A Bachelor Still

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  Taking a deep breath, Colette continued to glare at her husband. “I doubt Liana or Colin will agree.”

  “Leave Colin out of this,” Lord McElreath ordered.

  “As you’ve done?” she asked, pointedly reminding the earl that his irresponsible actions had involved them all in this mess while his son and heir was out of the country, unaware of the situation and unable to help.

  “I am the head of this household,” Lord McElreath reminded his wife. “Not Colin.”

  “You are the titular head of the household,” Colette allowed. “But Colin supports it. You abdicated that responsibility years ago.”

  Lord McElreath was no better at bluffing his wife than he was his opponents at the gaming table. “That will change as soon as Liana’s wed.”

  “Oh?” Colette lifted one delicately sculpted eyebrow. “How’s that? Have you decided to give up the drink and sever your ties with the city’s gaming establishments in atonement for bartering our daughter’s innocence in order to cover your debts?”

  His sweet gentle wife’s sarcasm cut him to the quick. She, who never criticized, who never nagged, or sobbed, or bemoaned their runs of bad luck had suddenly attacked. She simply didn’t understand. “I’ve discharged my obligation to Liana by securing a mature, wealthy, titled gentleman as husband for her. She had to wed sometime. That’s the way things are done. The fact is our daughter’s about to become a flush marchioness who will outrank us. I’ve done my duty, Puss. I fail to see how you can find fault with that.”

  “Then you fail to see what you’ve become.”

  The earl raked his trembling fingers through his hair, futilely searching for a way to put an end to the pounding in his brain. Perspiration dotted his forehead. Bile rose in his throat. And his mouth was as parched and dry as the Arabian Desert. He needed a drink. He needed a glass—no—a bottle—of brandy to ease his craving. “What I’ve become?”

  “Look at yourself, Donald. You’re a man who cares more about drink and gaming than your family. You’ve sold our daughter to a stranger in order to discharge your gaming debts.”

  He wasn’t the only one who’d changed. When had his darling Colette become a shrew? “I had no choice!”

  “One always has a choice.”

  “I didn’t. I told him I would have the blunt to pay him if he would wait a few days before calling in my chits,” the earl attempted to explain. “But he refused. He didn’t want cash.” McElreath threw up his hands. “He didn’t want money or the promise of money as payment. He has no need of it. What he wanted instead was a wife.” He paused for effect. “He knows I have two daughters. My only choice was to give him Liana or Caroline as wife.”

  “Caroline!” Colette was shocked to the depths of her mother’s soul.

  The earl nodded. “Yes, Caroline. Would you rather it have been her?”

  “Caroline is still in the schoolroom.”

  “He didn’t care. Doesn’t care. He likes ’em young. I had to talk him into taking Liana. She’s about to begin her third season. Her third season. He feels she’s too old.”

  “She’s nineteen,” Colette reminded him.

  “She’s nineteen now. She’ll soon be twenty. I assured him that the bloom is still on the rose.” He studied his wife with pleading eyes. “I convinced him to take Liana in order to save Caroline. It was all I could do. If I don’t give him one of my daughters in marriage, he’ll ruin me. Ruin us.”

  “Then we’ll just have to come up with a way to delay. It takes time to plan a wedding and sew a trousseau. Months…”

  “We can’t delay,” the earl confessed. “The wedding is to take place immediately. It was part of the deal.”

  “You’ll have to renegotiate. Convince him that Liana needs time to—”

  “He’s already drawn up the marriage contract and I’ve already signed it.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “Because he’s promised to cancel my debts as soon as he and Liana are married.”

  “My God, Donald, how much did you lose?”

  “More than I had. More than I can hope to repay.”

  “Oh, Donald…”

  “You have to understand, Puss. The amount didn’t matter. He would have claimed his pound of flesh over a bloody ha’penny.” The earl shook his head as if to clear it.

  “It’s not your pound of flesh he’s claiming. It’s Liana’s.”

  “I had a winning hand. My best hand of the night. I should have won. Nothing could beat that hand except—”

  “His hand.” Colette gave a weary sigh. She had heard that particular reasoning hundreds—thousands—of times before.

