CHAPTER 17
BACK AT HIS family’s estate, Theo headed downstairs for breakfast. He’d flown into Heathrow late yesterday, and by some miracle everyone at the Abbey had been in bed by the time he arrived home. Which meant he could avoid having any uncomfortable conversations for a few hours. He’d hoped to get a good night’s sleep—or some sleep anyway—before heading into battle the next morning.
Counter to his plans, too many of those hours had been filled thinking about a certain redhead. He still had no idea what he’d done to spook Bonnie into running off like she had. She’d promised she’d reach out when she was back on his side of the pond, and for the thousandth time, he told himself that would have to be good enough for now.
Besides, he had other, more immediate, problems to attend to. As Theo approached the breakfast room, he heard the low murmur of feminine voices. His mother and sister, no doubt. He paused outside the door and girded his loins for the interrogation session to come.
“Ah, Theodore, there you are.” His mother waved him over the moment he entered the room.
He crossed to her chair and stopped, pressing a kiss to her offered hand. “Good morning, Mama.” He glanced across the table to his sister. “Morning, Tabitha.”
“How was your trip, Teddy?”
Theo grimaced at the hated childhood nickname but refrained from retaliating. For now. He made a mental note to call her by her own nickname next time their mother was out of earshot. Not quite a year younger than himself, Tabby was the oldest of his three sisters and the only other sibling finished with school.
Their sister Thalia was in her third year at university, and the youngest in the family, baby Tessa, who was not a baby anymore as she told anyone who would listen, would be graduating secondary school in a few weeks. Theo swallowed a groan. Come the end of June, all three of his sisters would be in residence and the house would be overrun with females.
But the end of June also meant the arrival of another female. Bonnie would be starting her teaching seminar at Cambridge around then. Appetite abruptly spiking, Theo took a seat and peeked under the covered serving dishes on the table.
“Shall I ring Marjorie to get you something else?”
“No need.” Theo brushed aside his mother’s offer and helped himself to a few fat sausages and a rasher of eggs.
“Tea?” his mother asked.
“Please.” Theo nodded. His mother poured, and for a few minutes everyone focused on their meals. Theo knew his mother wouldn’t jump right into the subject at hand immediately, she followed her own rules too carefully for such a breach of decorum. Sure enough, after finishing off a square of toast spread with the thinnest veneer of marmalade, his mother dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and casually remarked. “I gather your flight was comfortable?”
He nodded over a forkful of eggs.
“And your accommodations? They were acceptable?”
“Quite.”
“Were you able to see Logan?” his sister asked. “Is it true he’s getting married?”
“Yes,” he grunted, answering both questions and sending his sister a baleful glare across the table. The last thing he wanted to do was float the topic of marriage.
Tabitha either missed his meaning or more likely ignored it. “When is the wedding?”
“August.” He gulped down his tea.
“How does one go from being total strangers to getting married in less than a year?” Tabby shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever dated someone for longer than a month, and I’ve certainly never considered marriage with anyone.”
“That reminds me.” Mama straightened in her chair, a gleam he recognized all too well lighting her eyes.
So much for steering this conversation in a different direction. He shot Tabitha a gaze full of daggers promising retribution before turning toward his mother, a polite look of interest plastered on his face. “Yes?”
“How was tea with Lady Camille?”
“Pleasant,” he admitted.
“And the gala?” his mother continued.
“Very pleasant,” Theo hedged. Ethan’s little sister had been much more charming than he remembered. Again, Theo recognized Mama had played this hand well. He’d been surprised to find how much he enjoyed Camille’s company. Several times during their evening together, he’d caught himself thinking he could see a marriage working with her.
But he didn’t feel for Camille even a hint of what he felt for Bonnie. And the fact he was contemplating marriage to one woman while consumed with desire for another left him feeling like a cad.
Or worse, like his father.
“Delighted to hear it. Tabitha, dear, we should plan to invite the Fairfaxes to tea once Camille returns home.”
