“This will ruin any chances we might have to make a good match,” the younger of his sisters, Celeste, said. “I daresay we will all need to retire to the country to avoid the gossip. This season is a complete ruin.”
“If that is what you wish to do, of course,” Jasper said, inclining his head. “Then you are all three welcome to do so. I daresay Lady Hermione would prefer to settle in to the household without having a resentful trio of in-laws underfoot while she does so.”
“You would throw us out of our own home?” Lady Mainwaring asked, her lips tight with anger.
“Of course I’m not throwing you out,” he said in kinder tones than he felt. “You are all, of course, welcome to remain here. But I do think it best if you consider perhaps removing to a house of your own if you feel you will be unable to behave with civility to my bride. And if you do not make that choice, in the event that you are indeed uncivil, I will make it for you.”
“You never used to be so hard, Jasper,” Evelina complained. “I think you have become callous thanks to your friendship with the Duke of Trent. He might be a duke but it is not as if he was born to the title.”
“Since Trent and I have been acquainted since Eton I do not think that you can lay the blame for my so-called callous nature at his door,” Jasper responded with a raised brow. “And he might not have been born to the title, but I must say that I find his manners entirely more agreeable than your own have been today.”
“That is because my heart is breaking,” Evelina cried, raising her handkerchief to her mouth and fleeing the room.
“She was about to bring Viscount Fordham up to scratch,” Celeste said hotly. “She’s convinced he will drop her acquaintance once he gets word of your scandalous behavior.”
Jasper just barely stopped himself from sighing aloud. “Since Fordham can hardly be said to hold a spotless reputation himself,” he said, “I do not think it likely he will run for the hills at the unusual circumstances of my betrothal. And if he does, then he is hardly the sort of fellow I should wish for Evelina to marry.”
“That’s easy for you to say when you aren’t the one who will have to listen to the other ladies of the ton laugh gleefully over poor Ev’s broken heart,” Celeste retorted. She rose, shaking her head in disappointment, though whether it was over Fordham’s hypothetical perfidy or Jasper’s actual, he could not be sure.
“There is still time for you to flounce off, if you are so inclined, Mama,” Jasper said, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Had he had the beginnings of a headache when he entered the room?
“Your sisters are right, you know,” Lady Mainwaring said with resignation. “No one will come near them this season now. This is what you are sacrificing with your foolishness.”
“Honor is not foolish, Mama,” he said without backing down. It would not do to show her the slightest bit of weakness for his mother was skilled at exploiting any bit of a dent in his armor. “I have given my word to Lady Hermione now and I will abide by it. I do regret the disappointment that has ensued for you and the girls, but it’s not to be helped.”
“I only hope that you will not find yourself regretting your actions, Jasper,” she said with the air of one could not wait to say she’d told him so. “Marriage is a serious business and one that is best not undertaken lightly.”
“Yes, Mama,” he said, biting back a grin at her officiousness, “I have heard the marriage liturgy before. And I do not undertake this lightly. Lady Hermione and I have been somewhat acquainted through mutual friends. And I believe we will be able to make a good match, if not at first a conventional one.”
“You know your own heart best,” she said, at last sounding resigned. “Now, if you will be so kind as to take yourself off, I have a headache and I wish to have a lie-down.”
Watching as the last of his female relatives swept out of the room, Jasper couldn’t help but feel relieved that the worst of it was over.
His mother and sisters might not be happy about his marriage, but at the very least they knew he would tolerate no disrespect for Hermione.
He had a sneaking suspicion, however, that Lady Hermione would be quite able to take care of herself if necessary.
Was it thoroughly wrong of him to anticipate seeing her rout the Mainwaring ladies at the first possible moment?
Perhaps, but he was willing to take his punishment for it.
* * *
Sometime later that afternoon, Hermione was staring at her closet in an attempt to determine whether any of her current wardrobe was worthy of being worn by the Countess of Mainwaring, when she heard a scratch on her door.
Ophelia poked her head round, and seeing Hermione was awake and alert, stepped in, shutting the door firmly behind her.
“I just thought I’d stop in to see if you’d learned anything more about Lord Saintcrow,” she said diffidently. But Hermione wasn’t fooled.
“Mainwaring sent you, didn’t he?”
Her friend colored. “Perhaps,” she said with a shrug. “I must admit I was more intrigued by the fact that he was the one who summoned me than the actual fact of the summons.”
She waited, then. One brow raised in an imitation of Leonora at her most inquisitive.
“When did you become so nosy?” Hermione asked without rancor. “I expect it from Leonora but you are supposed to be the prim and proper one!”
“Someone has to press you for information while she’s indisposed,” Ophelia said, pursing her lips. “You are quite forthcoming about your plans for world domination, but anything having to do with gentlemen or feelings you lock away without giving anyone the key.”
“I’m not that bad,” Hermione said, gesturing her friend toward the conversation nook in the corner of her dressing room. “You make me sound like some sort of vault.”
