Taking Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 1)

by Wild, Nikki

  The life of a young woman living among the upper echelons of British society was, without a doubt, one of privilege and often a great deal of to-do that hardly seemed to mesh with the modern age. For instance, many among the aristocracy still scoffed at the idea of work, aside from a few select professions: lawyer and politician being the most agreeable to the senses of the “old blood.” Men were, more often than not, still expected to hold down respectable careers while women were expected to take up one or more charities to help boost their popularity among the people. I, being only the stepdaughter of a lord, was afforded certain freedoms, most of which came from not bearing the name of his house upon my shoulders. The greatest of these freedoms, I felt, was the simple option of actually choosing my own profession, something few of my fellow members of the nobility shared.

  My job, which many would not qualify as “acceptable” or “respectable,” was something that many among the upper class still desperately needed, especially in a day and age where “good breeding” was hard to come by. When the country’s nobility needed to find their sons and daughters matches, I was the one who found the most compatible options. Matchmaking was my specialty, and I was one of the best in Britain.

  I always laughed at the old saying that “those who can’t do, teach,” but the longer I stayed in my profession the longer I came to realize that the same was true for a great deal of people like me. “Those who can’t find love, find it for others.”

  Thoughts like that brought me back to days before I was the confident woman I am now, back when I had been spared the misfortune of the attention of men—back when I’d not yet grown fully into myself. It was those thoughts that made me think of Tristan.

  For all the years he had been away I still found my mind drifting back to that pantry, to the way his hands touched me. I closed my eyes and tried my best to push those intrusive images away. And were it not for my driver, I don’t think that was a battle I would have won.

  “Where to this morning, Ms. Gwendolyn?” came Franklin’s deep, heavily accented baritone from the front seat as I shut the door and buckled myself in. I’d always liked Franklin’s Scottish drawl, ever since I was a much younger girl.

  “Straight to the office today, I think, Franklin,” I sighed. “No time for our usual stops. And besides, it looks like rough seas today.”

  “That it does,” Franklin said, his voice taking on a dark, mocking tone. “Lucky for you, then, that you’ve got yourself a fine sailor at the helm of this ship then, isn’t it?”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” I said, smiling as I relaxed back into my seat. I watched as Franklin pulled my car out into the sea of honking horns. It almost felt like we’d joined a herd of angry wildebeests with an exceptionally colorful vocabulary.

  “Must be a big to-do if you’re skipping your morning cuppa, Miss,” Franklin said, clucking his tongue. “Does some big fish need to find their soulmate so fast the breakfast had to wait?”

  “Afraid so,” I said, shaking my head at his motherly concern. That had always been his way, especially in my younger days, looking after my best interests and always making sure that I was fed. I always joked to myself that Franklin doted on me like an old fishwife, especially with the lack of his own children at home. “At least, that’s what Tina made it sound like this morning.”

  Tina, my personal assistant—and probably the person I could rely on just as much as Franklin—handled much of the running of day-to-day aspects of my business including acting as the buffer between myself and the multitude of pompous nobles who all demanded that they be first and last priority when it came to my time and energy. There was no one so demanding of quality work as those who had never done a day of it in their lives.

  “Must be, if Ms. Tina is calling you so early,” he said, glancing back at me through the rearview mirror, his crinkled blue eyes creased with no shortage of empathy. I wasn’t sure what I ever did to deserve Franklin, especially on stressful days like this.

  “I’m just hoping that I don’t walk into another one of Lord Adderby’s explosions like the last time she called me so early.” The infamous Lord Adderby was one of my more usual clients, being a man in his late sixties, finding him a proper match had proven to be more than a little challenging, even for my considerable talent. It had been over a year since he had engaged my services as a matchmaker, and the entire time he had either offended or rejected every single woman that I had set him up to begin courting. This, in part, had been due to the lord’s rather grating personality, and the fact that he was probably the most inappropriate man that I had ever had the misfortune to do business with.

  I could only hope that my luck would hold out and I’d have a quiet day at work, with minimal instances of undesired screaming.

  ***

  “She slapped me!” Lord Adderby declared, his jowls wobbling as he raged, reminding me in no small way of a flustered walrus. “That woman is lucky I haven’t called the police! The nerve of that girl, laying her hand on one of her betters like that!”

  “Calm yourself, Lord Adderby,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose. It took every ounce of my self-control not to slap the man myself. This was true for any unfortunate instance where the two of us had to occupy the same space, let alone have his spittle threatening to land right on my glasses whenever he spoke. “I’m sure we can work this all out.”

  “I’ll tell you what we’ll work out,” he said, his face reddening with every word. “I want another match! A respectable match! And you’ll have her name to me today before I set foot out of that door, young lady!”

  “My lord, your tone isn’t helping this situation,” I said, my patience already worn thin by his lordship’s inability to mind the expulsions from his mouth. It was exactly this kind of situation that made me lament giving up coffee only a week before. “I’m sure we can talk to Miss Fairchild and sort all of this out, if you would perhaps only apologize to her for whatever offence—”

  “Me? Apologize to her? Absolutely not!” he spluttered. “And as for my tone, I will not have a girl of your station—no matter the breeding of your stepfather—tell me anything to do with tone! I’ll have that little bitch brought up on charges!”

