“This isn’t just any orphan.” Berkley leaned closer. “This is a beautiful bit of baggage in the guardianship of a sinister lord.”
“How do you know she’s beautiful?” Marianne said without thinking.
“How do you know he’s sinister?” Pennington asked at the same time.
“She writes the stories herself,” Berkley said. “Letters to a cousin—”
“Do orphans have cousins?” Pennington murmured.
Berkley ignored him. “You can tell what she’s like from her writing.” He nodded sagely. “She’s a tiny bit of a thing and as innocent as the day she was born.”
“You can tell all that?” Pennington scoffed. “It’s been my experience that there is typically a great discrepancy between beautiful women on paper and beautiful women in person.”
“Not this time,” Berkley said staunchly.
As much as Marianne wished to steer the subject to something much safer, she wanted more to hear everything Berkley thought about the Adventures. She forced a casual note to her voice. “Why do you say her guardian is sinister?”
He shook his head sadly. “He’ll ruin her, poor thing. A man like that, he’d never marry her.”
“Does it matter?” Marianne said. “I mean, if the story itself is interesting—”
“Of course it matters.” Indignation colored his voice. “It’s the honorable thing to do in a case like this.”
Marianne pressed on. “What if she doesn’t wish to marry?”
Berkley looked at her in amazement. “All women want to marry. It’s what women do.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but Pennington cut her off, showing interest for the first time. “What makes you think he’ll ruin her? Didn’t you say this was just the first installment?”
“I can tell from the way he looks at her.” Berkley sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Mark my words, Lord W will have his way with her.”
“Lord W?” Pennington grinned. “Who is Lord W?”
Berkley shrugged. “Haven’t a clue. The thing is written anonymously.”
“It shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.” Pennington drew his brows together thoughtfully. “If it is true, of course.”
“Oh, it’s true,” Berkley said.
“Absolutely true,” Marianne said under her breath.
“After all,” Pennington continued, “how many Lord W’s could there be with sweet young innocents in their care?”
“Nonsense,” Marianne said quickly. “If the stories are anonymous, Lord W could be anyone.” She brushed aside a twinge of panic and plunged ahead. “Why, if you think about it, Lord Helmsley is more or less acting as guardian for us at the moment. He could be Lord W, and Jocelyn, Becky or I could be the country miss.”
Berkley snorted. “Not bloody likely.”
Pennington studied her curiously but directed his words to his friend. “Why not?”
“Because the country miss has no sisters.” Berkley grinned with triumph. “Besides, Helmsley would never—”
“Helmsley would never what?”
Marianne glanced up. Thomas stood looking down at them with a polite smile. She’d been too absorbed in the conversation to notice his arrival.
“Berkley was about to give you a great deal of credit.” Pennington’s mild tone belied the assessing look in his eye. “He doesn’t believe you would ruin an innocent in your keeping.”
Surprise crossed Thomas’s face. “Thank you, Berkley. I never knew you thought so highly of me.”
“I don’t.” Berkley laughed. “I just don’t think you are Lord W, that’s all.”
Thomas frowned. “Who is Lord W?”
“Precisely what we are speculating on,” Pennington said. “He is the unknown lord in the anonymous but purportedly absolutely true adventures of a beautiful orphan in London. It’s a story running in Cadwallender’s Weekly World Messenger.”
“Never heard of it.” Thomas shrugged in dismissal.
“I’d wager you will.” Berkley chuckled. “I’d bet my entire fortune the whole city will be talking about The Absolutely True Adventures of a Country Miss in no time.”
“And then Lord W, if there is a Lord W, had better take care,” Pennington said.
“Why?” Marianne asked.
“Because, my dear”—Pennington cast her a knowing smile—“at that point we won’t be the only ones curious as to the identity of Lord W and his country miss.”
Would this afternoon ever end? Thomas leaned idly on the mantel and tried not to glare at the assembly that had invaded his home. Home? Hah! At the moment the parlor looked more like a mad flower vendor had abandoned his wares. Had every man at last night’s ball sent flowers to the Shelton sisters? It certainly appeared so. Not that he wouldn’t have done the same thing if an intriguing young woman had caught his eye. He should be pleased at the attention they were receiving. With luck, it brought them one step closer to the altar. Then why was it all so bloody annoying?
Jocelyn and Becky were both surrounded by potential suitors. Of course, they would refuse to wed until their older sister did. And as for that sister . . .
He scowled in Marianne’s direction. She was still chatting with Pennington and Berkley, and from the looks of it having rather a good time. Was she that taken with the likes of men like them? Admittedly, he had always enjoyed their company, but that was entirely different. Men expected loyalty and companionship from one another and wanted little else. Thomas had few doubts what these two wanted from any woman, and Marianne was no exception.
He recognized virtually every man here. Many of them he considered friends and they were no more disreputable than he was. Abruptly he realized, reformable or not, he would hesitate to put himself on a list of acceptable prospects.
