Royally Ever After

by Loretta Chase

  Rothwick, who often had this effect on servants and, sometimes, his relatives, took no notice of the butler’s panic but stomped in, leaving a trail of muddy puddles behind him on the marble floor. A footman hovering nearby hurried to him. The marquess took off his dripping hat, peeled off his saturated gloves, allowed the servant to relieve him of the sopping overcoat, and turned the entire sodden mess over to him.

  Rothwick wondered where they’d been, not to hear his knock. True, no one would expect visitors on this miserable day. Given the rain’s ferocity, he doubted anyone would have seen him coming even if they’d happened to look out of the window. Had the rain drowned out his knocking as well?

  Or perhaps, he thought grimly, a family emergency had the staff all running frantically about the place. He could picture Mrs. Findley in hysterics, and Findley waving his fist in impotent wrath—a state to which his family often reduced him.

  “I wish to see Miss Findley,” Rothwick said, advancing into the entrance hall to the chimneypiece, where a fire blazed. The Findleys heated every room of the house, whether it was in use or not. That was one luxury he could not afford. One of many.

  The butler hurried after him. “Miss Findley, my lord?”

  Rothwick caught the panicked look the butler shot at one of the doors. Down that corridor lay the library. Given the thick walls and the pounding rain, it was hard to be sure, but the marquess thought he detected the sound of voices raised in argument.

  “Is that not what I said?”

  “Y-yes, my lord.”

  “You will not tell me Miss Findley isn’t at home. She can’t have gone out in this filthy weather.”

  “No, indeed, my lord, but—but . . . I do apologize, my lord, but the family is not receiving—” He broke off as a young man hurried in through the door Freets was so uneasy about.

  Fourteen-year-old Philip stopped abruptly when he caught sight of the visitor, and his green eyes—so like Barbara’s—widened. “Lord Rothwick!”

  “Kindly inform your sister,” Rothwick said in his haughtiest drawl, “that I wish to speak to her. Privately.”

  Philip turned and ran back through the door. Begging his lordship’s pardon, Freets followed the boy at a slightly more dignified pace.

  Though the quarreling seemed to have increased in volume in the last minute, the voices were still muffled. Rothwick couldn’t hear, precisely, what the row was about, but he could guess.

  He’d been right, then. Those servants who weren’t fetching and carrying for the palpitating Mrs. Findley must have been eavesdropping with all their might. Small wonder the door had been left unattended.

  Small wonder in this household, at any rate.

  In exactly the time it would have taken Philip to reach the room and relay the message, a sudden dead silence fell.

  Rothwick held his numb hands to the fire and stared into the glowing embers, resolutely ignoring the hurried pounding of his heart.

  This couldn’t happen.

  He wouldn’t let it happen.

  An eternity passed.

  Freets returned. “If it pleases your lordship, Mr. Findley sends his apologies for keeping you waiting, and Miss Findley will see your lordship in the south parlor.”

  Barbara Findley closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out. She needed more than one deep breath, but the footman Joseph pulled open the south parlor door before she had time for another.

  Her coiffure, she knew, was not elegant. Between Mama falling into hysterics and Papa on the brink of apoplexy and even Philip sulky and reproachful, she’d wanted to tear her hair out. She’d only dislodged some pins, but that was enough. Now it must look like a copper-colored rat’s nest.

  But never mind.

  Rothwick didn’t want her for her looks, such as they were. He’d noticed her appearance only enough, she supposed, to be relieved she wasn’t utterly hideous. Not that it would have stopped him had she resembled a toad.

  She managed to hold her head high, but the instant she saw the tall form across the room, she forgot decorum and poise and pride and flew into the parlor like the silly, eager girl she hadn’t been since she was Philip’s age.

  Rothwick had his back turned to the door, and his hands held out toward the parlor fire, and for an instant, that human act of warming himself at the fire made him seem vulnerable, for all his great size and great rank. She was taking in the tendrils of dark hair clinging to the back of his neck and the damp patches on the shoulders of his beautiful wool coat when he turned, hearing her footstep, and she saw the weary lines etched in his face.

