Beautiful Beast (The Marriage Maker Book 36)

by Pearl Darling

  Amelia snorted. “How did you think your father got his nickname? That it just happened?”

  “No. I didn’t think—“

  “It’s always the same with you, Ophelia. You don’t think. You’re too busy looking at things that aren’t there—”

  “The little things,” Ophelia mumbled, but her aunt ignored her and carried on.

  “—to see the bigger picture. One little thing it was, your father said. Just a little favor. Nothing can hurt the family name.”

  “We’ve had a very happy life,” Ophelia said. Indeed, that was what her mother said every time Ophelia had asked about the origins of the name. “Who cares about the past?”

  Amelia’s lips thinned. “I do.”

  Ophelia stepped back, stunned at the whiteness that flared out from her aunt’s high cheeks.

  “Why do you think I remained unmarried whilst your father retired to the country? Why do you think you have remained on the shelf whilst all other eligible ladies are catching men by the stockingful?”

  “I didn’t think.” Not about herself, but about her aunt. Her aunt was a beautiful woman still in her prime. Ophelia had thought her aunt’s harpyishness had driven the men away and had never once considered the effect of her father’s actions on his sister, though she had willingly applied the same reasoning to herself. Ophelia’s recent success in the ton had proved, however, that the reason she hadn’t achieved a match was because no one had noticed her, not because of her father. Ophelia had acted like a mouse in the mud, plastered to the edges of the ton’s ballrooms.

  “No. You wouldn’t.”

  The despair in Amelia’s voice sank Ophelia. For the first time since childhood, Ophelia reached out and touched her aunt’s arm, before giving in to the impulses that swept over her lately and pulling her aunt into a strong embrace.

  Amelia was so small and so thin. When had that happened?

  “Oh,” her aunt mumbled into Ophelia’s shoulder. Slowly, her arms crept around Ophelia’s waist and her weight leaned against Ophelia’s shoulder. “Oh.”

  To Ophelia’s horror, Amelia began to shake, and her tears dampened Ophelia’s dress.

  “I’m so very sorry,” Ophelia said as Amelia drew back.

  Unexpectedly, her aunt smiled, shook her head, wiped away her tears with a small linen handkerchief and laughed.

  “No. It is I who should be sorry. I know I do go on.”

  “No—”

  Amelia fixed her with a watery glare. “I do. I know it. I can’t stop myself. I just don’t want you to have the same fate as me.”

  “Not sure that’s going to happen, Amelia. Seems Ophelia has a good dose of her father in her, to the better.” Mrs. Grundy swept to Ophelia’s side. “Word is that Lord Barden’s chasing her as hard as a galloping horse.”

  Ophelia swallowed as her aunt’s watery glare left Mrs. Grundy, returned to her, and hardened.

  “Lord Barden—the Beast?” Amelia whispered.

  Ophelia nodded, the feather so carefully wrapped around her head slipping to brush against her eyes.

  For the first time, it seemed, Amelia noticed Ophelia’s bright blue dress and outrageous headdress. “Is he the reason why you are dressed so—theatrically?”

  Ophelia pushed the feather back onto her head before giving up and unpinning the wilting concoction. She bit her lower lip and nodded.

  “Goodness, you are like your father.” Amelia swept away into the drawing room. “Esme, please, could you ring for some cocoa? And no chattering to my maids about what you have seen until I’ve spoken to my niece about it, do you hear?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Mrs. Grundy said cheerfully.

  Ophelia followed Amelia into the drawing room and sat down opposite her aunt on the worn red sofa.

  “I think we have two things to speak about,” Amelia said quietly. “Your campaign to win Lord Barden, and your father’s legacy.”

  Ophelia nodded. It seemed that it wasn’t just Ophelia who noticed the little things. “I’d like to know about my father and Lord Concard.”

  Amelia nodded. “Your father and Lord Concard were great friends. They met at school and went up to Oxford together.” Amelia sighed. “Lord Concard was good at maths but had a weakness for cards. Still has, I hear. Simon had to rescue him time and time again. Even had to stand by Lord Concard when he was challenged to a duel.” Amelia took a deep breath. “Until one day, your father stepped in when Lord Concard was winning and urged him to leave the card table.”

