Convenient Bride for the Soldier & the Major Meets His Match & Secret Lessons With the Rake (9781488021718)

by Merrill, Christine; Burrows, Annie; Justiss, Julia

  ‘Which brings us back to Sir Nash, just as I knew it would,’ George said, grimacing again. ‘Marry me off if you mean to, but find someone else. I will not have him.’

  Her stepmother drew herself up in indignation. ‘There is nothing wrong with Sir Nash. He is an honoured member of my family.’

  ‘I do not doubt it. But that does not mean I have been able to manufacture a romantic attachment to him where none exists.’

  ‘But, unlike the rest of London, he is quite taken with you,’ Marietta said.

  So now all of London hated her. If Mr Challenger was any indication, perhaps they did.

  Marietta continued. ‘In fact, he has assured me that there is no other girl in England who would make him happy.’

  ‘And there is no man in the world who would make me less so.’ She turned to her father for support. Even if he did want her gone, he had met Sir Nash. He must understand how hopeless this plan was.

  ‘You have said similar things about all the other men Marietta has recommended,’ her father said with another sigh, not looking back from the window.

  ‘Because all the men Marietta has recommended are wrong for me.’ She blurted the words before she could stop herself, immediately frustrated by her own lack of diplomacy. But it was true. She had done no better when looking for herself. It felt as if she had danced with every man in town and not a one of them had interested her.

  Marietta nudged her father with a fingertip to demand his attention and gave a knowing nod as if to say that this was proof that George was just as difficult as they both thought.

  Now Father turned to her with the distant look he wore so often lately. ‘I am thoroughly tired of acting as arbiter in these domestic squabbles.’

  George smiled with relief. It was the arguments that bothered him and not her, after all. How shocked Marietta would be at the set down that was about to come. While Father might have some affection for his second wife, it was nothing compared to what he had always shown to his only child.

  Then, he spoke. ‘You must marry, Georgiana. You are nineteen and no longer a child. I see no reason that it cannot be to Sir Nash.’

  ‘But…’ She did not know how to go on. It had never occurred to her that, when the moment finally came that he was forced to decide the issue, her father would take Marietta’s side against her.

  ‘He dined with us just last night and seemed genuinely fond of you.’

  ‘He…’ She shook her head, unsure of how to explain what had been wrong with the evening. The man had said nothing untoward when they’d spoken last night, or on any other. He had been almost too polite. But then, as he had sat beside her on the sofa, he had mentioned a liking for snuff and offered her a pinch from his box.

  She had found it unusual, but faintly intriguing. It must be pleasant, or people would not take it. But since she could think of no proper woman who used it, there must be something scandalous about it. In the end, she had refused, not sure that even her normally lenient father would approve.

  Sir Nash had given an indifferent shrug and set the box on the table near the fire in case she changed her mind. It had been a somewhat bizarre flirtation, but not harmful. Then, she had looked at the box again.

  At first glance, the scene painted on the top of the smooth stone box was just as ordinary as the evening. A young couple in a woodland glade: he entreating, and she shielding her face with her hand and refusing with a shy smile.

  But then, Sir Nash had taken another pinch and set the box down again, tapping the lid and drawing her gaze to it. The picture had changed. The girl, who had been wearing a pink gown, did not seem to be wearing anything at all. The hand to her face looked less like an innocent refusal and more like a desperate, frightened denial.

  The boy who had been with her was no longer a boy at all. His chest was bare and his legs were hair-covered and ended in the cloven hooves of a goat. But the place where those legs met was as human as a Greek statue. And he was doing…

  Something.

  George was not exactly sure what was going on. But the girl in the miniature looked both revolted and compelled. By the strange way George felt when she looked at it, she was sure that it was something she was not supposed to know about. And the snuffbox was something that no decent gentleman would show to a young lady he was courting.