  I clenched my fists, tightening my lips into a thin line as I felt the limits of my tolerance breaking like a levy in a storm. If there was one thing I disliked—no, hated—more than anything it was the word “bitch,” especially in regards to a fellow woman. Second would be the implication that my own authority was somehow determined by the marriage of my mother.

  “Get out,” I said, my voice coming out much louder than I had imagined that it would. I could feel my heart pounding like a drum, thudding in time to the bubbling anger that was given my voice its steely tone.

  “I beg your pardon?” Lord Adderby said, blinking with incredulity. He seemed to regard me fully for the first time since I had walked into my office and he had started his insufferable tirade. “Just who do you think you are?”

  “I think that I am the proprietor of this business, Lord Adderby,” I said, my jaw set as I looked the old fossil directly in his drooping eyes, “and that I have instructed you to leave this instant. From this moment forward, you will no longer be receiving my services in your romantic endeavors.”

  “How dare you?” the blustering tub of lard asked, stomping his foot like a spoiled child. “I have never received such disrespect in all my years! Do you even realize the repercussions that this will have on you, young lady? Why, by the time I’m done with you, you’ll never be able—”

  I held my hand out in front of his face, silencing him almost immediately. His mouth closed with a snap and I watched as his face turned from a deep scarlet to almost bruise-like purple around his cheeks.

  “Leave, Lord Adderby, before I have you removed by building security.”

  “This is an outrage!” he cried, mouth agape and face contorted, as though he could hardly believe that I’d make such a threat. He turned on his heel and wobbled towar
d the elevator with his considerable girth, shouting the whole way. “You’ll pay for such insolence!”

  Once his sagging, scowling face had disappeared behind the elevator doors, I turned my attention toward my assistant, doing my best to curb my already considerable frustration. I took a deep, slow breath through my nose before I slowly let it out through my mouth, trying my best to even out my tone before I opened my mouth again.

  “What happened?” I asked, my words crisp, though considerably less sharp than they had been with Lord Adderby. Tina didn’t deserve my ire, as I was sure she got more of the brunt of that walrus’s screaming than I had.

  “It appears that his lordship made untoward passes at Ms. Fairchild on their… ‘date’ last night,” Tina said, a frown affixed to her face. “When his lordship didn’t relent, Ms. Fairchild struck him across the cheek with her open hand, picked up her belongings, and left.”

  “I see,” I said, once again attempting to keep my frustrations in check. “Make sure that Ms. Fairchild is sent flowers as an apology from us, and a letter apologizing specifically for facilitating her unfortunate encounter. I’ve had enough of cleaning up that old bastard’s messes for the past year.”

  “Yes, marm,” Tina said, nodding as she tapped on her tablet.

  “Thank you,” I sighed, brushing a strand of hair away from my face. Tina was undoubtedly the only person on the planet I could trust to keep her composure in the face of men like Lord Adderby, and the only person I trusted to handle the minute details of what amounted to my entire life’s work. She was a godsend, and more often than not it was me who had to force her to go on vacations every few months.

  “You have one more thing lined up this morning,” she said, swiping her finger across the screen in her hand. “Though I’m not sure if you’d like to put it off until later this afternoon.”

  “It can’t be as bad as what we just endured with his lordship. What is it?” I asked, motioning for Tina to follow after me as I headed into my office proper.

  “You mother would like you to call her,” Tina said, and I noted the pained grimace on her face.

  “I was wrong,” I laughed as I sat down at my desk. “That is so much worse.”

  “Shall I tell her that you’re engaged until later this afternoon?”

  “No,” I sighed, resting my head in my hands. “I’ll call her now. No point in putting off the inevitable, is there?”

  “No, marm,” Tina affirmed.

  “Would you do me a kindness, though, Tina?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I would kill for a cup of coffee.”

  Tina nodded wordlessly, moving out of the room, her clacking heels echoing out into the hallway beyond, leaving me alone with only myself and the looming prospect of having to talk to my mother to keep me company.

  Lady Wolfe, otherwise known as my mother, was not always my favorite woman in the world. That was not to say she was a bad person… though perhaps she could have been described as a bit power hungry. My mother was one of those people who craved authority and recognition, though not always at the expense of others. She was motivated, determined, and at times, a little pushy. I didn’t blame her for the way she was—my mother was an impressive woman and one that I’m sure that many others girls could look up and aspire to be like. Just not me.

  I reached toward the phone with a sigh, putting the receiver to my ear as I dialed her number. While both my mother and I were of a similar cut, sans the moderate lack of empathy on my part, I had a hard time holding a conversation with her that didn’t infuriate me. Everything from my sense of style to my choice in clothes was exactly the opposite of what she’d ever have chosen for me, something she never failed to comment on whenever we had the chance to speak, much to my chagrin.

  The phone began to ring. Once, twice, three times before I heard the clatter of someone on the other line.

