The Bartered Bridegroom

by Teresa DesJardien

  Benjamin reached out to the horse he’d bought not half an hour earlier, stroking his hand along the neck, just as Miss Oakes had done. Fallen Angel flicked an ear, but otherwise took no notice of her new owner as she nibbled at her rack of hay.

  “So you were her horse?” Benjamin said aloud. What had she said? That she’d had to sell the horse because her papa thought it not tame enough for her. “Her papa does not know his daughter very well, I think,” he murmured as though to the horse. “I suspect Miss Oakes could ride upon the back of Old Hickory himself, did she but wish to,” he said, then gave a brief, bitter laugh. What could he know of Miss Oakes? Just because she had the audacity to don men’s clothing and venture where she was not supposed to go, did not mean she had the iron will it took to handle a strong-minded horse. Still, he would be willing to bet his last four hundred pounds that this girl’s spine had more steel in it than her papa ever guessed.

  Perhaps that was why they’d struck up a repartee—even if it was an admittedly rancorous one. Perhaps he had responded to the steel in her, for he had certainly long since shored up his own spine with the metal, forged by cruel experience.

  His brothers, were he to call upon them, might plague him that he was now free to lose his military stance, that of chest out, chin up, spine ever straight—but right now that straight spine was all he had to fend off the world’s blows, and he’d not retire the habit even if he had been forced to retire from his chosen profession.

  Still, this to-do with his resigning, while painful, was not the first time he’d had to stand wounded before the world. He would survive now, as he ever had. He would, in fact, overcome his present circumstance. That was his plan, his scheme, his reason for not leaving London and all its staring, whispering faces. He would carve a new place for himself here.

  Benjamin forced his jaw to unclench, glad there had been no one to see it tighten under the weight of his thoughts, and gave the horse a final pat. He stepped back out of the stall and whistled, drawing the attention of a lad at the far end of the stalls. “I am ready to take my purchase home,” he called.

  As Fallen Angel’s bill of sale was checked for proper signatures, and the animal’s lead secured to the back of Benjamin’s hired phaeton, he found his mind wandering back to the puzzle of Miss Oakes. Her story aside, what could Miss Oakes have been thinking? To be caught at her chosen masquerade was to ruin her reputation.

  She was young, granted, but not so young that she could possibly misunderstand what she risked, surely? And all to see a horse one last time? Why not simply arrive in her carriage and view the horse from there? While not strictly “done,” it was far to be preferred to that of a woman wandering disguised, unescorted, and unprotected, in the rough environs of Tattersall’s.

  The girl had several brothers, Benjamin knew. Why were none of them in attendance upon their sister? The answer was obvious: They had not known Miss Oakes intended to come here. Not only had she planned this escapade, but she’d left her home, alone, to do so. Why?

  No, that was not the question, at least not a question that Benjamin needed to worry about. The only question regarding Miss Oakes that ought to concern him was: When would he claim the favor he’d made her promise to grant him? Well.. . perhaps one other question was important as well: Why had he made her promise him anything? Why had he extracted a kiss and a promise from the chit? She was obviously a packet of trouble—and Benjamin had all the trouble he needed right now.

  And her kiss ... it had quite literally made the hair on the nape of his neck stand up. Miss Oakes had a certain air of innocence about her, perhaps not refinement but also not the vulgarity of which she had thought he accused her. Her manner was innocent. . . but that kiss! It had been—to tell himself no lies—delectable.

  There was no real quandary here. He would never claim the favor he’d demanded. That was the wise choice, and he could not imagine why he’d even thought for two seconds that he might wish anything from Miss Oakes. People of Miss Oakes’s ilk carried chaos around like a monkey on their shoulder—and one small monkey could make a terrible mess. Benjamin was tired of cleaning up messes.

  Miss Oakes was exactly, utterly the very kind of person he would make it his business to avoid. She was the opposite of what he would look for in a woman should he ever look to marry. He was too unsettled at present to think of marriage, but when he was more plump of pocket and his name less tarnished he would know to run, screaming, in the opposite direction of Miss Oakes or anyone like her.