  Guilt stabbed.

  “Oh, Rothwick, you’re wet through,” she cried. “What possessed you to come out on such a day? All the way from London—on horseback, no less, Freets says—and in this wretched weather.”

  “Why the devil do you think I came?” He withdrew from an inner pocket of his waistcoat a letter. “This,” he said. “I thought I might at least obtain the courtesy of an explanation.”

  The letter he held up was still folded the way she’d folded it, though it bore a great many creases now. He must have crumpled it and smoothed it out repeatedly.

  Why hadn’t he thrown it into the fire? Why did he have to come and wave it in her face?

  She lifted her chin. She would not let him intimidate her. She’d never done so before, and now was not the time to start. “Did I not explain sufficiently?” she said.

  “We shall not suit?” he said. “That’s your explanation? That’s the sort of mealy-mouthed excuse one gives the world—not the man one has agreed to marry. Was I not entitled to more than three sentences?”

  “I beg your pardon, my lord,” she said. “I had understood that one didn’t lay blame or fault or make excuses in such letters—”

  “You understood wrong,” he said. “This is a pathetic excuse for a rejection. Do you hate me?”

  How I wish I did.

  “There are a great many men I don’t hate,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I want to marry them.”

  He dismissed all the other men—and there had been scores of them—with a wave of his hand. “You said yes to me.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Why?”

  “I realized we didn’t suit.”

  “Barbara.”

  Because my heart pounds when you enter a room, and my knees melt when you touch my hand or push a strand of hair from my face, and I think I’ll die of excitement and happiness when we dance . . .

  . . . and it isn’t that way for you.

  “We’ll never suit,” she said. “We come from altogether different worlds—”

  “You knew that when I began courting you,” he said.

  “We have nothing in common,” she said.

  “And it took you nine weeks to discover this?” he said.

  He had courted her for nine weeks and four days.

  “Is that why you’ve come?” she said. “Is that what troubles you? You’re annoyed because it took me so long to know my own mind?”

  “Damnation, Barbara, you know my situation is dire,” he said. “I’ve made no secret of it.”

  “I know all too well,” she said. He was by no means the first impecunious gentleman who’d come calling. She’d had no trouble rejecting any of the others. But he, the most desperate of them all—and the least conciliatory—had stolen her heart. Or run over it like the human locomotive he was. “I’m sorry. But you never gave me time to think. You were always there.”

  His gaze shot to hers and held it, challenging her, as he always did. “Of course I was always there. The competition was ferocious.”

  “The competition for my fortune.”

  “You’ve a dowry of two hundred thousand pounds,” he said. “If you think no man takes that into consideration—no man, that is, past the age of puppyish blind devotion—”

  “I should never accuse you of blind devotion, my lord.”

  “If you want me to tell you I would have courted you even had
you been penniless, I’m sorry to shatter your girlish dreams,” he said. “I can’t afford sentiment. I thought you understood I wasn’t in a position to let my heart dictate to my head.”

  And if you had been in such a position?

  But she knew the answer to that one. He would never have come near Miss Findley of Little Etford had his father not died six months ago and left him stupendously deep in debt.

  “I did understand,” she said. “And I won’t pretend I saw no advantages to myself from the connection. Prestige for my family. Advancement for Philip in whatever profession he chose. And you were so assiduous in your courting.” He had laid siege to her heart, as his ancestors had once upon a time laid siege to the castles and lands they wanted. “Then there were Mama and Papa, so strongly in your favor. Between your wooing and their pointing out your numerous perfections, you seemed to be there, every waking minute. And you can be overwhelming, my lord.”

  Overwhelming in every way. Not simply his manner, the absolute self-assurance of an aristocrat of ancient pedigree. There was his personality, so compelling that he made everyone else about him seem like figures in a mist. There was as well the rampant masculinity, in the way he spoke, the way he moved . . . and the way he looked. He was tall and powerfully built, with nothing soft about him, in physique or features. His face was by no means conventionally handsome. His features were too strong: the sharp angles of cheekbones and jaw, the bold, patrician nose, the hard mouth and mocking eyes.