  “Lord Concard challenged him to a duel?”

  Amelia shook her head. “No. Lord Barden, the losing fellow, challenged your father to a duel.”

  “Lord Barden?”

  “The present lord’s deceased father.”

  Oh gods! “He killed him.”

  Amelia drew back. “No! Of course not! Merely winged him. Barden’s shot went wide. He was drunk and too slow on the uptake. But he cried foul—called your father a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Simon was always such a mild man, that most people didn’t see his unpredictable side, the fact that he was an ace shot, with a high sense of honor.”

  “And so he became the Wolf of Weatherop Wold.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand, Father did nothing wrong.”

  Amelia snorted. “It doesn’t matter that he did nothing wrong. There was no one else there. Barden was influential, as well as sour. All the way up until he died, he maintained your father was dishonest. He couldn’t stand the knock to his reputation. Even though he went on to win back everything Lord Concard won from him.”

  “Why didn’t Lord Concard support Father?”

  “Because sometimes one person’s word is not enough. When someone shouts loud enough, others sit up and notice. The old saying ‘no smoke without a fire’ can distort the issues. But in this case, the fire was Lord Barden, not your father. Lord Concard has always supported our family. Who do you think gets you the invites to all the balls?”

  “Oh gods. What have I done?”

  “With respect to Raphael Barden, you mean?” Amelia wiped her mouth delicately with a napkin.

  Ophelia nodded. “Yes.”

  “It depends on what you want, Amelia.”

  “I—I want—” What she wanted, she realized, was the steel, the silver, and the burning light of marriage.

  Ophelia spent the next few days in a haze. On Monday, she opened the front door and hesitated on the threshold, puzzled by the morning’s weak sunlight. Mrs. Grundy’s carriage arrived as she lingered on the doorstep.

  Mrs. Grundy descended from the creaking carriage, hurried up the porch steps and bustled around Ophelia, tutting and shooing her back into the house. As Ophelia stood lamely in the hall, Mrs. Grundy put her hands on her hips and tapped the floor with an incongruously small foot for such a rotund form. “What is it?” she said.

  Ophelia chewed at her bottom lip. How could she say that something she had started as a pursuit of mere feeling, suddenly felt like so much more to her? She’d thought she could manage the kisses, could kick away at the emotion, and when it was all over, go back to the perpetual hunt.

  After all, it wasn’t as her aunt had said, that much she knew. Maybe in Aunt Amelia’s time, people avoided her because of the scandal, but Ophelia’s experience at the most recent balls indicated that wasn’t the case for her. In her case, no one knew who she was, and given her permanent position at the edges of the circle, her certain something, whatever it was, had not had an opportunity to shine.

  Until Raphael had come along.

  Ophelia shuffled her feet as Mrs. Grundy directed a maid to set the sturdy walking shoes in front of her and then motioned at her to shuck off the silk house slippers she didn’t realize she still wore.

  Every moment was an allegory. Even her slippers. Sitting at the edge of the crowd had kept her heart safe, even as her slippers had cocooned her feet in their warmth and familiarity. Her walking shoes, though, were a different kettle of fish. They rubbed he
r ankles and chafed her soles, but still they took her out into the world whilst keeping her dry.

  Ophelia straightened and pushed her feet into the obnoxious walking shoes that would take her to Barden Hall, for whatever might happen, good or bad.

  Chapter Eight

  Raphael could tell something was wrong as Ophelia trailed through the door and into his drawing room. She made no effort to play her little games. She arrived hatless, clad in sensible clothes, her hair pinned up like any other ton miss. She moved stiffly, her fluidity gone.

  His heart thudded once again.

  For she had astonished him once more.

  Ophelia wasn’t just a woman he couldn’t stop thinking about. She was a work of art, a provocative being encased in an ordinary shell. How could she have been anything otherwise, when she caused him to flutter around her, arranging cushions, calling for tea from the astonished butler, solicitously giving her chaperone a chair himself?