“A vault to which I begin to suspect the Earl of Mainwaring has somehow got the key.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Do not make the mistake of thinking this is a love match, Ophelia. Leonora might be the poet but you’ve got the soul of a romantic lurking behind that practical exterior.”
“Aha!” There was no disguising the triumph in the other lady’s shout. “So it is a match, then! I knew it. From the moment you first argued over the suitability of ladies in driving clubs, I knew there was something between you.”
“Do not be silly,” Hermione said with more affection than heat. “We are to be wed, but it’s not through the fault of either of us.”
“What do you mean, ‘fault’?”
“Just that,” she said, pulling her stocking feet beneath her as she got comfortable on the settee. “My father had the temerity to gamble away my hand in marriage last night.”
Quickly, she explained what Mainwaring had told her earlier about his encounter with her father in the gambling hell. She made no mention of what had transpired between herself and Mainwaring that afternoon in the drawing room. Some things even her friends could not be privy to.
Ophelia’s eyes grew wide with astonishment.
“And what has your father to say for himself?” she demanded, angered on Hermione’s behalf. Ophelia was nothing if not loyal. “I hope he groveled at your feet.”
“Oh, he thinks he’s well within his rights,” Hermione said with a scowl. “And at this point, I’m not sure I’m not pleased with his loss of this particular wager. He’s left me to clean up any number of messes this week. And none of them has exactly caused me a great deal of happiness. This one will, at the very least, put me under the care of someone who has a sensible head on his shoulders. I wasn’t on the lookout for a husband, but as they go I could have done worse than Mainwaring.”
“That’s a relief at least,” Ophelia said with a twist of her lips. “If you were thoroughly opposed to the match I’d have done what I could to ensure you were well out of it. But this means that we can end the week with our encounter with poor Lord Saintcrow as our biggest scandal.”
“I suppose it will be a
relief if there is no mention of a trio of veiled ladies leaving Lord Saintcrow’s town house in tomorrow’s papers.” Hermione said with a wry smile.
“If that happens I will need to flee the country,” Ophelia said with a speaking look. “As it is, I am often stuck at home listening to Mama tell me that the reason I haven’t taken is that I’ve not been making myself agreeable to the right gentlemen. I can only imagine her response to this morning’s adventure.”
“I should think it’s more a case of the right gentlemen not making themselves agreeable to you,” Hermione said with a frown. “I vow, I don’t think I’ve seen one man with the least bit of sense approach you at a ball all season. And you know that I am the soul of forgiveness when it comes to male stupidity.”
This made Ophelia laugh, as Hermione had intended it. She didn’t like to see her friend brought low by her mother’s harping. Ophelia was a smart, sensible lady whose beauty was not immediately apparent to those who didn’t bother to look. But she was a dear friend and Hermione didn’t wish to see her spirit broken by a parent with little understanding of her daughter.
“Oh, yes,” Ophelia agreed with a snort, “as forgiving as can be. When I think of how many men you’ve allowed to live rather than cutting them down with the single word it would take, I cannot help but consider you as the soul of kindness.”
“So, your mama is beginning to turn her attention to you now that Mariah has become betrothed?” Hermione said after they’d stopped giggling.
“Indeed,” Ophelia said with scowl. “I had hoped she’d take a well-deserved holiday from such matters now that her life’s ambition has been realized.”
Mariah Dauntry had become engaged to a marquess only one month earlier, and seeing her eldest daughter happily settled had been Mrs. Duantry’s main purpose in life. Unfortunately, now that one daughter was taken care of, she wanted to do the same for the next eldest, Ophelia.
“Well, I shall be sure to introduce you to any number of handsome gentlemen once Mainwaring and I begin to host social events,” Hermione said, thinking it sounded odd to mention herself in the same sentence as Mainwaring. And yet, there was a certain rightness to it.
“When will you wed?” asked Ophelia with interest. “I presume it will be by special license. Will you have any guests, do you think? May I attend?”
“So many questions,” Hermione said mildly. “I don’t quite know the answer to all of them. Though he did say he’d like to do the thing by the end of the week. So definitely special license, and I daresay you might come if you wish. I shall need someone to stand up with me. And though I suppose one of his sisters would be happy to do the honors, I should prefer it to be someone I know and love.”
Ophelia clapped her hands. “I should be delighted to attend. Have you considered what you will wear?”
They spent a pleasant two hours discussing nothing more pressing than fashion, and Hermione found she was able to relax for the first time in two days.
And, to her relief, she even found something acceptable to wear to her wedding.
If only she could think of the wedding itself with such calm.
Twelve
The next morning, after another night spent in sleeplessness, Hermione went downstairs to find, to her surprise, her father seated at the breakfast table as if nothing much had happened in the last few days.
Staring for a moment at him, or rather at the papers which he was skillfully employing to hide his face from her, she was struck by just how detached from him she now felt.
They’d never been particularly close. Even when the death of her mother might have brought them together. But she’d never realized just how unreliable Lord Upperton was until these last couple of years. She had made her debut from her aunt’s house, along with a cousin the same age. And when the cousin had married and moved away, Hermione had gone back to live at Upperton House with her father.