Where were the men he’d deemed suitable? Not a one of those he had so painstakingly selected and introduced to Marianne had deigned to call on her. Perhaps they were just biding their time. Waiting for the opportune moment. His scowl deepened. If one of them didn’t move quickly, that moment would slip by and Marianne would be off experiencing life with Pennington or Berkley or someone else equally unacceptable.
Marianne glanced up and her gaze met his. He glared back and she laughed. The blasted woman laughed! She murmured something to Pennington and Berkley and all three got to their feet. Marianne headed toward him.
What did she want with him now?
“Delightful afternoon, don’t you think so, my lord?” Amusement colored her voice.
“Not in the least.” He narrowed his eyes. “My home is cluttered with flowers and”—he waved at the gathering—“crowded with vagrants.”
“I’d scarce call them vagrants.” She leaned closer in a confidential manner. “Now smile, or everyone will think you’re quite inhospitable and in an extremely disagreeable mood.”
“I prefer to be inhospitable and I am in a disagreeable mood,” he muttered but adopted a stiff smile nonetheless.
“Oh, that’s much better. You look positively jovial.”
He clenched his teeth. “I have nothing to be jovial about. You have broken your promise.”
She laughed. “What promise is that?”
“You promised to cooperate in my efforts to find you a husband.”
“And I’ve lived up to it.”
“Obviously not well enough.” He sniffed. “Not a single man here is one I consider appropriate for you.” He knew how, well, stuffy he sounded, but he didn’t care.
A spark flared in her brown eyes. “What is it, Thomas?” she said in a low voice for him alone to hear. “Was I not charming enough? Did I not I flirt enough? Or hang on every uttered male word as if it were pure poetry? I’ll have you know”—she gestured at the room—“a good portion of these flowers were addressed to me. Several from some of the very gentlemen who are here now.”
“Pennington and Berkley, no doubt.”
“Among others.” She glared up at him. “At any rate, I’d say that ind
icates cooperation.”
“Well, I do not. I’d say . . . I think . . . or rather it . . . ”
“You’re sputtering, and it’s not nearly as charming as I had once thought.” She swept off to join the others.
He stared after her and struggled to keep what passed for a smile on his face. By God, he’d get her wed or die trying.
“You do not appear to be enjoying yourself, my lord.” Lady Louella joined him.
He’d been too intent on Marianne to notice the older lady’s approach. “On the contrary. I—”
She lifted a brow.
He chuckled. “Very well. You have seen through me.”
“It was not difficult.” She pressed her lips together and he wondered if she was holding back a smile. “What precisely do you find so annoying about this gathering?”
Without thinking his gaze slipped to Marianne. “I am simply not pleased by the caliber of gentlemen who have seen fit to call.”
“Nonsense, my lord. They are all from respectable families and, unless I am mistaken, are for the most part financially sound.” She studied the crowd for a moment. “I understood, as well, most of them are companions of yours.”
“And in that lies the problem.” He nodded toward a gentleman beside Jocelyn. “Lord Markworth drinks entirely too much.”
“As do you.”
He ignored her, warming to this litany of his friends’ sins. “And Lord Kenniston is passionate about racing his phaeton when any opportunity arises.”
“And you do not?”
“Pennington’s and Berkley’s escapades are legendary.”
“And yours are not?”
He glanced down his nose at her. “My dear lady, I am not immune to your point. I am exactly like this lot.”
“Isn’t this a case, then, of the pot calling the kettle black?”
“Admittedly, I am a pot.” He blew a frustrated breath. “However, it is for that very reason that I know precisely what these kettles are all about.”
“You do not give them, or yourself, enough credit.”
“Or I give us all too much.” He paused and considered her. “Tell me this, my lady, would you want one of this group—or me, for that matter—as a match for one of your nieces?”
She studied him for a long moment, as if balancing his deficits against his attributes. She nodded slowly. “Yes, Lord Helmsley, I believe I would.”
“Why?”
“Any number of reasons.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “You come from a good family. You have a respectable title and the finances to assure they would want for nothing.”
“I sound too good to be true.”
“I doubt that.”
“And what of affection? Love? Doesn’t that enter into it?”
“It’s been my experience that love is fleeting. My sister married for love, although, granted, a title and position came along with it.” She shifted her gaze to her nieces. “But their father was a very weak man, unable to live up to his responsibilities. Unable to live up to the expectations of that love and all that goes with it.”
He studied her curiously. “Have you ever been in love, my lady?”
Her forehead furrowed in a frown. “That, my boy, is an impertinent question and extremely personal.”
“Please except my apology. I had no intention—”
She waved aside his comment. “If I say no, then I am to be pitied for having lived my life without love. If I say I loved once and he died or, worse, left me, again I am to be pitied. I am satisfied with my life and have no desire for pity.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Of course you didn’t.” She paused, and he wondered if she was indeed remembering a lost love.
He wasn’t certain why he’d asked her about love in the first place. He’d never particularly considered it one way or the other. At least not when it came to matches for himself or the girls. Love didn’t play a role in the practicalities of selecting a mate. And he had always considered himself a practical man.
“However, I suspect, when love is true”—her words were measured—“it can be a very powerful force.”