  She wouldn’t talk.

  He tried everything, from inane comments on the blossoms in Hyde Park to the weather. For a perceptive woman, it seemed she hadn’t noticed. She’d shut down.

  Finally, he stood up. “I have something to show you.” He walked slowly to where he’d left his easel, the brushes he’d used still lying haphazardly on the drying palette. Looking back, he realized that she wasn’t going to stand up.

  Ignoring the still wet paint, he hefted the easel over his shoulder and carried it to where she sat.

  “I’ve been working on it since I met you.”

  He pulled the drape away from the canvas, revealing what was, to his mind, his finest work.

  Ophelia looked up at the canvas. Her eyes filled with tears. “You’ve already painted my portrait.”

  Raphael frowned. “I’ve been doing nothing else. I can’t think of anything else.”

  “I thought I was coming here to sit for you, like all your other women.”

  “You aren’t like all the other women.” Raphael dropped to his knee by her feet. “Gods, haven’t you seen what I’ve done for you? Don’t you realize that I have never needed to chase a woman as I have you?

  Ophelia gulped audibly, a tremulous smile briefly appearing on her lips before it vanished with an inexplicable sob and the fall of silent tears. “You don’t know, do you?” she said, dashing away the falling drops.

  “Know what?” Raphael followed her gaze to his painting, struck again by how well he’d rendered her portrait.

  Ophelia gathered her bag to her and stood, avoiding his form at her feet. “I’m afraid I must leave. I’m late for an appointment.” She skirted round him, pulling her dress in as she passed.

  “Are you offended by what I have done?” Raphael demanded, his pain at her response turning to anger. He shook as he got to his feet, his hands offered in supplication. “Are you wanting to get your attack in first, like I have done many times before? Is this some kind of bizarre revenge for all the women I’ve wronged? For God’s sake…Carina. It’s got to be that.”

  Ophelia swung around, her lips parted. “What are you talking about?” she spluttered. “It’s not about you.”

  “It’s not you, it’s me,” Raphael said sarcastically. How many times had he spouted those words in fake earnestness?

  Ophelia blanched. “You never had an affair with the Prince Regent’s mistress. I’ve always known that. I couldn’t put my finger on it, until I realized you used the words We’ve done enough. It’s started at the Concard Ball, as if you were playing a charade. Even if you had, I wouldn’t have cared about her, or the thousand other women.” Ophelia turned very slowly on her heel and walked out the door, feeling for the door frame, almost knocking over a woman clad in coat and hat who bustled in at the same time. “It’s time I went back home.”

  As Ophelia disappeared, her chaperone arose from his chair like a kraken awakening from the sand. “You idiot!” she muttered hoarsely, her stout form shaking like jelly. “I don’t care if you are the angel Gabriel, Ophelia deserves better than you.” She gathered up Ophelia’s scattered belongings, taking the opportunity to cast a sideways look at the painting.

  At once, she stopped in her bustling movements. “Goodness,” she said faintly. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?” Raphael shouted. “What in the hell have I missed?”

  “If she won’t tell you, then I won’t either.” The redoubtable Mrs. Grundy flashed a smile. “Though, if you two ain’t right for each other, then I’m a spotted jackdaw.”

  She bustled away before he could ask what relevance a spotted jackdaw had to the situation.

  Raphael sank onto the sofa where Ophelia had sat and stared at the portrait.

  “One of your finest works, I think.” The woman who had entered just as Ophelia left, removed her hat and laid her coat over the fine wood of the desk by the door. She walked confidently into the room and sat down on the sofa next to Raphael, joining him in looking at the painting. With a familiar gesture, she smoothed back the curls from his forehead. “What’s it called?”

  “Ophelia Weatherop.” He turned to face her, and studied his mother’s dear, familiar face. “I don’t understand. I thought she’d like it.”

  “Ah,” his mother said softly. “Ah.”

