Because she had just proved herself a woman of easy virtue? Surely, she must love Lord Monterne—Rodney—or she would not have allowed him such liberties.
Or had she branded herself a whore?
Yet what she felt for Rodney was the weak glow of a tallow candle compared to the brilliant glitter of the grand chandelier in the Marchmont ballroom, which was her love for Terence O’Rourke. So why then . . .?
Dear God, she was worthless! She deserved nothing better than a shallow nobleman with a pretty face and engaging manners. Her darling Terence deserved a woman with far more character than she.
Pasting on a smile that was more deliberate than triumphant, Beth moved out of the darkness into the lantern-lit swirl of light surrounding the orchestra, the pavilion, the colonnades and the private supper boxes. In the distance, fireworks lit the night sky, brilliant colors soaring and twinkling high above the treetops. Tonight . . . tonight the display seemed singularly inappropriate.
Between the scandal of Brummel’s run to Calais and the fact that only a few had been foolish enough to bet against Lord Monterne’s ability to win his rich prize, the engagement of Elizabeth Mary Brockman to Rodney Rexford d’Arcy Trevelyan Renfrew, Viscount Monterne, was little more than a minor sensation. Only in the halls of the Wingfield family did consternation reign.
“Send for my solicitor!” Lady Colchester demanded when, with the aid of her vinaigrette, she regained her voice after reading the announcement in the morning paper. “I shall bring an action.”
“My lady,” Mr. Hector Gossett ventured when he was ushered into the drawing room an hour later, “a gentleman may sue for the alienation of his wife’s affections. She is, after all, his property and the matter is somewhat similar to theft. But I doubt the attentions Lord Monterne paid to Lady Victoria last Season can be considered sufficient grounds. He has, you must admit, devoted himself exclusively to Miss Brockman over the course of this Season.”
“It is still alienation of affections,” Lady Colchester pronounced in ringing tones. “There has been an understanding since they were both in their cradles!”
“Mama!” Lady Victoria hissed, knowing full well the viscount with nearly eight years old when she was born.
“They were most certainly promised,” the Marchioness of Colchester countered. “Monterne is a young fribble who has had his head turned by the whiff of gold. The girl is a vulgar Cit. He owes it to his name and his rank to be made of sterner stuff. And I, for one, intend to remind him of it.”
The solicitor blanched. “My lady, surely that is the responsibility of his parents. If Ravenshaw does not object—”
“Ravenshaw has spent his life repairing the family fortunes his father scattered across every gaming hell in London. He’s such a nipcheese, it’s a wonder Rodney, poor boy, turned out as well as he has. Let me tell you,” Lady Colchester added, “Monterne is a gentleman. True to his class. His interest in that chit can be nothing more than a momentary aberration. They’ll never marry, I promise you that!”
“Mama,” Lady Victoria tried again, “I may have known Rodney most of my life but, truly, he never showed me more interest than he exhibited toward several other young ladies last Season. Yes, I had . . . hopes. But never more than—”
“Silence! Do not be a fool, Victoria. That chit is little better than an actress. That the beau monde should come to the point where entrance may be purchased is shocking. Most frightfully shocking. If no one else will fight this encroaching child, then I shall lead the way!”
Mr. Hector Gossett’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed convulsively. “My lady,” he choked, “I must tell you that a suit against Tobias Brockman is not advisable.”
“I would not think of taking any action against a Cit,” pronounced Lady Colchester grandly.
“Any action against Lord Monterne on this matter is an action against Tobias Brockman,” the solicitor pointed out, “and Brockman has agents no one, least of all myself, care to challenge. I–ah–would not wish you to think I am a coward, my lady, but truthfully—one way or another—this is a suit you will not win.”
“I believe you should listen to Mr. Gossett, Mama,” Lady Victoria urged. Lady Colchester’s face displayed an alarming tendency toward purple.