  “Aye.” The earl nodded.

  “There must be something you can do.”

  “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

  “Try harder. Surely, there’s someone we can turn to for help. Someone who can intervene with this man. Lord Mayhew…”

  “Mayhew won’t advance me capital without Colin’s approval,” Lord McElreath replied sharply, referring to Lord Robert Mayhew, gentleman banker and the owner of an investment firm that numbered a great many of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the realm as clients. “And there isn’t time to send to Vienna to get it.”

  “We might appeal to Lord Davies,” she offered, naming their daughter-in-law, Gillian’s, father.

  “I’m a belted earl,” Lord McElreath blustered. “The ninth Scottish Earl McElreath. Lord Davies is a glorified draper elevated to the rank of baron…”

  “He’s part of our family.”

  “That may be. But he’s not gentle born and I’ll not be indebted to him. I’ll not crawl to a tradesman who’s just been granted a title with my hat in hand and beg favors.” The earl gritted his teeth in frustration. “Besides, Rothermere is not a man to be put off with promises.”

  Colette blanched. “Rothermere? Not Felix Rothermere…”

  “Of course, Felix Rothermere,” the earl bit out.

  “Stop this, Donald! Stop it now. Today,” Colette demanded, fighting to keep the note of hysteria out of her voice, fighting to keep from screaming and waking Liana and Caroline who were sleeping upstairs. “Stop it now. Or I will.”

  “I can’t.” Earl McElreath reached out and cupped his wife’s cheek with his hand. “And neither can you. It’s gone too far.”

  “Too far?” She was stunned once again. “You’ve just told me of it. How could it have gone too far?”

  “It just has,” he admitted.

  Colette began to shake, her entire body quivering with dread. “Donald…”

  “The announcement of the wedding will be in the morning papers. In a few hours it will be public. If we don’t go through with it, he’ll sue us for breach of promise. Either way, I’ll end up in Old Bailey.” Fixing his gaze on his wife’s face, McElreath gazed down at her, willing her to be as understanding and accepting as she’d always been. “You know me, Colette. I can’t go to debtor’s prison. I couldn’t survive it.”

  Colette gazed back at him with cold eyes. “Yet you expect my baby to survive Lord Rothermere’s less than tender care.”

  “Puss…”

  “I’ve heard the rumors, Donald.”

  He was desperate and grasping at straws. “That’s all they are, Colette. Rumors. Innuendo. Speculation.”

  “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.” Colette pulled out of her husband’s grasp, then turned and walked away.

  “Colette? Where are you going? What are you going to do?”

  She stopped at the door and faced him. “Whatever it takes to save my child.”

  That had been three nights ago and Colette hadn’t spoken to him since. In his desperation, the earl had been forced to keep the details of their daughter’s wedding to himself. He’d been forced to restrict his wife’s movements, only allowing her to attend Lady Creighton’s soiree because the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had invited her to accompany them and there had been no way for him to refuse the ducal request. Just as there had be
en no way for him to refuse to allow Liana to accept the wedding gifts the duke and duchess had sent her.

  Something borrowed for luck.

  He’d noticed Liana’s wedding finery the moment she descended the stairs of their rented townhouse. When he’d asked if her ensemble was part of the wardrobe Colin and Gillian had had made for her London season, Liana had produced a handwritten note from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex wishing her well on her wedding day and asking her to accept their offerings.

  Lord McElreath didn’t recall a messenger delivering the finery, but he’d been preoccupied with his own problems and hadn’t really paid attention. He hadn’t noticed the arrival of any wedding gifts since the announcement appeared in the newspaper, but why should he when Colette took care of domestic details?

  He did think it extraordinarily generous and overly presumptuous of Colin’s friends to provide the same sort of gifts Colin and Gillian would have given to her had they been in London and known to do so. Personal gifts. The sort of gifts a girl’s family normally provided for her. But he couldn’t fault their taste. The rich color complimented Liana’s fair complexion, blond hair, and green eyes.

  Eyes she’d inherited from her mother. Eyes that were accusing him now as her mother’s had done for the past three days.

  He patted Liana’s hand once again. “You make a lovely bride, my dear.”