  As he crawled up into his phaeton, he glanced back at the horse he’d just purchased, the only horse he’d seen in a week that he’d dared to think had the potential to one day fatten his owner’s purse. He realized he had Miss Oakes to thank that this prize had been for sale—so she’d already done him a favor, albeit without having meant to.

  For that matter, she’d no doubt done him an even better one: by showing him exactly the kind of female he did not need in his life.

  Chapter 3

  Upon first coming to London, four weeks earlier, Katherine had quickly discovered that when the entry hall of her papa’s town house was well-lit by oil lamps in preparation for guests, their light plunged the head of the staircase above into deepest gloom.

  Now, not even ten hours since she had been caught in boy’s clothing by Lord Benjamin, Katherine blessed the stairway’s shadows. She knew she blushed as she looked down on the man just arrived, even while relief washed through her that the blush would go unseen by anyone.

  She blushed because it was Mr. Cyril Cullman who had arrived, a handsome man made even more striking in dark blue evening clothes and a waistcoat shot with silver thread. Mr. Cullman moved to greet his host, and Katherine shifted as well, to keep him in the line of sight. He bowed to Papa, and Katherine thought that perhaps there was just the faintest hesitation before Papa bowed in return.

  It was probably wrong to spy down upon them this way, but Katherine took the opportunity all the same. It gave her heart time to stop racing, which it had begun to do at the mere sight of Mr. Cullman—the one man she’d once thought she’d never find—arriving in her home.

  She considered that there was something about Mr. Cullman that flustered her a bit—she could not say why. Unlike Papa, who sported a head of thinning white hair and whose slender legs appeared at a disadvantage below a rounded belly that spoke of many and plentiful meals enjoyed, Mr. Cullman was trim and neat of figure. His appeal lay in his comely features, too, of course, but Katherine guessed it was also Mr. Cullman’s polish that pulled her attention his way. She was not polished,

  she knew, and she sometimes had to wonder how it could be that he did not find her just a bit gauche. But he must not, for he had asked her to marry him—and she had said yes.

  She had finally found “the right man.”

  What truly made her heart race tonight, though, was that she suspected tonight was “the night.” That after the card party was over, after the other guests had left, he would ask Papa for her hand in marriage.

  Mr. Cullman had already privately asked her to marry him, a little over four weeks ago, before she had been abruptly dragged away from the country for a Season in London. Her family had left Bexley so suddenly, Mr. Cullman had never had the chance to formally appear before Papa and request Katherine’s hand in marriage. Despite recent calls here in London, he’d also not had the opportunity; Katherine suspected tonight he was going to make an opportunity even if one did not present itself.

  Four weeks was a long time to be secretly betrothed, Katherine reflected on the darkened stairs as she tried to make her pulse steady. All the secretiveness was about to end, though— except perhaps the secret of why Papa had insisted on a Season so very abruptly and resolutely. Had he suspected a proposal was forthcoming? Had he objected to Mr. Cullman as a son-in- law? If he had, he’d made no declaration of it. He’d only said that he’d promised his wife, before she died in Katherine’s infancy, that he would give their only daughter a London Se
ason. Katherine had never heard that tale before .. . regardless, will she nil she, Katherine had been dragged to Town.

  To Katherine’s delight, Mr. Cullman had followed her, arriving so quickly that he clearly had left his country home as soon as he’d received her note that she must go to London. The eagerness of his pursuit since had convinced Katherine that she must soon be as openly betrothed to Cyril Cullman as she had allowed the odious Lord Benjamin to think she already was.

  Katherine looked down on the man she’d promised to marry, and felt a flutter of... what? Anticipation? Eagerness? It was a jumble of a dozen emotions. The idea of marriage must linger in the back of every woman’s mind, naturally, but now Katherine found that an idea was a far cry from a reality. It felt strange, this notion that if Papa said yes, Katherine would soon be Mrs. Cyril Cullman.