“Of course, Mother.” Tabitha’s mouth pinched, and Theo smothered a laugh. Served her right. “There’s nothing I’d like better in all the world than to make small talk over tea and cakes with the potential wife to your son and heir,” his sister added.
“Tabitha!” Mama chided.
“What? Too on the nose?” Tabby split a crumpet down the middle. “It’s no secret, Mama. Everyone knows you are on the hunt to find Theo a wife.” She slathered both halves with butter. “Sounds like Lady Camille is a perfect candidate. The ideal partner for the Duke of Emberton.” She picked up both pieces of crumpet, holding half in each hand. “A proper young lady, from a well-bred and well-off, if not as well-titled, family, and a dashing duke, the height of nobility, with a sprawling ancestral estate on the verge of bankruptcy.” Tabitha smashed the halves of the crumpet together. “A match made in heaven.”
“That’s enough,” Theo said quietly to his sister, eyes on his mother’s pale pinched face.
“I’m just saying…” Tabitha began, but Theo cut his gaze to her, and she stopped, shoving a large bite of crumpet in her mouth and chewing angrily.
Tabby was right, of course. Her choice of words had been a little too on the nose. He wondered if his sister had been listening in to that early morning phone call the other day. The trip to Chicago had been a power play by his matchmaking mother. And he couldn’t even hate her for it. He knew what Mama was doing, understood and even appreciated her motivation. He understood, too, that his sister was, in her own way, defending him. She was affronted at the idea that in this modern day and age, their mother expected him to marry not for love, but for the sake of the family. For duty.
Or, to put it more crudely, for money.
Luckily, it was his problem and not his sister’s. Tabby may crack jokes about the ducal title, “following the next Wharton penis,” but as the only male heir, Theo had been raised knowing his role. From the moment of his birth, the responsibility of preserving the family legacy fell to him. A responsibility that grew exponentially, the ledgers slipping further and further into debt the more his selfish spendthrift father pissed away that legacy with every foolish investment, greedy mistress, and drunken gambling loss.
These were details Theo had become all too familiar with since graduating university and taking the reins. He knew how easily one leaky roof or bad chimney flu could be the domino that brought the whole thing tumbling down.
Despite the uphill battle to undo the damage wrought by the last duke, Theo was determined to rebuild the Emberton fortune and make sure there was something left for the next generation of Whartons. Ensuring that his children, and his sisters and their children, wouldn’t have to live under the threat of bankruptcy. Instead, they would be free to make their own choices, lead a life not dictated by duty to debt and decaying ducal properties.
The idea of children stopped him cold. Growing up, “the next generation” had been an ephemeral thing—something in the far-off future—not even really connected to him. But now, with his mother on the “wife hunt,” as his sister had so crassly, yet accurately, called it, that far-off future was not so far away anymore.
Lately, Mama had been ramping up her efforts. Theo wondered if it was the fact his thirtieth birthday was
on the horizon that motivated her. Or was there some other development he was not yet aware of? Some impending disaster prompting her to prod him down the nuptial path with increased urgency? He poked at the remains of his breakfast, studying her. She seemed frailer than he remembered. Smaller. If he was getting older, so was she. Perhaps that’s what had her doubling down.
Whatever the reason, maybe his mother was right. Maybe it was time. After all, his best friend was getting married soon. But unlike Logan, there would be no passionate one-night stands followed by a whirlwind courtship and a spontaneous engagement. Ultimately, the choice wouldn’t even really be up to him. When Theo did get married, it would be planned with careful precision, and he highly doubted passion would play any part in the process—unless one counted his mother’s passion to save their family’s fortune.
Another reason he hadn’t really cared much about his mother’s marriage machinations was that he didn’t much care for the whole business of marriage in the first place. If for no other reason than the very fact that’s what marriage was—a business arrangement. His mother and father had shared a name and four children and very little else. They’d slept in separate beds, first in separate rooms, then in separate wings of the Abbey, and finally, in completely separate houses. Eventually, save for the occasional function requiring them to make a joint appearance, they lived separate lives.
