by Erica Ridley
“Absolutely not,” Mother grabbed Bryony’s elbow and yanked her to her side. “I forbid it.”
Max leaped to his feet. “Lady Grenville—”
“You will not address me,” Mother interrupted without even looking his way. Her eyes were on Bryony. “And you will not either if you continue down this path. I will lock you away if I have to.”
Bryony wrenched her arm from her mother’s grip and reached out toward Max. “Do you have any plans for tonight? How much is a hack to Gretna Green?”
He stared at her in stunned silence then pulled her into his protective embrace. “The same plans I have every night for the rest of my life. Making you happy, anyway that I can.”
Mother’s face was bright purple. “You would choose him even knowing it means being cut off from your parents and every shilling we have?”
Bryony didn’t let go of his hand. “I choose Max especially if that’s what it means. I love him. That’s all that matters. He is worth more than all the shillings in the world.”
Max stiffened. “I didn’t mean for you to lose your family.”
“Think carefully!” Mother’s voice was shrill and panicked. “I just want what is best for my child and her future. This is your last chance to make the right choice.”
“I have done so,” Bryony replied evenly. “If my happiness with Max means cutting ties with you, that is a decision you have made without me.”
Mother’s lower lip trembled. “You would choose exile over your own family?”
“The other side of London isn’t exile,” Bryony pointed out dryly. “And Max is family. He is not the one forcing me to choose. You are.”
“I don’t want you to choose him,” Mother stammered, in obvious shock that even the threat of banishment did not aid her cause. “You are a Grenville.”
“Not for long.” Bryony lifted Max’s cushion. “He’s given me his heart. I’ve already given him mine.”
To make the point, she hugged the pillow to her chest.
It crinkled.
She whirled toward Max in surprise and accusation. “You found the deed!”
“I found the deed,” he agreed.
Her pulse raced in frustration. “I didn’t give it to you just for you to give it right back to me!”
“I’m not that much of a gentleman,” he promised. “Open it.”
She ripped open the pillow and pulled out a folded square of parchment.
It was a deed, but not to the Cloven Hoof. This certificate granted ownership of the property next door.
She stared up at him. “You bought this for me?”
“I bought it for me,” he admitted. “Before I met you. But once I heard the sound business reasons behind your plot to set fire to Almack’s—”
“What?” Mother choked out in horror. “Now listen to me, Bryony Prudence Grenville. I really will cut you off if you—”
Bryony gazed up at Max. “Instead of expanding the Cloven Hoof, you’re letting me create a competing club?”
“If that’s what you want to do.” His dark eyes were intent on hers. “Alternatively, we can create complementary clubs. Or expand the Cloven Hoof together, using your ideas about diversity not just in class, but inclusivity of gender. No matter what you do with that deed, all my future decisions will be choices made with you. We’re a team.”
Bryony threw her arms about his neck and held him so tight she trembled.
This was why he was the perfect man for her. He saw her as an equal. He didn’t just value her ideas and independence. He valued her. He valued the two of them, together.
“We’ll be unstoppable,” she said when she’d finally regained her composure. “We’ll revolutionize entertainment clubs. Create a new standard of our own design. We’ll make more money than we will know what to do with.”
“I hear your sister has some sort of charity,” he offered, with a crooked smile.
Bryony grinned at him. “Let’s take London by storm.”
“You… don’t care about your dowry?” Mother stammered in dawning realization.
“I have never cared about my dowry,” Bryony answered, “or wished for a man who did. You and Father are important to me because you’re my parents, not because I’m after your purse strings.”
Heavy footsteps sounded upon the stair.
Bryony’s heart sank.
“What’s this uproar?” called Bryony’s father in irritation. “Can’t a man have any peace and quiet in his own home?”
Mother positioned herself between her husband and her daughter, her gaze focused tight on Bryony. “We are important to you?”
“You’re family,” Bryony said simply. “I’m simply trying to add to it. You were the one who threatened to cut me off for following my heart.”
Mother swallowed. “I wanted you to do as I asked, not agree to be cut off. The house will be empty enough without you in it. I never wished to lose you from my life completely.”
“What’s happening?” Father demanded impatiently. He narrowed his eyes at Max. “Why is he here?”
“To ask for your daughter’s hand,” Max said, his voice polite and calm.
Father’s brow creased in confusion. “My Bryony? Wed the Lord of Vice?”
Bryony tightened her hold on Max’s hand. “I love him. With or without your blessing, we—”
“They’ll run off to Gretna Green and we’ll never see them again,” Mother interrupted in a burst, the words tripping over each other. “He doesn’t want the dowry. He wants our daughter, and she wants him.”
Father stared at her in disbelief. “Are you saying you agree to the match?”