  The combination, for her, had proved nothing short of devastating.

  “Don’t be absurd,” he said. “Nothing overwhelms you.”

  “So I flattered myself,” she said. “But since you returned to London—”

  “—to prepare for our wedding—”

  “—and reconcile the queen to your marrying the daughter of a man of commerce—”

  “Her Majesty doesn’t give a damn who I marry,” he said. “She’s too starry-eyed over her beautiful Albert.”

  The Queen of England would be marrying for love.

  And Barbara Findley, an ordinary mortal whose grandfather had been an innkeeper, could not.

  “The point is, your personality is so forceful that one is swept along in your wake,” she said. “And so I couldn’t think clearly until you were gone. And then I thought about all the advantages . . . but it wasn’t . . . enough. I realized I couldn’t be happy.”

  He stared at her for a moment, his dark eyes telling her nothing. Then he let out a sigh. “I see,” he said.

  “Do you?” she said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  His gaze having turned to the letter in his hand, Rothwick didn’t see the despairing look she sent him.

  He couldn’t decide what to do with the letter. Crumpling it into a ball and throwing it on the fire seemed excessively dramatic.

  He had been still trying to dry out, this time at the parlor fire, when she’d flown into the room, in the way she always did, so full of life, and seemingly so glad to see him. He’d heard the rustle of petticoats, and his pounding heart had skipped in pleasure. When he’d turned to look, the murky day seemed to brighten in the radiance of her. It wasn’t merely her copper-bright hair, a mass of ill-behaved ringlets. It wasn’t simply her luminous skin with its light dusting of golden freckles or the intelligence sparkling in her green eyes. It was all those things, yes, and more: She always seemed lit from within.

  He’d almost stepped toward her, to take her hand . . . to touch her cheek . . . to touch . . .

  But she didn’t want him to touch her. The letter ought to have made that clear to him. She was not the sort of girl to write such a letter merely to torment a man. Barbara Findley was many things: stubborn, exasperating, opinionated—to name only a few of her many less-than-biddable characteristics. But she was not coy or manipulative. She wouldn’t have written the letter if she hadn’t meant it.

  Yet he’d refused to believe it. He’d told himself there had to be a mistake, a misunderstanding. He couldn’t have misjudged her feelings so completely.

  He’d thought . . .

  Well, he’d thought wrong, and that was that.

  He didn’t see her put out her hand for the letter.

  He carefully folded it up again and put it back in his breast pocket.

  When he looked at her again, she was looking toward the windows.

  “You can’t go back out in this,” she said. “You’d better stay the night.”

  He looked that way, too, into the bleak afternoon.

  Bleak. The color of his future.

  Good God, now what would he do? His tenants. His servants. His indigent relatives, whose name was Legion.

  What a fool he’d been. All the time he’d devoted . . .

  And now . . .

  He laughed. “Stay the night? Here? To rub salt in your mother’s wounds?” Not to mention his own. “Are you a glutton for punishment? I’m not.”

  “That isn’t—”

  “I’ll stay at the Swan.” He’d passed the coaching inn on the way. He should have stopped then. The pause would have given him time to think. And think again. But no. He had to be the fool rushing in. He had to be the madman believing he could make black come out white. “It’ll be easier to set out for London from there, and I can miss the crush when the world descends for the queen’s wedding.”

  The day after tomorrow, Queen Victoria would wed her beloved Prince Albert. The Lord Mayor had asked the populace to suspend their usual activities in honor of the occasion—not that anybody needed the suggestion. Most of London would be pouring into the areas near both St. James’s Palace and Buckingham Palace as well as the royal parks, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the bride and groom.

  Rothwick was among the privileged few with tickets to the ceremony, and he’d looked forward to hearing Barbara’s opinions of everything and everybody.

