The Bashful Bride (Advertisements for Love Book 2)

by Vanessa Riley

  A Surprising Proposal

  Ester sipped the second cup of tea Arthur Bex had ordered for her. Arthur Bex. As hard as she tried not to rattle her cup, and to drink with an unaffected air as Mama had instructed her daughters, Ester failed miserably, clinking her cup, sloshing the sweet fragrance of chamomile.

  But what could one expect? She was sitting with a demi-god, the man she had dreamed of almost every night, his voice luscious, thick, and sweet like honey. Arthur Bex sat beside her, discussing marriage.

  “Miss Croome, while I do find the cups at the White Horse Cellar quite fascinating. I would appreciate it if you’d look up at me and tell me about yourself. It was Miss Burghley’s advertisement that brought us here, but are you looking to be married?”

  “Yes.” Particularly since Papa’s surprise this morning.

  Bex was even taller and more handsome up close. Even sitting, he loomed above her, and she thought of how secure she’d feel snuggled in his well-built arms.

  “Miss Croome, I met you at Fitzwilliam-Cecil’s home. It seems to me that two consenting adults looking to be married could have spoken months ago.”

  “I’m painfully shy around strangers.” She breathed deeply, looked up, and retook his gaze. There was kindness in his cobalt-blue eyes. It made it a little easier for her lungs to keep functioning. “Words come easy for you, Mr. Bex. Your voice holds command even when ordering a pot of tea. I’ve a great imagination.” She put down her spoon and tapped her bonnet. “But it never conceived of this.”

  “Then your imagination is limited, or perhaps trapped beneath that pretty bonnet.”

  He moved a little closer and fingered the ribbon beneath her chin. “You could take off your hat. If that will make you free.”

  “No, that will invite more stares. Curly thick locks compared to yours will get everyone talking. Can’t you see how they are looking at us, wondering what Arthur Bex is doing taking tea with me?”

  “Maybe they are pondering why Miss Croome is taking tea with an actor? My profession, as you’ve said, isn’t quite what everyone wants for their daughter’s husband.”

  “Not in this part of London, Mr. Bex. Closer to Cheapside in the old Huguenot areas, the Croome name is better known. Lord knows a few of my mother’s friends would be running to tell her if they saw us.”

  “You mean the areas closer to the textile warehouses, or where the Blackamoor populations congregate?”

  She looked at his sly, cutting smile, his dark chestnut-brown hair, and swarthy sun-kissed skin—not a trace of stupid. “You know what I mean, sir.”

  He nodded. His fingers brushed her hand again as he reached for a biscuit. “Yes, yes, I do. But I’m thinking that may not matter so much when it comes to compatibility.”

  He could’ve spoken French, though she was fluent, or Russian. It could be gibberish, and she’d still nod her head. His voice had wrapped around her and crushed her in warmth. There was no escaping her attraction to him, but she would for Frederica. “My friend Miss Burghley is very kind. Some consider her my prettiest friend. Her complexion is lighter, her connections are higher. She is looking for a lifelong companion. I’ve no problems going and retrieving her from her carriage. You both may have more in common.”

  He wiped crumbs from his mouth, and his deep smile captured her with a draw that couldn’t be denied. “How would that sit with you, Miss Croome?” His voice became sultry as he leaned closer. “Would it do well with you if I whispered my intent in her ear, not yours?”

  Her face felt hot. He was teasing her, and his confidence was alluring. She was her father’s daughter, and she liked a confident man. “No. It would not. You’re very sure of yourself.”

  “A good actor knows his audience. I can tell that you like me, Miss Croome. And I think I like you, too.”

  Her worst day had become her best, but now it was bad again for evening would come and this affair would be done. She’d be engaged to a troll, the son of a troll.

  After another sip of his steaming tea, Bex said, “Fitzwilliam-Cecil, the playwright, says you can quote Shakespeare as well as he. What’s not to like about that?”

  He’d asked about her, then? Could one burst into flames from blushing? If he kept it up, they’d both find out.