They’d managed to get along well enough, she supposed, but then Lord Upperton had begun to behave with the recklessness that had characterized his actions of the last few days. He gambled frequently, was drunk more often than not, and as evidenced by his loss of her grays, in his desperation for the next game, he’d grown callous. He would do whatever it took to ensure his continued access to the gaming tables.
Even betray his only child.
“I am surprised to find you here,” she said, before crossing to the sideboard and filling a plate with more food than she could possibly eat. “I thought perhaps you had chosen to take rooms elsewhere.”
When she turned to take a seat, he lowered the paper to the table.
Hermione bit back a gasp. Lord Upperton looked dreadful. His eyes were shadowed by dark circles, his skin tone was sallow, and he looked as if he’d not slept in weeks.
Taking a seat in the chair the footman held out for her, Hermione glanced down at her plate unseeing. She was unable to look back in her father’s direction for a moment, so she took a deep breath.
“Why would I take rooms elsewhere when I’ve only just leased this place?” he asked querulously. “Doesn’t make any sense, daughter.”
Finally able to school her features, Hermione looked up at him again. This time noting the details she’d missed earlier. The burst blood vessel on his nose, the spot where his valet had missed with that morning’s shave. She wished she could feel some sort of affection for him. But all she felt now was a sickly cocktail of disappointment, sadness, and nostalgia for the days when he’d been her beloved Papa.
“I suppose not,” she said, taking a piece of toast from the rack just to have something to do. “I suppose you’ve learned about what happened to Lord Saintcrow?”
For a moment the question hung in the air between them like the sickly sweet perfume of an aging beauty.
“I don’t know what you would have to say about it,” he said finally, taking a slurping sip of tea. “An unmarried chit like you should have no dealings with a man like that.”
Hermione sighed. “Cut line, Papa. I know it’s to him you lost my grays. He told me as much when he came to collect them just before my first promenade with the Lords of Anarchy.”
Lord Upperton winced. “I told the fellow to talk to me before he took the horses. He wasn’t supposed to take possession of them until after you’d done your bit of folderol with that damned driving club.”
She knew she shouldn’t be touched by the knowledge that he’d not deliberately set out to humiliate her, but she was. At the very least it meant he had some feeling for her. And that was better than nothing.
Even so …
“The point is not when he arrived to take possession, Papa,” she said, remaining firm despite her angst, “but that he came to collect my horses at all. You know full well that they belonged to me, outright.”
But he waved that objection away. “You know as well as I do, daughter, that what’s yours is mine. A father must be able to dispose of a daughter’s belongings. Especially if they are leading her into activities that could endanger her.”
“My horses weren’t leading me into anything,” she said, her voice rising with indignance. “If anything they were keeping me sane. I certainly would have run mad if all I had to occupy my time with was listening to other ladies prose on about needlework, or the latest fashion. And besides that, I purchased them with my own money. I believe that makes them my personal belongings.”
“We won’t quibble about technicalities, Hermione,” her father said coolly. “What’s done is done. What I wish to know is if you’ve settled things with Lord Mainwaring yet.”
And just like that she went from being mildly annoyed to angry.
“If by that you mean to inquire whether he has told me about the card game you lost to him, thereby giving him my hand in marriage,” she said through gritted teeth, “then, yes, I have settled things with Lord Mainwaring.”
“But what’s this?” he asked, looking as disappointed as child whose ice has melted. “I thought you’d be pleased. Fine, st
rapping man like that? You couldn’t have done better yourself. And I do know how you dislike parading around the marriage mart. This way you don’t have to!”
“That’s not the point, Papa,” she nearly shouted. “You might as well have offered me up to the highest bidder! I am well aware that you’re within your rights to give my hand to whomever you wish, but did you have to do it in such a blatant spectacle?”
“Do not raise your voice to me, Hermione,” Lord Upperton said sharply, all traces of childishness gone. “I did what I thought best for you. As your father that is my right. If you do not like the way I went about it, well then, you will simply need to get past that. I feel sure Lord Mainwaring will be more than adept at polishing away the tarnish of how the betrothal happened.”
“It’s not a betrothal, Papa,” she said, pressing her fingers over her eyes to keep the tears that threatened from falling, “it is a marriage, which we will undertake at the end of the week at the very latest. I suspect Mainwaring will come here today to discuss the settlements.”
Instead of looking chagrined at her disappointment, he singled out the thing that would most impact him and his plans. “Oh, I cannot possibly meet with the fellow today. My head is aching like mad. And I promised the Countess of Amberley that I’d take her for a drive in the park this afternoon.”
He would have gone on further, but a footman appeared and announced that his lordship had a visitor in his study.
“That is likely him now,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. She would have liked to be a fly on the wall during these marriage negotiations. For she had little doubt that her father would do what was best for himself and that Mainwaring would instead try to do what was fair. “I’ll come say hello.”
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