  When he was sure she had seen it, Sir Nash picked up the box and dropped it into his pocket again. Then he gave her a knowing smile and remarked at how pretty her hair was and how much he favoured blondes.

  Blondes like the one on the snuffbox.

  ‘You see?’ When she came back to herself, Marietta was pointing again. ‘She cannot come up with a logical reason for this refusal.’

  ‘I do not like him,’ George said, more weakly than before.

  Because he showed me something I do not understand and I am afraid to ask you what it means.

  ‘Affection sometimes grows with time.’ Her father sounded almost hopeful as he said it and cast a brief, disappointed glance to his wife before looking out the window again.

  ‘I will not marry him. You cannot make me.’ George almost shouted the words, trying to regain his attention.

  ‘On the contrary, my dear. We can and you will.’ Marietta favoured her with a cool glare. ‘Either you marry Nash, or I will go.’ Then she turned to her husband and gave him the tight, uncompromising quirk of her lips that she thought was a smile. ‘I can no longer bear things as they are. Surely you must see that. Either you bring your daughter to heel, or I will go back to the Continent where I am sure to find someone who will respect me. It will be the two of you, alone again, just as she wants.’

  After seven years of strife, that sounded almost too good to be true. George turned to her father with hope in her eyes, and waited for his response.

  When it came, it was not the vindication she sought, but another tired sigh. ‘You have heard your mother, Georgiana. She is quite out of patience with you. Now let us have no more nonsense about refusing offers before they have been given, especially when they come from your mother’s cousin.’

  For a moment, she could not believe what she was hearing. He had been forced to choose. And without a moment’s hesitation he had chosen Marietta. ‘She is not my mother.’ The words sounded childish, but she could not help them.

  The carriage was just pulling up to the front of the Knight town house and she opened the door and jumped out before it had even fully stopped. Then she ran through the front doors, up the stairs, and to her room before her heart could break any further.

  Inside, her maid was dozing in a chair, awaiting her arrival. She took one look at the ruined ballgown and murmured, ‘Oh, miss’, before reaching to help her out of it. ‘Let me call for a cup of warm milk. Then we will put you to bed.’

  ‘Do not treat me like a child,’ George said, immediately regretting her temper. She took a deep, calming breath. ‘I am sorry, Polly. But I do not want to go to bed. I do not want to spend another night in this house. Call for the trunks. We are going away.’

  The girl looked up at her with a worried smile. ‘Where are we going, miss?’

  It was an excellent question and one for which she had no answer. There was not a relation near or distant who would keep her, if her father wanted her to come home. And she had never thought to put aside even a small portion of the generous allowance she’d been given against disaster. Until this moment, she’d never had an inkling that she might need to.

  She sat down on the end of the bed. ‘Never mind. I cannot think of a place we might go to.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And if I become a governess, I doubt my employers would allow me a lady’s maid.’

  ‘A governess, miss?’ Polly gave her a knowing grin. ‘Are you thinking about running away, again?’

  Again. Had she really done it so often? It had become an
idle threat she made, after particularly bad arguments with her stepmother. But the idea of employment had never lingered for more than a minute or two. She’d been an indifferent student. What good would she be as a teacher?

  ‘I must do something,’ she said, more to herself than the maid. ‘I cannot marry Sir Nash.’

  ‘Nash Bowles?’ At the mention of marriage, her maid dropped any hint of formality. ‘I will send for the trunks, immediately. We will get you away from here, so he cannot find you.’

  ‘You know him?’ She had not spoken of him in front of Polly. She had not even wanted to think about the man.

  ‘All the servants know him. And the girls know to keep away from him.’ The words ended in a whisper.

  ‘Why?’ But she suspected she did not want to know the answer.

  ‘He…’ Polly shook her head and left the sentence unfinished, just as George had done earlier. ‘He is not a fit husband for a gently bred young lady. My brother says…’ She paused again. ‘Do you remember my brother Ben? He was a footman here until he outgrew all the livery.’