  As she watched Mr. Cullman accept a glass of champagne with a smile—he had such a charming smile—Katherine felt her knees begin to shake, just enough to persuade her to lower herself to a seat upon the highest steps of the stairs. Surely all women on the cusp of becoming openly betrothed knew such nerves?

  Four weeks ago, her secret fiancй may not have seemed the premiere choice as sons-in-law went, but four weeks ago Mr. Cullman had been only a country gentleman with some apparent money but very little else. He owned no land and there was no inheritance awaiting him. His father, a knight whose title was to perish with him, now had a good position with the Home Office in London, but until recent days had suffered from poor investments. He’d long since sold the country acreage his family name had once claimed, retaining only the modest Kentish stone cottage in Bexley where Cyril, his son, had come to live in the past year.

  Katherine felt a new flutter in her stomach, remembering the Cullman cottage and the fence surrounding it, over which she had shared a first kiss with Cyril Cullman. It had been a fine kiss ... albeit not as stirring as Lord Benjamin’s. Was she disloyal to even think in such a manner, to even compare the two?

  “No matter,” she whispered aloud, but then she frowned, for she was not much of a liar, not even to herself. Truth was truth... and in this case, it was true that Lord Benjamin had delivered the superior kiss.

  “Humph!” Katherine tried to scoff, the small sound covered by the chatter that rose from the gathering below. Even as she stared down at the back of her fiancй’s head, Katherine found herself wondering how one kiss could be superior to another. Was it a matter of technique? Of a certain placement of the lips? A certain pressure? Perhaps it was unexpectedness that made all the difference ... ? Regardless, she could not deny that one man’s kiss had pleased her, while the other had thrilled her.

  She shook her head and stood, dusting off her skirts with her hands, as if she could as easily dust away thoughts of the breath-stealing kiss she had shared with Lord Benjamin. She deliberately turned her gaze back down toward her fiancй, and her thoughts back to having met him that first time.

  It had been at a soiree, she recalled, feeling her lips turn up at the memory, a simple country affair that had hosted the most interesting gentleman, a man of great good looks, filled with witty on-dits, just come from Brighton. A man named Cyril Cullman.

  The good people of Bexley had welcomed him, for his fresh news if naught else—but, too, he’d been counted as something less than a stranger since his family had once been of some importance in the area. To judge from his clothes, carriages, and spending habits, it had been evident enough that the Cullmans must have fallen on better times—and a man willing to spread his coins was always welcome in a small town.

  In the end, it was universally decided that the son had been sent to see if the old cottage was worthy of habitation once more. If he’d also been sent to see if the residents would welcome the Cullman clan back among them, the answer had surely proved a resounding yes.

  Katherine, for one, had been pleased to meet Mr. Cyril Cullman—and soon had realized that Cullman was the one man she’d ever met who did nothing to try to change her, or modify her behavior. She liked Mr. Cullman immediately—and within a few months, had concluded he liked her, too.

  It had not been difficult to decide to accept the offer of marriage he had whispered in her ear one night, four weeks ago. She’d finally found the man she’d half feared would never cross her path, a man willing to allow her to be exactly who she was.

  She felt a thrill at that thought, still unused to the idea of approval. Her father and brothers loved her—but they had despaired, often enough, of her ability to ever attract a mate. “You are too outspoken, Katie!” her papa had said often enough, and it had been difficult to argue against the statement.

  But now, Katherine felt sure that tonight would be an end to the secret she and Mr. Cullman had been keeping. His request would be spoken aloud, Papa would consent with more or less good grace, and then their betrothal would be announced to the world.

  Papa would accept the betrothal, Katherine thought as she

  worried her lower lip with her teeth, surely? He could hardly object to Mr. Cullman as a son-in-law, not now that Cyril had come to London and become Society’s darling.