  Today was the day she was to have come to London. He’d intended to show her his townhouse and tell her she might do whatever she wanted to it. He’d thought they’d talk about paint and furniture.

  What a joke.

  “Please convey my compliments to your parents,” he said so calmly. “And my regrets . . . that I’m unable to accept your invitation to stay. I’ll send a notice to the Gazette of our changed circumstances. Goodbye, Miss Findley.”

  He bowed. And then, before he could be tempted to say anything more—and really, what was there to say?—he left.

  Swan Inn, six o’clock

  Barbara didn’t give herself time to think. She flung open the door to the private parlor. Heart racing and head high, she walked in.

  Rothwick sprawled in a chair by the fire, long legs crossed at the ankles, one arm hanging over the back of the chair, the other holding a wine glass. His dark hair had dried in a tangle, and he hadn’t helped matters by raking his fingers through it. He’d taken off his coat and unbuttoned his waistcoat, but that was all. He’d let his clothes dry while on him. His neckcloth had deteriorated to a wrinkled lump, his shirtsleeves hung like limp rags from his broad shoulders, his trousers sagged at the knees, and his boots had acquired a crust of dried muck.

  She took in the sight in the instant before he looked up.

  “Oh, Rothwick, you haven’t even changed out of your clothes,” she said.

  He stared at her for a moment as though he didn’t recognize her. Then his dark eyes narrowed. “Not an apparition, it seems. No such luck. We’re done, Miss Findley. Didn’t you say so? Go away. Forgive me for not getting up, but I don’t want to encourage you. You shouldn’t have encouraged me, by the way—but it’s ungentlemanly to point that out.”

  “You’re foxed,” she said.

  “Am I? Good. I’ve been trying damn hard.”

  This was what she got for hesitating and dithering. If she’d come sooner, he’d still be lucid. What could she expect to accomplish now? She wanted to go back out and close the door behind her and get started on the long process of making herself forget him.
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br />   But the image hung in her mind’s eye: the brief, unguarded moment when he’d looked at her letter and she’d seen . . . a something in his eyes that might have been grief. A degree more evident was the disappointment that drew down the corners of his firm mouth.

  And yes, it was most likely the money he was disappointed about, but there was only one way to be sure.

  “I should never have expected this of you,” she said. “Getting drunk after being jilted. Could you not do something less clichéd?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “A sharp-tongued wench it is. You’d have been the devil to live with. I’m well out of it.”

  “You’re not the most accommodating individual yourself,” she said. “You come storming into a place—fee, fie, foe, fum—knocking aside any small, annoying things that get in the way. Like people.”

  “If you refer to those pests who were sniffing at your skirts, that’s exactly what one does with vermin.”

  “In my world, those are eligible men,” she said. “But they haven’t titles—”

  “Or a shilling to their name—”

  “Neither have you,” she said.

  “But I’m an aristocratic debtor,” he said. He waved his wine glass in the air. “No, better than that—a peer. They can’t imprison me for debt. I should have ignored it, the way my father did. Trouble is . . .” He brought the glass close to his face, swayed the glass a little, and watched the wine slosh against its sides. “Trouble is, the houses are falling down. On my head. Plaster.” He looked up at the ceiling of the inn parlor. “Sitting there at home, drinking a little wine, minding my own business, and down come little bits of the ceiling.”

  He drank, set down the glass on the table at his elbow, and refilled it from one of the bottles crowding its surface. “Is that what put you off?” he said. “Everything falling to pieces? But it isn’t every room. Didn’t I tell you that?”

  “You told me,” she said. He’d described the state of his houses and properties with a disarmingly matter-of-fact wit. Everyone said he was an overbearing, conceited, arrogant bastard. But she thought he was charming, and funny, too. And she found his sarcasm sweet. He was nothing like any other man she’d ever met, and she’d met scores. From the time she was seventeen, they’d been descending upon Little Etford to try their luck at winning her heart—and the ridiculous marriage portion her father had saddled her with.