“There is one possibility,” Gossett proffered slyly into the awful silence. “It is possible Brockman would be willing to pay well to make this all go away. No need to say a word to Monterne. I could meet with Brockman’s right-hand man, Mr. O’Rourke—”
Lady Colchester shot to her feet, her solicitor scrambling to keep up with her sudden movement. They stood eye to eye, Hector Gossett’s knees beginning to quiver as he realized the severity of his offense. “You think I care about money?” the Marchioness of Colchester demanded. “This has nothing to do with money, you fool. Out! Out this instant, I say!”
“Oh, Mama,” Victoria cried, “I fear this can come to no good end.”
“Well?” Terence demanded, glaring at Jack.
“Nothing. Not even when I offered to pay the women more than Monterne had paid them to keep quiet. Either he has treated his mistresses like goddesses or a strong threat accompanied his gold. Take your pick. For myself, I think we must give in with good grace.”
“And wish Beth happy?” Terence returned bitterly.
“Yes.”
“Damn you!”
In an effort to refocus Terence’s anger, Jack said, “I hear the Colchester harpy has been trying to make trouble.”
“She doesn’t have the power. The woman’s a fool, making herself the laughing stock of the ton.”
“She’s a high-ranking part of the world Beth must move in after she’s married to Monterne,” Jack reminded him. “There’s no escaping the woman. Beth will have to learn to deal with the viper’s tongue.”
Terence, in a rare display of temper, slammed his fist onto his desk. Papers flew in all directions; his quill toppled from its stand, trailing ink over an official-looking document. Jack grabbed for the pen as his friend swore in a colorful stream of Gaelic and gutter English.
“Enough!” Terence roared, as Jack juggled the flighty metal-tipped quill still dripping ink onto the fine oriental carpet. He sounded, Jack thought, very much like Tobias on a bad day. “It’s over, done with. Defeated on all fronts, by God! Perhaps I should go home to Ireland.”
Jack, thrusting the pen back in its standish, paused, a thoughtful frown creasing his dashingly rugged face. Time for him to speak to Tobias. They might be losing Beth, but perhaps something could be done to keep from losing Terence as well.
Chapter Nine
The Season wound down, most of England’s fine families only too happy to exchange the heat and dirt of the city for the bucolic beauty of their country estates. Now that Beth was safely betrothed, the Trowbridge twins and their wives were among those who decamped to the country. Tony’s wife, Amabel, was enceinte. At long last. And, Cat confided to Beth, she too might be increasing. Beth, with tears in her eyes, bid her friends farewell.
Even the Earl of Ravenshaw and his wife closed up their London townhouse. Their son and heir, however, stayed on in his rooms not far from St. James. Viscount Monterne, no man’s fool, was not about to abandon his prize. A decent interval must be appointed between engagement and wedding or old biddies would begin to count on their fingers. And when a gentleman was marrying a Cit, he had to be particularly careful to protect his own reputation as well as that of his betrothed. So he must keep a close watch through the five long months when a frightening number of things might happen to upset his plans.
Lord Monterne did not like his betrothed’s so-called brother and his equally bastard friend. They had been making inquiries, damn them. How fortunate he’d anticipated the problem. Had he been a fool to make a dead set for the little heiress when the Wingfields, with their old and untainted money, would have snapped him up without a single question? Perhaps so, but Victoria’s dowry would never repair his estate in Devon, as well as continue hi
s father’s efforts to restore Ravenswood, the family’s country home in the Cotswolds. Nor was Lady Victoria sole heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world.
Neither was Beth, for that matter. The reality of the settlements and Beth’s prospects had been carefully explained to him by the Renfrew’s man of business. Beth was an heiress beyond price, no doubt about it, but half the Brockman fortune went to the bedamned-for-all-eternity bastard Irishman. Full control of the Brockman empire as well. After shattering a brandy decanter against the wall of his sitting room, losing more than he could afford at his White’s, and spending the shank end of the night with an accommodating former mistress, Rodney had come to his senses. Half the Brockman fortune was more than any one person could spend in a lifetime. And what did he know about business? Let O’Rourke have the blasted empire. Let him work while Viscount Monterne reaped the benefits.