“No doubt,” he murmured. He thought Richard and Gillian had that kind of love. And perhaps his parents as well. Come to think of it, most of the matches in his own family had been for love and most were successful and happy.
He’d been in love, of course. No less than a dozen times in his younger days, though none of it had turned out well. With age he’d grown cautious, and perhaps a little jaded and disillusioned. Now he wanted to select a wife for more sensible reasons than mere emotion. Odd, for a poet to be so pessimistic about that which all poets write.
“Do they want love, do you think?” Again his gaze settled on Marianne.
“They are sisters, but what they want, or rather what they think they want, is decidedly different from one to the next. I know them far better than they suspect.” She nodded at Jocelyn. “Jocelyn wants wealth and position. She is preoccupied with appearance to the point that she refuses to consider spectacles, even though she cannot see clearly beyond a score of feet or so. But while I have seen her thoughtless, I have never known her to be deliberately unkind.
“Rebecca’s wants are simple. A good man with an excellent stable, of course, and children.” Lady Louella looked at the girl with an expression that might well have been fondness. “And of the three, Rebecca is the one most concerned with love.
“As for Marianne, she is perhaps the most complicated.” Lady Louella studied Marianne for a moment. “She was very young when her mother died, but not so young that she doesn’t remember her.” The lady sighed. “My sister was a wonderful woman but with never an opinion or thought of her own. She was as weak as her husband. If she had been stronger, their lives together would have been different. And perhaps the lot of her daughters would have been better after her death.”
Thomas was well aware of the family’s history. How Marianne’s father had gambled away everything and left his son and daughters struggling to make ends meet. He could not imagine a childhood in such circumstances. At once he understood Marianne’s longing for independence and adventure. What could be more different from a bare existence in the English countryside than the excitement she’d only found thus far in books? And why shouldn’t she want to taste that excitement for herself?
“Marianne has always been a dreamer. But she is also headstrong and opinionated. While not always qualities one would wish in a woman, I think they will serve her well. She will not allow any man, husband or otherwise, to destroy her life.” There was a touch of pride in the older woman’s voice.
Thomas smiled. “I daresay I needn’t ask who she takes after.”
Louella’s chin lifted. “She will need a man who accepts his responsibilities. A man she can depend on. A man whose feet are planted firmly on the ground.” Her lips curved upward slightly in a fair imitation of a smile. “Because hers will never be.”
“Exactly what I thought,” Thomas murmured.
A few moments later he excused himself and headed for the library. The type of man who could capture Marianne’s hand was the type of man who was more than likely to ruin her instead. Men like his friends. Admittedly exciting and prone to adventure. Granted, adventure of a scandalous nature but adventure nonetheless.
In spite of her protests, it was obvious she was intrigued by Pennington and Berkley. Of course, they’d never explored the Amazon but they did have an air of adventure about them. Exactly the quality that would catch her eye. Exactly the wrong kind of man for her. And exactly what he wanted to avoid.
Thomas closed the library doors behind him and sat down at the desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a few pieces of stationary, hesitated, then grabbed a thick stack of the writing paper. Who knew how many tries it would take to get this right?
If he couldn’t, or rather wouldn’t, entice her with men of the qualities she desired, he’d have to concentrate on quantity. Sheer numbers would wear dow
n her resistance. And sooner or later, preferably sooner, she’d accept an offering of marriage.
Off the top of his head, he could think of at least half a dozen gentlemen that would suit. Dull and tedious she’d called them. Respectable, responsible and without an adventurous thought in their heads in Thomas’s thinking. He should probably double that number, or triple it. He trimmed a pen and leaned back to think.
Exactly how did he want to phrase this?
He didn’t want to be crass yet he did want to make certain the gentlemen he had in mind were well aware of the benefits of marriage to Marianne. No, he shouldn’t actually say marriage; he wouldn’t want to scare anyone off. But he could casually mention her impressive dowry and how an allegiance with her would mean connections with the Earl of Shelbrooke and the Duke of Roxborough.
He would also urge discretion. Marianne knew he wished to find her a husband but if she ever found out the lengths he was willing to go to . . . he shuddered at the thought.
He’d have his notes delivered at once and by the end of the week, the Effington House parlor would be filled with any number of proper suitors for Marianne. She would select one and then his duties toward her would be at an end. She would be out of his life. He brushed aside a twinge of regret.
Oh, certainly he would see her socially now and again or at the occasional family gathering. But she would be wed and so, by that time, would he. To a nice biddable woman who would never defy his wishes or question his judgment or argue with his decisions. To a woman who would never cause him a moment’s concern.
Dull and tedious.
A woman who would never make him sputter.
Chapter 9
. . . Lord W has been particularly secretive of late.
In those hours long after the household has retired for the night, he can be found in his library. I have chanced upon him there unnoticed.
It is a strange thing, to observe a man when he is not aware of such scrutiny. There is a quiet gentleness about Lord W when he is confident in his solitude that belies the tempestuous nature I have been privy to thus far. There is much more to the man than I, and indeed the world, have suspected.
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