  “Thank you, Papa.” When her father had awakened her at the crack of dawn this morning, stone sober, and demanding that she dress for her wedding, Liana had gratefully donned the duke and duchess’s gifts. She glanced down at the emerald silk of the most beautiful dress she’d ever worn.

  “You do me credit.” He was pleased his daughter hadn’t pulled her hand out of the reach of his or marred her fair countenance by appearing with a puffy face and eyes red-rimmed and swollen from tears. He was pleased she was enough his daughter that she could bluff through her disappointment; she knew better than to show weakness or trepidation in Lord Rothermere’s presence.

  “I make a sensible bride, Papa.” Reaching up, Liana touched the emerald teardrop dangling from her right ear. “No one would ever call me a beautiful one. And if I do anyone credit, I hope it’s the duke and duchess. It was nice of Her Grace to send me the dress and the jewelry.”

  “Very nice,” Lord McElreath agreed. And surprising. He had always imagined a rich English duke would consider a poor Scottish viscount and his family far beneath him, but Sussex surprised him by acting as if he considered Colin not only his equal, but his friend. And Colin’s friends had graciously extended their friendship to Colin’s bride, her parents, and the entire McElreath clan. Still, Lord McElreath had never expected that Sussex and his lovely duchess would consider themselves such close friends of the family that they would invite Colette to a fashionable charity gala or present Liana with expensive clothes and jewels for her wedding. But they had.

  All the more reason one should never judge a book by its cover or a man by his wealth or title.

  And another reason McElreath was willing to ignore the rumors and innuendo surrounding his soon-to-be son-in-law and give the marquess not only his daughter, but also the benefit of the doubt. That and the fact he owed the man a bloody fortune.

  “That gown looks as if it was made just for you and the earrings match your eyes.” Eyeing the emerald earrings, expertly gauging their worth, the earl smiled at his daughter. “You must have made quite an impression on Their Graces.”

  Noting the look of avarice in her father’s eyes, Liana closed the fingers of her left hand around the emerald and diamond ring she’d found sitting within the circlet of orange blossoms lying on her pillow when she’d awakened this morning. The silk dress and matching accessories, including the earrings, had been spread out across the foot of the bed she shared with Caroline, along with a note from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but the ring had come with a note written on stationery engraved with a different coat of arms and the words: Accept these tokens of my esteem to wear on your wedding day.

  She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but she knew the coat of arms and Liana accepted the ring and the orange blossoms the same way she’d accepted the dress and earrings and other accessories—with trust, gratitude and awe. She didn’t have to know the significance of the gift to want to wear it.

  After carefully removing it from its box and slipping it onto the third finger of her left hand, Liana had stood admiring it. It was slightly larger than the finger for which it was intended, so she had pulled her glove on over it to keep from losing it. She’d never worn any jewelry as beautiful or as valuable. Her meager cache of jewels was strictly decorative with only sentimental value. She didn’t enjoy keeping the gift of the ring to herself. She would have liked to have shown it to Maman and Caroline, but she’d left Caro sleeping while she dressed and Maman hadn’t come out of her bedchamber in time to see it before Papa insisted they leave. Now, she didn’t dare reveal it. If there was anything Liana had learned in her nineteen years, it was that her papa couldn’t be trusted with anything of value.

  She wasn’t supposed to know he’d long ago pawned the McElreath hereditary jewels, but she’d seen jewelry disappear from Maman’s jewelry cases over the years, only to be replaced by cheap paste imitations. Nothing that could be sold or pawned was ever safe from her father’s hands.

  Even the strand of pearls Colin and Gillian had given her for her last birthday had disappeared and been replaced by imitations. She had been too ashamed to admit the loss of the real pearls to her brother, so Liana had kept it to herself. Just as she was keeping the earrings in her ears and the ring covered by her glove. Expensive earrings and an emerald and diamond ring borrowed for her wedding day might prove too much of a temptation for her father to resist.

