not that she abhorred the gentlemen in any way. That was one thing she shared with the other young ladies here for the Season—a healthy fascination with the male. She certainly couldn’t dance without one, and it was much more fun to race when she was racing against one. True, some of the more stuffy gentlemen seemed appalled by her antics. Viscount Darton, whom she had beaten soundly in a private race last year, was a good example of that breed. He preferred his young ladies docile and colorless. A woman who could best him in anything clearly confused and frightened him. She’d never forgotten how stunned he’d looked at the end of the race when she’d peeled off the coachman’s cape to reveal herself. It still smarted that her father had made her return the mare she had fairly won.

  “We can’t have people talking,” he had scolded her. “You’re a fine girl, Margaret, but some fellows can’t abide a lady who shows them up. I know the Bible talks about not hiding our lights under a basket, but sometimes it’s perfectly all right to tone down the brightness.”

  She, of course, did not agree, but she loved her father too much to argue about something so trivial. She had a wonderful thoroughbred gelding named Aeolus, far better than the three-year-old mare. The horse had gone home.

  Much as she disliked the self-important types like Viscount Darton, however, any number of the gentlemen she had met last year and this were intelligent and had some appreciation for the activities she found interesting. Lord Leslie Petersborough was nearly as good a rider as she was, even if he couldn’t win a carriage race over Chas Prestwick. Chas Prestwick was always up for an adventure, although she had to be careful not to let their adventures become known. The curricle race to Lincoln’s Inn Fields last month had nearly cost her a week of dancing before she was able to convince her father that no one else would have recognized the groom at the back of the curricle as her.

  Then there were the Whattlings. She had only managed to wind Robbie in a dance once, and he had been foxed at the time. He was in such good shape from boxing, she knew. Of course, she also couldn’t admit to have seen several of his bouts. Ladies did not watch boxing matches. His older brother Kevin, on the other hand, would never have danced with her but was always willing to fund her charities. He was especially kind to the abandoned ladies at Comfort House, her latest pet project. If only he had been nobly born, then he might have been able to fight the bill Leslie had told her was brewing in the House of Lords to amend the Poor Laws. The wording of the bill might spell doom for her charitable efforts. But Leslie had yet to ascend to his title, and none of her other gentlemen friends were likely to hold seats in Parliament. Still, they were fine fellows and seemed to enjoy her company as much as she enjoyed theirs. Yet none of them would have considered courting her, much less marrying her.

  Nor would she have considered marrying them. They clearly had other ideas about what a woman should be than what she was. Sometimes she thought they saw her as a younger sister; other times she wasn’t sure they saw her as female at all. The fact did not trouble her. She had had enough fellows ogle her figure to know she had some attraction. She was just as glad she did not have to worry about breaking any of her comrades’ hearts. It made enjoying their company so much easier.

  Besides, she could hardly marry them when she was in love with someone else.

  None of them knew that; she had never even told her father or stepmother. It had happened suddenly, at the very beginning of the Season last year. She had always read of love at first sight, but she had never credited it would happen to her. Yet, she had gone to the ball, looked across the ballroom, and known that the only man she would ever love was standing there.

  He was perfect. That both excited and depressed her. What must it be like to be loved by the most intelligent, handsome man in London? And why would such a paragon ever notice the unconventional Miss Margaret Munroe? True, he raced. She had watched any number of his races since then, cheering for him. He had not noticed. He also danced,
yet he had never asked her to dance. She had been in his company any number of times, in fact, and he had not paid her the slightest attention.

  Unlikely as it seemed, that did not diminish her love. She watched, applauded when he did well, and cried for him when he did not. She read about his exploits in the paper and eavesdropped shamelessly whenever he was mentioned in passing conversations at balls. He was the one of the few topics she would allow her odious cousin Reggie to discuss in her presence. She pressed her comrades to tell what they knew about him until they bored of the subject. As she asked about many other people as well, no one had ever noticed a particular interest in the Marquis DeGuis.

  She had, in fact, only confessed to her cousin Allison that she was in love, though she had refrained from naming her hero. Margaret might lack tact, but even she knew it was unthinkable to tell one’s dearest cousin that you are in love with the man she is about to marry.

  But he hadn’t married Allison. She found that as difficult to understand as everyone else. Certainly her stepmother was baffled.

  “Whistling her future down the wind,” Helen had declared when they had received the letter from Somerset last autumn. “What can your cousin be thinking? The Marquis DeGuis is the catch of the Season: handsome, refined, well bred, and richer than Midas! With Allison’s looks and breeding, they would have made such a handsome pair. Oh, your poor aunt must be beside herself. Another Munroe sacrificed to a country nobody.”

  Margaret could not weep for her aunt or cousin. At the reception, following the couple’s elopement to Gretna Green, Allison had appeared radiant beside her country nobody. No, Margaret had felt for the marquis, believing him to have lost his heart to her lovely cousin. Surely he was the one who was weeping.

  She had been surprised, and a little disappointed, to find that he immediately re-entered the lists when he returned to London after Christmas. As his own father had died at a young age, rumor had it he wanted to ensure the continuity of the line. After nearly two years of searching for a bride, he grew more impatient in setting up his nursery. The mamas with marriageable daughters mobbed him wherever he went.