  In a few words: Cyril Cullman had become of the highest fashion. He was wanted everywhere. He’d charmed all the high flyers, those of the haute ton who disdained even the company of the better-born Lord Benjamin Whitbury. Where the marquess’s son could not gain admittance, a lowly Knight Bachelor’s son had, by dint of his charm and, undeniably, his dark handsomeness. Inside of a couple of weeks of arriving in London, matrons with eligible daughters had noticed the same glibness of tongue, flow of pretty manners, and charming laughter that had caught Katherine’s regard while she had been Mr. Cullman’s neighbor in Kent. His name was now on every guest list in the capital.

  She almost hated to admit it, but Katherine welcomed such acceptance, such accolades. Heaven knew she had not garnered any on her own. In her four weeks in London she had not favorably impressed the beau monde. Even she could see she had been too much herself, too outspoken, not ladylike enough. She could finally see that having been raised without a mother had put her at a disadvantage, for half the time she did not realize she’d even faltered socially until the deed was done.

  She had begun to understand some of her chaperone’s—Miss Irving’s—dictates. Too late she had begun to wonder if she ought to refrain from speaking on too many subjects or with too much opinion. Whispers had grown and been scarcely hidden behind fans, and backs had been turned. By the time Katherine had comprehended Town life was different from the easy manners of the country, her reputation had already lost its luster, and she knew she had been dubbed a hoyden in need of both polish and manners.

  So now, even though it shamed her a bit to admit it to herself, if. . . when she became Mr. Cullman’s wife it would, she prayed, give her a chance to start over again in this watchful, judgmental society. She would far prefer to escape to Bexley, where her outspoken style and disinterest in “womanly subjects” was more indulged. But if Mr. Cullman wished to live in London—and why would he not, when he was such a success here?—she could not help but hope his entree would include her, his wife.

  He’d even been granted a nickname by no less a person than the Prince’s mistress (some said one-time secret wife), Mrs. Fitzherbert. Mrs. Fitzherbert had obviously enjoyed Mr. Cullman’s flirtatious manner with her, for she had dubbed him “London’s First Beau.” She had hastened to add “First after our gracious Prince, of course,” but the qualification was forgotten and Mr. Cullman’s nickname was not; it preceded him into every party he attended.

  “The First Beau is here,” would come the whisper, and inevitably on its heel would come Katherine’s blush of pleasure for the secret betrothal she had made with the celebrated Mr. Cyril Cullman, First Beau of all London.

  It scarce signified that Katherine was not entirely sure she was in love with Mr. Cullman; she was convinced he was exactly the correct man for her to marry. Falling in love with him ought to be a simple enough “
task”—he was handsome, fit, and dark-haired, with long, sweeping brows that drew one’s attention to his dark brown eyes.

  Above all, disregarding appearance or even feelings of affection, he had the one attribute she cherished, the one attribute that made him “the right man”: Mr. Cullman gave every impression that he enjoyed her company.

  He had never tried to stifle her. He had never glared at her, nor told her the subject matter at hand was inappropriate for a lady. He never made her feel gauche, and he often laughed aloud at something she had said or done. While some might argue such open amusement to be imprudent, it was like clean, fresh air to Katherine.

  No, Mr. Cullman had not idly arrived at this card party of her father’s, she supposed. She sensed her life would change tonight, and it was this awareness that made her wait on the stairs, hoping her knees and her pulse would steady.

  She hoped, once they were married, they could remove to Bexley. The land she hoped they would live on when they married was hers, or would be in a month. It was a smallish patch in Kent that had been deeded to her from Grandmama Oakes, land Katherine would gain upon her twenty-first birthday. As dowries went it was not much, but the land had no debt attached

  to it, came with a small behest of funds, and it was not a part of the estate Jeremy would inherit from Papa—it was hers, which made it precious.

  She felt another wave of nervousness—excitement?—course through her at the thought she would soon be free to live on her own land, and to marry the man she wanted, the man she had chosen.

  She took one last deep breath, half assured her color and emotions were now under control, and gathered her skirts in preparation for descending the stairs. She’d only gone down one step when another caller was announced by the butler: “Lord Benjamin Whitbury.”