So he dined at Brockman House, sent Beth flowers, drove her to the park, to Richmond, to quiet dinner parties in the homes of those few members of the ton who remained in town. Now that chaperonage was not so strict, they revisited Vauxhall Gardens on several occasions, where Rodney thoroughly enjoyed overstepping the bounds of propriety, even beyond that allowed couples whose wedding date had been set. Aided and abetted by Beth, who was finding this new game quite delicious, both were frequently grateful to the shadowed pathways which allowed them to sneak out the watergate and into a boat back across the Thames with only the watermen to notice their dishevelment.
Both were oblivious to the fact they were constantly followed. Terence listened to the reports, and barely refrained from charging to the viscount’s lodgings and beating him to a pulp. He should be happy Beth seemed not to miss him, he told himself, that she was so obviously cooperating in this period of discovery between engagement and marriage. Instead, he snapped at his minions and growled at his friends. The head offices of Tobias Brockman and Company descended into tension and gloom. If anyone there had been unaware of his attachment to their employer’s daughter, the blinders were stripped their eyes. Employees zipped by him in the hallways, eyes downcast, holding their breaths. Trembled in their boots when they were forced to beard the lion in his den.
Although Tobias Brockman was well aware this was no way to run a business, he loved the boy almost as dearly as his daughter. Only a fool would censure Terence for his anguish. It was a problem he would deal with—Harding had come up with a possible solution—but at the moment he had other matters on his mind.
He had made a mistake. A rarity, certainly, but a mistake, nonetheless. He had not wanted a country estate. Too far from the City of London, the heart of his universe. But this deficiency had become all too apparent when the beau monde disappeared to their summer house parties, to be followed by shooting parties and hunting parties, grand assemblies at estates ten to a hundred times the size of their London residences. Tobias scowled at the invitation in his hand. Beth was invited to Ravenswood for a fortnight, and he had no estate where he might return the hospitality. It was galling. But not even Tobias Brockman could acquire a country estate overnight. He must allow Beth to go, of course, and trust the fortune he was settling on her would be compensation enough for his failure to return the Renfrew’s hospitality.
But he didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.
Tildy could not remember the last time she’d heard Beth cry. A Brockman was made of stern stuff. Even that first night she’d come home so late from Vauxhall, when Tildy was quite certain something significant had happened, Beth had merely waved off both her companion and her maid and closed herself in her room, where silence reigned. There were no sounds of her preparing for bed; candlelight continued to flicker beneath her door. As Tildy hovered, uncertain what to do, the silence was complete. Beth sitting absolutely still, going over every nuance of her evening, was the only explanation Miss Spencer could imagine. But now . . . tonight, after a family dinner with Lord Monterne, Tobias, Terence, Jack, and herself, Tildy was hearing anguished sobs from her charge’s rooms. Grimly, she opened Beth’s door and entered.
“Go away!” Beth choked, pulling a pillow over her head. She was lying face down on her quilted coverlet, an amorphous shadow in the dim light of the final fading glow of a long summer’s eve.
Tildy recognized heartbreak when she heard it. She had hoped . . . been almost certain Beth had adjusted to her situation. But tonight Terence had been barely civil, Tobias and Jack overly hearty in an effort to make up for it. Tildy tip-toed to the bed whose canopy was luxuriously hung in diaphanous silk.
“My dear,” Tildy ventured, sitting on the edge of the bed, “you do not have to go through with this if you do not wish to. I know your papa would never force you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” The words, uttered into Beth’s pillow, were muffled but perfectly clear.
“We all thought . . . we assumed you liked Lord Monterne, dear. He seems a most exemplary young man.”
“He is,” Beth wailed. Miss Spencer withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve, thrust it into her darling’s hand. Noisily, Beth came out from under the pillow and blew her nose. Still recalcitrant, she added, “I told you—I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Nonetheless,” Tildy declared, “we shall. I love you like my own, I cannot bear to see you so unhappy.”
Beth turned her face to the wall. “A momentary weakness,” she conceded. “I’ll get over it.”
“But will Terence?” Miss Spencer asked.