  “Good morning, Gwendolyn,” my mother said in her usually cool tone. “How are you, dear?”

  “Just fine, Mother,” I answered, leaning back into the comfort of my high-backed office chair. “And yourself? Tina had mentioned you wanted to speak.”

  “I always wish to speak to my daughter, dear, when the time permits.”

  I closed my eyes and fought to keep my tone even. While my mother might wish to speak to me, that was never the same thing as actually doing so. The time, as she said, never seemed to permit. I’d grown up dealing with this sort of behavior for years, and had always come to expect never actually being the kind of priority I’d always wanted to be in my parents’ lives. I wasn’t my father’s blood relation, and therefore was not in line to inherit any of his estate or a title—not that I was sorely missing it, to be honest.

  “And what is it you’d like to discuss with me today?” I asked after a brief silence.

  “Well, Gwendolyn, I have some news that I may need you to be sitting in order to hear.” Already I didn’t like the way that this was going, much less the way my mother seemed almost giddy as she spoke. My mother was not the kind of person to ever express anything so base as to be giddy over anything.

  “I’m sitting down… go on,” I said, unable to shake the sense of dread that was pooling in my stomach.

  She drew it out anyway, as though she’d rehearsed this moment for prime effect, pause and all. “I’m pregnant.”

  Chapter 66

  After Afghanistan, I thought I’d seen it all—the myriad of horrors the universe held, all the pain and suffering that could possibly be inflicted in this world. I’d experienced more than my fair share of shock and awe, seen the misery painted on the faces of my brothers-in-arms. I’d never been allowed on the front lines, of course—I was heir to a rather substantial duchy, after all—but one didn’t have to be eye-to-eye with terror to get caught in its illimitable hold.

  But when my father told me his new wife was pregnant—and with a son, no less—that made all the darkness I’d seen in war seem like a children’s TV show, by comparison.

  It wasn’t even the thought of my dad actually fucking someone that sucked the blood from my face, or the idea that his crusty sperm still had some vitality left in them. Those were repulsive enough ideas, but not the ones that made my stomach threaten to splatter at my feet.

  It was knowing how this would change the course of the rest of my life that made me want to gag—a knowledge that no one but me, and my father, had.

  Though I supposed now his wife knew, too. Why wouldn’t she? Dear old Dad would be only too thrilled to share this particular news—that his screw-up of a son wasn’t actually entitled to anything now that a legitimate heir was on the way. Yes, I was my father’s bastard, and in more ways than one.

  Ever since I was young I’d been made painfully aware of my father’s thoughts when it came to my illegitimate standing, though as his only heir I would be the one to claim everything on the moment of his death. That was, of course, something that he had always begrudged, especially since he had—until now—been unable to repeat the miracle of my own conception. Everyone had thought him sterile, and that my birth had been a fluke of nature, or as my father liked to refer to it: a curse.

  My mother had been young—barely into her twenties—when they two of them first met—he, however was most certainly not. Already approaching thirty-five himself, my father took advantage of the doe-eyed young lass while summering in the southern part of the country and one thing apparently lead to another. When all was said and done, my mother was dead and my father swore up and down that the girl had been nothing but a slut and that the child was not his.

  One short paternity test later, and I was quickly named the bane of my father’s good name, a title I took to very readily and with much cheer. I learned to hate the old man, and took a certain satisfaction in the fact that I was the last person who he ever wanted to become the sole beneficiary of his estate. That was at least until I got the news that I’d have a little half-brother on the way within the next few months.

&
nbsp; He’d decided to drive home this particularly devastating news over lunch, as he most often liked to do anything. I’d only just come back from my last tour when I received the sudden and prompt invitation to meet him the following day at one of his favorite restaurants, Coldwell’s. I was rather shocked to see him when I first arrived, thin as a rail and looking almost deathly. If it weren’t for the fact that he was stuffing his face with the dish in front of him before I even sat down I would have thought that he was starving himself. For the briefest of moments I felt something akin to sympathy for my father, even wondering whether my father had contracted some kind of horrible disease. Sympathy however soon turned to hopefulness, wishing that such a thing might actually come to pass.

  “Ah, you’ve arrived—late as usual,” he muttered between bites. Every time I saw him eat I pictured a vulture gorging itself on a carcass. That was what I’d always seen my father as, a scavenger that made his name on the backs of people who came before him. “Sit.”

  I held in a vicious snarl. How a sod like that had gotten my mother pregnant, I’ll never know—nor did I want to. I was thankful to have missed out on the majority of his repugnant features, genetically speaking, leaning more heavily toward my mother’s looks than anything else. At least I’d gotten that much of her. At times he still chided me, claiming he still wasn’t even sure that I was his at all and that “the trollop” had made it all up. It was those times where I’d been on the verge of violence. I hoped my father would keel over in his seat.

  “Your letter was already enough exposition than I really needed,” I said as I sat down, waving the waiter off as he swooped in to take my order. I had no intention of sharing my meal with that bastard sitting across from me, especially since I felt that a death from some manner of poison would be all too imminent. “Why do I need to hear it again?”