Bryony held her breath, her heart beating triple-time.
“I’m saying she’s our daughter,” Mother said at last. “Family doesn’t turn its back on family.”
“Would you come to the wedding?” Bryony asked, not daring to hope. “If Max and I didn’t elope?”
Mother turned toward the baron. “If your father gives permission.”
In that moment, Bryony realized her mother was asking on behalf of all of them. Permission for Max to ask for Bryony’s hand, permission for Bryony to accept, permission for herself as both a mother and a baroness to support the match and be happy for her child. Permission to be present at her daughter’s wedding.
“Very well,” Father said, with a glance at his pocketwatch. “I’ll summon you after the contracts have been drawn up.”
He immediately turned and headed back upstairs toward his study.
Bryony wasn’t hurt at the abrupt dismissal. She was shocked that her father had spared this much time for her at all, and over the moon that the answer had been yes.
She leaned against Max’s powerful frame. “Do you mind a traditional wedding?”
“My sister would kill me if I robbed her of the opportunity to design the perfect trousseau for both of us,” he admitted. “A few weeks of banns should be just enough time.”
Mother’s eyes shone with interest. “Your sister is a modiste? Dreadful that she should be in trade, but I do love being the first to know about these things. Is she particularly gifted?”
“Only the most talented seamstress in all of London,” Bryony replied, knowing full well her mother was unable to resist portraying herself as the height of fashion. With a reputation like that, Mother would be dying for an introduction, even if her pride would not yet allow her to admit it.
Bryony grinned to herself. Perhaps in the future, the Cloven Hoof would not be the only locale to feature gatherings of a diverse range of classes and gender and backgrounds.
Perhaps going forward, inclusivity could even start at home.
Chapter 28
Two weeks later
The day the first banns are read
Now that the Season was no longer in full swing and no more musicales were on the horizon, Bryony’s mother had turned her attentions to starting a new family tradition. Annual gatherings featuring one dinner, both parents, and all of the sibl
ings.
Bryony wasn’t certain which was the greater achievement: that Mother had indeed managed to coax Father down from his office to the dinner table, or that every member of her extended family was present, Grenvilles and honorary Grenvilles alike.
Heath, Simon, and Lord Wainwright were at the refreshment table, valiantly attempting to choke down Bryony’s latest batch of marginally more edible biscuits.
Frances and Bryony’s mother were side-by-side on the sofa, heads bent over fashion plates as they planned everyone’s wardrobes for the upcoming wedding.
Dahlia, along with her co-headmistress Faith and her family, were jostling amid a tornado of fluttering playing-cards.
Heath’s wife Nora sat in the corner with a sketchbook, capturing the entirety of the scene with her pencil. A small pug slept in a basket at her feet.
Bryony slipped her fingers into Max’s hand for a quick squeeze. “What’ll it be? Fashion plates or the refreshment table?”
“Brandy?” Max asked hopefully.
She snorted. “You don’t imbibe.”
“This seems a logical time to start,” he muttered. “Your father is heading this way.”
Bryony straightened her spine.
Father had finished his obligatory post-supper glass of port and was clearly on his way to the stairs leading back up to his office. But first, he paused briefly in front of Bryony and Max.
With his empty wineglass, he gestured toward a box in the corner. “Wedding gift.”
“For us?” Bryony stammered. She wasn’t certain her father had ever noticed her long enough to gift her anything before.
“For your mother,” he said with a shake of his head. “Perhaps now she’ll cease complaining.”
With that, he continued on up the stairs.
Bryony exchanged baffled glances with Max.
“Open it,” he whispered. “Maybe it contains someone who knows how to make better biscuits.”
She elbowed him in the ribs.
Together, they walked over to the box and lifted the lid. Bryony gasped in wonder.
Inside was a new Stradivarius.
“Music is an excellent gift.” Max’s gaze softened. “I might come to like your father after all.”
Bryony ran her finger down along the delicate curves of the violin’s body. “It’s beautiful.”
“You are beautiful.” Max stepped away from the instrument. “Do you want to play it?”
She did, actually. It had been so long since she’d created music. She plucked lightly at the strings and grinned at the realization that the instrument was in tune. Perfect in every way. Practically begging for her touch.
Now that the musicales had been canceled, she could play because she wished to. Not out of duty, but because she loved music.
As soon as her bow touched the strings, her family and friends leapt to their feet and came together in a lively country-dance.
Everyone except Max. He had eyes only for her.
When the song came to an end, she reverently placed the Stradivarius back into its case. It was like the final piece had been returned to her heart.
“No more music?” asked the Hawkridges’ ward, Christina.
Heath immediately seated himself at the pianoforte. “A waltz, in honor of the upcoming bride and groom!”