In such an arrangement, love was not necessary. At the most, all that was required was a passing attraction, preferably enough to create an heir, and for that, the heart need not be involved. Theo always figured he could be satisfied with that kind of marriage—but now, he wasn’t so sure.
He thought again about reaching out to Bonnie, even just emailing her. But he wouldn’t. He’d stick to his word and leave it up to her to make the next move. In less than two months, she’d be on his side of the pond again. Hopefully, by then, he’d have gotten his feelings sorted out. His heart, which usually stayed out of his business, the bugger, decided to warn him there wasn’t much chance of that happening.
“Theodore.” His mother’s voice broke through his musings. “I have a proposition.”
“Ooh, this sounds serious,” his sister said in a mocking, singsong voice.
“Finish your breakfast, Tabitha,” Mama ordered. She eyed Theo appraisingly.
Dismissing his private thoughts, Theo returned his attention to his mother. “I’m listening.”
“Do you recall the Rutherfords?”
Theo dipped into his mental filing system, searching through the scads of family names and faces he’d begun memorizing even before learning his letters and figures. His mother had been very keen that the Who’s Who of English society played an important part of her offspring’s education. “Lady Elaine is their daughter, correct?” Theo asked, wariness creeping into his voice.
“Mama, you can’t be serious. She’s younger than Tessa!” Tabitha interjected.
“Hush, girl,” Mama said in that subtle yet piercing way British matrons had perfected, mouth pinched, a look of abject disapproval in her eyes.
“Don’t give me your Snooty Dame Monthly face, Mama,” Tabby protested.
“I beg your pardon?”
Theo smirked into his teacup, sharing a knowing look with his sister over the rim. Tabby had come up with Snooty Dame Monthly years ago, when he and his sisters had all been home on holiday from school.
Even though Mum tried to hide it, they all knew about her obsession with British gossip rags. They also knew exactly where she hid her stash—in the old sewing basket by the fireplace wing chair. Their mother didn’t sew; she fiddled with a pair of knitting needles, clacking away, a bundle of loose yarn in her lap conveniently obscuring from view whatever scandal magazine she was currently absorbed in.
On a wet and dreary afternoon a few days before Christmas, Tabby had been sprawled in Mum’s chair, stockinged feet resting on the tipped-over sewing basket, toes warmed by the fire. Their youngest sister, Tessa, had been lying on her belly, one hand propping up her chin, the other turning the pages of the magazine she’d absconded from the hoard on Tabitha’s lap. “Why do all these ladies have that face?” Tessa asked, turning another page.
“What face?” their middle sister Thalia asked.
Tessa rolled over and mimicked the dour expression of a proper English lady. She looked, quite eerily, exactly like their mother. All three of his sisters had burst into a fit of giggles and Tabby declared Tessa belonged on the cover of Snooty Dame Monthly.
The name had made even Theo chuckle from his seat across from Tabby, where he occupied the wing chair once reserved for their father, on the rare occasion he decided to grace them with an appearance. It was only later, after Papa’s death, that Theo would come to the realization his mother was obsessed with reading the gossip rags because she was terrified she’d discover some scandal involving her husband printed in those lurid pages.
Theo turned to his mother. “I take it the proposition you mentioned is not an attempt to arrange my wedding with a teenager, then?”
“Heavens, no.” His mother’s mouth pinched so tight as to be almost invisible. “I mentioned the Rutherfords because Kitty has been remarkably successful with her recent endeavors, and I was wondering if we might attempt something similar here.”
“Oh?” Theo sipped his tea. “Kitty” was the nickname for Her Grace, the Duchess of Rutherford. “What kind of endeavors?”
“Hunting parties.”
Theo coughed, narrowly avoiding spraying the breakfast table. He swallowed and set his cup down carefully. “Hunting parties, Mama?”
“Yes. And shooting parties, perhaps.”