  ‘I remember Ben.’ Georgiana covered her mouth, trying to hide her smile. Ben Snyder had not just outgrown the uniform—he had far outstripped the other boys in size and weight. At six foot four, and seventeen stone, he’d towered over the rest of the staff and dashed Marietta’s hopes for servants as evenly matched as the horses on the family carriage.

  ‘When he left here, he went to work at a gentlemen’s club. And the things that happen there…’ Polly paused again. ‘Well, he says that they are not the least bit gentlemanly. Even so, he has had to turf Nash Bowles out on more than one occasion for behaviour that the owners would not sanction.’

  ‘So, he is not a gentleman?’

  ‘He is not even a rake,’ her maid confirmed. ‘He is worse than that.’

  It was just as she’d feared. The whole house seemed set on her marrying a lecher. ‘What sorts of things does he do?’

  ‘Ben would not tell me.’

  ‘Would he tell Father?’ And would the word of a former servant be enough to save her?

  ‘I do not think he would do that, miss,’ Polly said. ‘If Ben tells anyone what happens in the club, he risks losing his position. It is supposed to be very secret.’

  ‘Perhaps, if there were a way to get Nash to admit to everything… Or, if I were to see it for myself…’

  Polly’s eyes grew round and she gave a warning shake of her head.

  George smiled back with the first optimism she’d felt in ages. ‘That is what I must do. If there are scandalous goings-on, there must be ladies in this club, mustn’t there?’

  ‘Not ladies, precisely,’ said Polly.

  ‘Cyprians!’ Even better. ‘Perhaps one of them will help me. And Ben will be there to protect me once I have discovered what Sir Nash wants from me. If the owners do not want things to be too scandalous, then I am sure they would rather have me escorted from the place than allow me to come to harm.’

  ‘But if you are caught, the scandal will be real,’ Polly reminded her.

  ‘At least if I am ruined, no one will expect me to marry Sir Nash,’ George said, with renewed confidence. If worse came to worst, she would take the veil and spend her remaining days in repentance. A life of celibacy and prayer was not something she wished for, but it would be free of the interference from Marietta and her detestable cousin.

  ‘Come, Polly. We must write to your brother. And then you must help me to look like a fallen woman.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Forty members in attendance. Five-and-twenty guests of members. Staff above stairs: fifteen. Staff below stairs: ten.

  Frederick Challenger walked through the ballroom of Vitium et Virtus, oblivious to the tumult around him, his mind still focused on the headcount he had taken passing through the rooms.

  He could no longer remember what private joke had inspired the name Vice and Virtue when he and his friends had formed the club back at Oxford. There had always been plenty of the former, but he could remember not a single instance of the latter. And that utter lack of morality had turned the place from a college prank into the most decadent and most popular club in London.

  It was that same popularity that made organised debauchery into a chore, and Frederick into the saner head that must prevail over the anarchy. Thus far, the night had been uneventful. In the game room, Lord Pendleton had attempted to continue play with an IOU after running though the money in his purse. It had taken only a gentle reminder from Fred that such a thing would render the masks that they all wore a moot point. One could not remain anonymous while announcing one’s own identity with a signed marker. Of course, with his high voice and penchant for elaborate waistcoats, only an idiot would not know that Pendleton was there.

  The real reason for cash play was much more simple. Watching a man continue to gamble until he had reduced himself to ruin spoiled the fun for everyone. And if someone blew his brains out at the table, it would make a hell of a mess. Fred had no desire to call upon Mrs Parker, the housekeeper, to arrange for the cleaning of the extremely expensive wallpaper, which was hand-painted silk that matched the Italian mural of a bacchanal on the ceiling.

  In the main room, one of the club’s infamous masked balls was in full sway. At the very centre of the dancers was some damned fool, dressed as the devil. Rather than shrink from the appearance of Old Scratch, the masked dancers that thronged the dance floor raised their hands in salute.