Beth shot to a sitting position, pivoting to stare at her long-time mentor. “How dare you?” she demanded. “You, Papa, Terence—you have groomed me for this moment all of my life, like some filly being groomed for the Royal Ascot. And now the moment is upon us, Papa grins from ear to ear, Terence glowers, and you offer sympathy! Too late, Tildy, far too late. The matter is settled, the contracts signed. A Brockman never reneges on an obligation, and well you know it.”
Tildy, though shaken, held her ground. “Matters of the heart are not the same, my dear.”
“Matters of the heart?” Beth mocked. “Who said anything about hearts? I have no heart to give. And surely Rodney has no concept of love, except perhaps for the cut of his coat, the shine of his boots, or the welfare of his newest stallion.”
“Oh, my dear!” Tildy wailed, “how can you be so callous?”
“I had excellent teachers,” Beth shot back.
“My dear child,” Tildy whispered, “in all conscience, how can you marry him?”
“My dear Tildy, in all conscience, how can I not?”
Miss Spencer slid off the bed, stepped back, both hands covering her mouth. She didn’t even hear Beth once again command her to go away. Pacing the room, which was rapidly plunging into the gloom of approaching darkness, she thought of her own long years of unrequited love, the love that clung to life because neither she nor the object of her affections was married to anyone else. She would soon be leaving to join her sister Portia at Miss Spencer’s Agency for Genteel Employment, and she was not sure how she could bear it. Though the annuity she would receive for life must surely be as fine as that of the most cherished of mistresses. If Tobias should ever marry . . . how would she feel? Dear God, the anguish of it!
Beth had thrown herself back down on her bed. With a sigh, Miss Spencer sat beside her, placing gentle fingers on the girl’s quivering shoulders. “Get Terence to take you away,” she advised, wondering at her temerity. “Far away from here, the Americas, Australia. Leave all this behind. Tobias’s ambitions have brought you nothing but grief.”
“Do you think I haven’t thought of it?” Beth gulped, pausing to wipe her face with Tildy’s handkerchief. “I can’t, I simply can’t,” she murmured. “He is my papa, and I love him. I admire what he has made of his life. It’s not the money I care for—though surely I’d be hard put to know how to do without it. I wonder at the empire he has built and cannot bear to do anything to destroy his dreams. Terence and I are all he has. We are his future. Without us, hi
s world would turn to dust. There is no possible way either of us could do that to him.”
“But to marry Lord Monterne when Terence holds your heart? How can this be right?”
Beth lifted her head, leaning on her elbow. “I am learning,” she said carefully, “that there are different kinds of love. Rodney is very appealing. I am sure we will go on very well together. Now go to bed, Tildy. The lists for the wedding are endless. There is no point in being bleary-eyed in the morning.”
Would she feel guilt for the rest of her life? Tildy wondered, for not confronting Tobias more strongly on this matter? Or would all go well and she would find herself dandling Beth’s children on her knee, almost as good as a grandmother, her romantical foolishness long forgotten?
Tildy rose to her feet. “I don’t know whether to wring your neck or be proud of you. And whichever you choose,” she added sharply, “I pity the poor man.” Unkind perhaps, but it seemed a moment for a bracing remark. They both needed to be strong.
There was nothing like two weeks at the imposing country home of one of England’s premier earls to dazzle a young girl who had seldom been out of the city. Fortunately, the Earl of Ravenshaw had been able to borrow heavily on the strength of his son’s betrothal to the daughter of the Merchant Midas. Brush no longer grew up among the rhododendrons on the winding drive from the gatehouse to the sprawling manor first constructed in the days of Henry II and added onto, rather haphazardly, many times since. The park had been scythed to verdant perfection, towering tangles of weeds hastily removed from the formal gardens, dust covers whisked off furniture in long-disused rooms, extra hands procured to polish the plate and provide instant service to all parts of the formidable structure. If Beth noticed an occasional stain on the ornate plaster ceilings, a chip here and there in the oak wainscotting or traces of smoke on an overmantel, she said nothing. After all, she had few illusions about her marriage. Why else would the heir to all this marry a Cit? The contract negotiated by the two families’ solicitors was a business merger, plain and simple. A practice as old as time. She was more fortunate than most to have obtained a prospective husband who was attractive and actually seemed to like her.
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