  “I’m sure Maman and Colin have made more of an impression on Their Graces than I have.” Liana gave her father a warning look. “And the fine things they’ve sent me are borrowed, Papa. Not mine to keep. Still, I’m fortunate the duchess thinks well enough of Maman and Colin to send me such beautiful things to wear.” She smoothed a tiny crease from the silk. Miranda Sussex, was several inches taller than Liana and graced with more curves, but the fit of the bodice was as perfect as the length. Since everything Miranda wore was the height of fashion, the duchess had undoubtedly worn the dress shorter to show off embroidered stockings or to accommodate ankle boots, which made it exactly the right length for Liana, who was wearing unadorned stockings and her best pair of black silk dancing slippers. “I just hope Maman gets to see me in my wedding finery.”

  “She’ll be waiting at the chapel.” The earl couldn’t quite meet his daughter’s gaze as he told the lie. “Along with your sister.”

  “Will she, Papa?”

  “Of course,” he bluffed. “Nothing could keep your mother from seeing her little girl happily married.” Nothing except the fact that desperate times called for desperate measures and he had been desperate enough to lock his wife and younger daughter in their bedchambers on the morning of his elder daughter’s wedding and pocket the keys. In her present state of mind, he couldn’t trust Colette not to interfere. Couldn’t trust her not to do something foolish that would bring an abrupt end to Liana’s nuptials and have him spending the remainder of his natural life in debtor’s prison. Or worse.

  “You promise?”

  “I cross my heart.”

  Lord McElreath followed his words by crossing his heart and in that moment, Liana knew her mother and sister would not be at the church to see her in her wedding finery. Or to see her at all.

  Her papa gave his promises freely. He promised the moon, but he never delivered. Waiting for Papa’s promises to come true was like waiting for gold to fall from the heavens and for raindrops to turn into diamonds. The dream was wonderful, but the reality was disappointing. Papa didn’t mean to disappoint, it just happened. He didn’t mean to fail the people who loved him most, but Papa couldn’t seem to help it.

  Liana recognized her fat
her’s frailties even if she didn’t understand why he surrendered to them, and like her mother and her brothers and sister, she usually made allowances, finding ways to excuse his hurtful behavior.

  If only she could find it in her heart to do so today.

  But forgiveness came harder now that Liana realized the father she thought loved her and wanted the best for her had sacrificed her future to save himself.

  “How much, Papa?”

  Lord McElreath pretended not to understand his daughter’s question. “How much what, Daughter?”

  “How much money am I worth to you?”

  “What a question to ask!” The earl managed a laugh, chuckling as if Liana had shared a humorous bon mot. “Daughter, you know that in my estimation, you are priceless.”

  She knew nothing of the sort so Liana couldn’t appreciate her father’s attempt at levity. She was keenly aware that while the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had sent gifts of expensive clothing and jewelry for her wedding day, and her noble admirer had sent orange blossoms and a magnificent ring to mark the occasion of her nuptials, the man who was to become her husband had sent nothing. No note. No flowers. No wedding gifts of any kind. Nothing to show that she meant anything to him. She was simply a means to an end. Property to be bartered. Chattel to be collected. A tool to be used.

  Gazing at her father with hard eyes, Liana steeled herself against his reaction. “And in the estimation of the marquess, Papa? What am I worth to him?”

  Lord McElreath cleared his throat. “Daughter, you are young and inexperienced in monetary matters and the ways of gentlemen. As your father, it is my duty to—”

  “Sell me to the highest bidder in order to pay off your gaming debts? Or give me over to the gentleman holding your vowels in exchange for their cancellation? Is that your duty as my father? Is that how noble gentlemen protect their daughters, Papa? Or simply the way poor gamblers salvage their reputations and stay out of debtor’s prison?”

  The earl bristled at her impertinence. “Daughter, you have no right to speak to me in such fashion.”

  Her voice quavered at the enormity of what she was doing. Dutiful Liana McElreath had never shown her father anything but the respect he deserved as her elder and her parent, but this situation was unique in their relationship. Papa had wounded her, betrayed her trust, and Liana refused to be cowed. “I have as much right to speak to you in such fashion as you had to sell me in such fashion. I’m about to become a bride to a stranger. By tomorrow morning I will have gained intimate knowledge of the ways of gentlemen and there will be nothing you can do to change that. I have the right to know my value. I have a right to know what the marquess paid for me.”