  Fred had donned a domino mask and cape for the sake of what passed as propriety. On such nights, appearing without a costume drew far more attention than red satin, horns and a tail. As he pushed past him on the way to the owners’ private quarters, Lucifer gave a menacing wave of the cat-o’-nine-tails he held, as if ready to strike.

  Fred stared him down with a dark glance worthy of any of the fiends of hell and the man turned away and brought the silken cords of his flail down on the bare shoulders of the nearest dancing girl, instead.

  She responded with a shudder of pleasure and turned to Fred with outstretched arms and mouth open for a kiss.

  Fred obliged, but only briefly. Then he untangled himself from her grip and thrust her into the waiting embrace of a man on his left. She offered a pout as brief as his kiss had been before turning her attentions to her new partner.

  ‘Me, next.’ A buxom blonde dressed as a randy milkmaid reached for him, tipping her head up and offering her lips.

  He hid a sigh of frustration, forced a laugh and offered another kiss before breaking away to push past towards the green baize door that hid the corridor to the office.

  It did not do for an owner of the club to be so unenthusiastic when tempted with sins of the flesh. When he and his friends had founded the secret society at Oxford, they had meant to give in to every temptation and take no vice in moderation. But what had seemed daring ten years ago felt rather silly now that all of London wanted to join them in their debauchery.

  His friend, Oliver Gregory, thought that Fred’s time in the army had sucked all the joy from his soul and rendered him the sort of authoritarian that they’d been rebelling against. That was hardly the case. He had his reasons to forgo the excesses here and had discovered he much preferred the military to hedonism. No matter how chaotic it had seemed, war had a brutal structure to it. Orders were given and received. Men knew their place and their reason for living and dying. On the battlefield, life had purpose. After Waterloo, Vitium et Virtus seemed the epitome of pointlessness.

  The club’s third owner, Jacob Huntington, had insisted that Fred was merely jaded. That if he could find some fresh, untried iniquity it would whet his appetite for life.

  What a disappointment it must be that neither women nor gaming, or any overindulgence Fred could imagine, was as satisfying as knowing that when he was there to watch over it, the club ran l
ike a well-oiled machine. Jake saw to it that the membership was limited to only the most sought-after dilettantes. After they had joined, Oliver made sure that the entertainments were every bit as excessive as they could have hoped. The food and drink had no equal in London. The games had the highest stakes.

  Once the stage had been set for debauchery, the owners’ jobs were almost ended. One did not need to order people to do that which they wanted in the first place. But Fred was the one to make sure everyone who passed the threshold stayed within the bounds of reasonable behaviour. When they left, he saw to it that they kept their mouths shut about what occurred and whom they had seen. There were no fist fights, no embarrassing scenes, and no females shrieking down the main stairs that they were being forced against their will. The women found at Vitium et Virtus, whether members or employees, were all ready and willing to sin.

  If there was scandal, he dealt with it, quickly, quietly, and with as little drama as was possible. Before he had returned from Waterloo and taken over the day-to-day running of the place, they had given little thought to security. It had been naïve of them to believe that a den of libertines had no need of structure. That carelessness had reduced the initial number of owners from four to three. Friends were precious. He would not lose another.

  Tonight, after his cursory examination of the revels, Fred meant to lock himself in the office with a glass of brandy and a good book. If they caught him at it, Oliver and Jake would be appalled and declare that some portion of him must have died on the battlefield to leave him so indifferent to the activities around him.

  Perhaps they were right. He glanced at the laughing people surrounding him, utterly unmoved. Should a place of such unfettered pleasure be so bone-numbingly boring?

  But as he passed by the last doorway before the office, the low rumble of the crowd piqued his deadened curiosity. This was the space set aside for the auctioning of favours. There, masked courtesans might throw over their usual protectors for an evening and go away with whatever gentleman had the most money to offer them. If they decided to drop their disguise and reveal their beautiful faces, it was only after the bedroom door was closed.