  “It is a small departure from my usual style, I know, but I couldn’t think of any other way to tell her. I just don’t understand what has gone wrong. Three nights ago, she agreed to sit for me, though I’d already finished her portrait. I thought to get her alone, yet today she can barely look at me. I thought I was beginning to understand the game she played. I thought I was beginning to understand her.”

  “Perhaps you haven’t begun to know her.”

  “I know her. I want her. They’re all the same thing, surely?”

  His mother took a deep breath. “Do you remember your father’s accident?”

  Raphael shook his head. “Barely.”

  “Do you remember fleeing from Barden Hall?”

  Raphael nodded. “Of course. We never came back until Father died.”

  “Let me tell you about that night.” His mother sat back and closed her eyes. “Your father enjoyed playing cards. Some might say, too much. But he would employ any trick he knew to keep hold of his money, whether by pressurizing, threatening or otherwise, even though he might be losing.”

  “I remember the feeling well.”

  “He was losing to a man named Concard.”

  “Concard—I met his son at a ball.” That memory came flooding back. The man had said his name was familiar—Ophelia’s, too.

  “Concard had a friend called Weatherop—”

  “I—”

  “Let me finish. Weatherop was a mild man. Seemingly mellow. But on this occasion, he stepped in and urged his friend Concard to stop playing at cards whilst he was still winning.”

  “Let me guess, Father took exception to this.”

  His mother nodded. “He’d marked Weatherop out as a weak man. He challenged him to a duel, expecting Weatherop to back away and for Concard to keep playing, never expecting Weatherop to accept.”

  “The Wolf of Weatherop Wold. Let me guess. Weatherop was a crack shot that winged Father before he could raise a drunken hand.”

  “Yes. In fact, Weatherop was called the Wolf long before your Father met him in the duel. It was his moniker at Manton’s. He could see which way the wind was blowing, feel the weight of his gun. No one could best him—he noticed the little things.”

  “Just like his daughter,” Raphael muttered, George’s words echoing in his head, look for the little things…use your observations to inform you. George had known already the way Raphael was headed.

  His mother nodded. “Your Father started a campaign that turned that poor man’s title into something that became mud in the ton. It was a campaign of whispers, of dirty words. They managed to turn a proud title into something hideous, saying that he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, that he’d used trickery in the duel, helped Conc
ard win at cards, anything they could to make people believe what was not there.”

  “I’ve had experience of that.” Miles and his courtier friends had managed to do enough damage with Carina that the entire ton had been duped into thinking that Raphael had had an affair with her. Just so that the Prince Regent could legitimately cast her off, enter into the prospects of marriage with a German princess, gain a higher income from parliament, and then return to romancing his highly strung mistress.

  His mother shrugged. “Weatherop moved back up north with his wife.” She smiled sadly. “She was ever such a nice woman, but your father forbade me to see her again.” She looked away. “I envied them, actually. They let the whole affair fall off their shoulders as if it didn’t exist. For them, the world was each other.”

  “And yet, it seems their daughter has borne the brunt of it.”

  “As you bore the brunt of our relationship. Your father never got over the perceived fall from honor. His ill feeling toward me intensified to the point where one night he threatened me. That was the night we left.” She laid a hand on Raphael’s sleeve. “Ours was never a love match. You must have known that.” His mother eyed him and then glanced back at the portrait. “Is this what has caused you to closet yourself away for the last two months?”

  Raphael got up from the sofa and stood in front of the easel. “Yes.”

  “Do you think she feels the same way?”

  “I—I don’t know.” Out on the secluded terrace, he would have said yes, for sure. Now, having seen her leave, he wasn’t so sure.

  “Then you must find out. Put as much effort into winning her back as you did into driving all those awful women away.” His mother reached out. “I was so afraid you would go the same way as your father.”

  He had been, slowly descending into darkness whilst the only light and color burned on canvas. But now, now he wanted the blazing color to surround him.

  Raphael gazed into Ophelia Weatherop’s golden eyes on canvas, involuntarily returning her small, enigmatic smile before turning his back on the enticing portrait. “I’m not sure how I can win her back.”