Max glanced down at her in question.
She placed her hand in his. “Waltz with me, my lord.”
“I’m no lord,” he growled.
“That’s what I like best about you,” she said with a wicked smile. “That, and your forked tail.”
He whirled her into his arms, likely to stop her from talking.
Bryony didn’t mind. All she cared about was staying in Max’s embrace, now and forever.
His eyes hooded. “Do you have plans after the wedding?”
She gave him a saucy grin. “Do I ever. Unfortunately, the wedding breakfast comes first. Unless you have something else in mind?”
“A grand opening.” His eyes glittered. “It seems only fitting that the Cloven Hoof’s sister club should share our anniversary. After all, we are building it together.”
A thrill ran through her. Their grand opening.
At last.
“Is anyone watching us?” she whispered.
He glanced over her shoulder. “No one.”
She pulled him out of the drawing room and into the shadows, where nothing could keep her lips from finding his.
Epilogue
Four months later
Max darted across freshly-swept cobblestones to admire a view of the twin clubs from across the street. It had been three weeks since the grand opening and he still couldn’t get enough.
On the left was the Cloven Hoof. Austere, dark, mysterious. Dedicated wholly to gambling. As always, the windows were darkened so as to block out both sunlight and the curious gazes of passersby. Unlike before, the games inside were now open to both men and women.
Standing beside the closed door with his thick arms folded over his barrel chest was Vigo. He was lost in conversation. Talking animatedly at his side stood a French poet in champagne-shined Hessians, a spangled waistcoat, and a pair of gold rimmed spectacles.
There was plenty of time for them to talk. The doors wouldn’t open for another hour.
The façade to the right boasted large glass windows, welcoming in both the light and anyone who chanced to pass by, man or woman. Bryony perched on a stool by the door, Vigo’s unlikely counterpart in a satin evening gown and scuffed top hat.
Her sister-in-law had not only designed the signage for the new addition, but painted the door herself. THE CROOKED HALO, declared the bold text, curving above a winged cherub with a wicked grin, a pair of almost imperceptible horns, and yes, a crooked halo. It was perfect.
Max’s life couldn’t be happier. His wife was stupendous. Together, they accomplished more than either possibly could alone.
In the weeks since the Crooked Halo’s grand opening, they had already seen positive developments. The front salon was primarily used as conversation nooks where poets, intellectuals, book clubs, and the like could gather for an exchange of ideas and opinions.
The public’s response had been tremendous. Especially after a certain caricature had made the rounds, featuring the Cloven Hoof’s infamous Lord of Vice reading love sonnets to his wife in front of their peers. Everyone had come to see.
Last week, Bryony had set up a small stage to be used at the twilight hour, by those who wished to share music, poetry, or other art with fellow patrons. Max was still shocked at the number and variety of talented people who flocked to the salon to see and be seen.
The rear chamber of the new annex was reserved for individuals who preferred not to gamble real money. Bryony had stocked the room with an overabundance of playing-cards, and overnight the Grenville family game had become household knowledge. It was now known as “playing Crooked Halo.”
They had even installed a swinging door between the Cloven Hoof and the Crooked Halo, for patrons who wished to wander back and forth between them.
This had proven to be a stroke of brilliance, increasing profits and curiosity on both sides. The passageway allowed for more opportunities to please mixed crowds, in which some guests fancied a game of loo whilst others in their party preferred to debate the merits of iambic pentameter or Gothic symbolism.
Or the joy of tossing a handful of playing cards in each other’s faces.
Their joint establishments had something for everyone.
Before the evening’s inevitable crowd descended upon them, Max crossed the street and swung his wife up into his arms.
“Careful,” she teased. “You’ll dislodge my halo.”
“I’m the devil of the Cloven Hoof,” he murmured into her neck. “I do as I please.”
She arched a brow. “And what, might a lady ask, would please a devil like you?”
“You,” he growled and gave her a kiss that could be felt all the way to the heavens.
THE END
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Enjoy a fun regency romp featuring a spinster in a counting house, a crotchety duke, a rambunctious goat, one more chance at true love, and a partridge in a pear tree. What could go wrong?
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Once Upon a Duke
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Due to the terms of an estranged relative's will, the Duke of Silkridge must revisit the cold, unforgiving mountains where he lost everything he once loved. As soon as he restores his family legacy, he'll return to London where he belongs. He definitely won't rekindle the forbidden spark crackling between him and the irresistible spitfire he'd left behind...
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The 12 Dukes of Christmas is a laugh-out-loud historical romance series of heartwarming Regency romps nestled in a picturesque snow-covered village. After all, nothing heats up a winter night quite like finding oneself in the arms of a duke!
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