“What would people be shooting?” Tabitha asked.
Good question.
“Pheasant, I suppose. Or partridge, perhaps?” His mother lifted one shoulder in a delicate shrug, unconcerned by the details. “Kitty tells me she had a group of gentlemen from Dubai stay for a month last season. She was able to repair the roof of the entire north wing with the profits from that one hunting party. It’s quite the thing.”
“I’m sure it is,” he agreed. “But the Rutherford estate has long been known for its excellent game hunting, and the property is conducive to shooting. We can’t say the same about the Abbey.” Theo spared a glance in his sister’s direction. His mother was usually sharper than this.
“Are you feeling all right, Mama?” Tabby asked.
“Quite well, thank you,” she snapped, her voice like battery acid.
Tabitha’s eyebrows rose, mirroring his own. Something was certainly amiss. Theo wanted to reach across the table, take his mother’s hand, but restrained himself. Instead, he said, “I’ll look into it, Mama. But I must say, I don’t think the prospects are good.”
“What about the Lakeland Cottage?” Tabitha suggested.
“What about it?” Theo glanced at his sister.
“That could work for shooting, couldn’t it? And the fishing is excellent, as you know.”
He did know. He’d caught his very first fish in the brook off the end of what his sister Tessa had christened Toadstool Bridge. The cottage was on a prime piece of land in the Lake District, modest in size, but very comfortable. Part of the inheritance his mother had brought to her marriage, the property had belonged to Theo’s maternal grandparents, and he and his sisters had spent their summer holidays with them through most of their childhood.
Absolutely breathtaking at the height of summer, many of Theo’s favorite memories took place there. Running over grassy hills with his sisters. Swimming in the creek. Fishing off Toadstool Bridge. It was the one place he’d truly felt able to breathe. Reluctance churned in his gut at the idea of turning the cottage into a trendy destination for the bored elite.
“We could rename it. Call it Lakeland Lodge instead,” Tabby suggested.
“How original,” Theo drawled, stomach tightening. But he had to admit, the idea had merit. Not long after taking charge of the estate, Theo had opened the family seat fo
r public viewing. And while the money that tours of the Abbey brought in helped, it wasn’t nearly enough.
“I think that has a fine ring to it,” his mother said. “Do look into it, Theo. I expect a report within the month.”
“Of course, Mama.”
And that, Theo thought, staring down at a plate of food he no longer had any interest in eating, is that.
CHAPTER 18
WITH TERM PAPERS done and grades turned in, the semester was finally, blessedly over. Once again, Bonnie was on the train back to her hometown, only this time the sun was shining, and her best friend was along for the ride. Miraculously, Cassie had found an appointment that worked with all five of their schedules, and they were meeting up with Delaney, as well as Sadie and Ana, for bridesmaid dress shopping.
“Here we go … off to your first official bit of wedding stuff!” Bonnie squealed. She was determined to be upbeat and keep things happy and light for her best friend. “Are you excited?”
“I am,” Cassie confessed, “and I should tell you, this isn’t my first bit of wedding stuff. I picked out my dress already.”
“You did?”
Cassie nodded, bouncing in her seat, a surge of anxious, happy energy bubbling over. “Special ordered it through a shop in London, so I don’t have to ship it over from the States.”
Realizing her friend had been holding back her feelings in deference to her own made Bonnie’s heart shrivel and swell at the same time. She wanted to cry. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t let Cassie’s efforts go to waste. “That makes sense. I can’t wait to see it.” She smiled. “Now, tell me what you have in mind for the bridesmaid dresses.”
“Well, I think I might go with bright pink.”
“Oh, that’s … nice.” Bonnie struggled to keep her smile in place. Cassie knew she detested that color, always had. And she hated it more than ever now.
“I’m kidding, Bon!” Cassie shifted in her seat, leaning into her. “I’d never do that to you. And I appreciate your effort to put a good face on things today, but I still want you to be honest with me. Got it?”
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