  “If you are done passing me to your friends, let’s discuss your intentions. Are you wanting to be married, Miss Croome?”

  How many times had she thought of Bex, heard his voice riveting her soul? But not once was he telling jokes. He wasn’t being serious. Marriage was serious. If he wasn’t focused on their union, distractions could come upon him. He’d stray like Papa. She sat up straight. “I’m not done with my questions. Just because I like you, that’s not eeeeeenough. Have you ever been married?”

  “No, Miss Croome. If we decide to pursue you liking me, you would be my first and only bride.”

  “Do you have a mistress?”

  His face sobered. “Not now, not for a year.”

  Her brow raised on that answer. Bex was a handsome man, the rage of London. It was hard to believe he was alone. “So you’ll take one after we wed? I hear that’s what important men do. It makes them feel powerful.”

  He frowned for a moment. “I made jokes to put you at ease, but I’ll be perfectly serious in answering you. I want your trust. I need a wife who will believe in me wholly, so I’ll take no mistress. A man has no honor if he cannot stay true to his vows. The same for you. There should be no one other than me.”

  She swallowed, thinking of her father’s failings. Anyone could fall, even with the best intentions. “You’re not diseased or running from the law?”

  He scratched his chin which held a little shadow. “Miss Croome, aren’t you being a little dramatic?”

  “Answer the question, if you can.”

  “Everyone knows Arthur Bex.” He waved at a patron who seemed to be staring, then settled his hand back to the table, again next to hers. “I could hardly run from illegalities. Why don’t you tell me your true objection? Am I not what you expected?”

  “No. This is some cruel joke. I want to pinch myself again, but you stopped me from doing that.”

  “You could pinch me if that would help.”

  She rolled her eyes and peered around his broad shoulders at the other patrons of the inn. No one glared at her and Bex anymore. They’d faded into the noise. “This is the most I’ve ever said to you. Doesn’t that concern you?”

  “Not in the least. A shy woman will run from scandal. The widowed countess I last spent time with seeded the newspaper men with gossip about me. I want privacy for my home, my loved ones—if I had any.”

  His fingers lay so close to her hand. She could count the dimples in his knuckles or trace his off-kilter index finger, the one he’d injured last year when the skull of Yorick fell upon it during a rehearsal.

  Yes. She knew too much of him and the Countess Devoors, the last woman the papers had linked him to. The countess seemed vivacious and was always in the gossip stories. Nothing like shy Ester. She gripped the gnarled table’s edge. “I remember reading that your parents died at an early age.”

  He looked away, maybe for the first time. Had she offended him, or was the memory of such early loss painful?

  “There is no one close to me, now. Just a would-be groom who runs errands for me.”

  His wondrous voice held notes of sadness. She couldn’t let him stew in loss and pushed the saucer with the last biscuit his way. “You could have any woman, Mr. Bex. I’ve seen how they follow you. Even the barmaids here are ogling you. Why seek a bride by newspaper?”

  “You’ve watched me?” He edged closer as he munched the last treat. His whisper fell across her brow. “You feel you know me?”

  Skin heating from his biscuit-laced breath, she willed her chin to rise so she could bask fully in his close gaze. “Like you said. Everyone knows Arthur Bex, the great actor, but I wonder about the man answering advertisements for a wife.”

  “I’m a simple creatu
re, Miss Croome. I love the theater, but I’m driven to right the wrongs of this day. I wasn’t given my talents to squander them. I aim to make a difference, but it’s time to have a wife. I wish for one that understands the demands upon me, one that’s logical, and not compelled by the twists of a long courtship, one who is as resistant to scandal as I am.”

  “That is admirable and good. But a wife of another race could be problematic. I wouldn’t want to cause harm to your reputation.”

  “There are worse things to harm a reputation than a different type of wife. You seem to keep saying why you’re not the one for me. I say, why not you, Miss Croome? Fate, a friend, and a newspaper have brought us together. I say, why not us. What is your true hesitation?”

  “My father has other ideas. He wants me to wed a business colleague’s son.”

  He stopped toying with the shrinking distance of their fingers and took her hand, sending another spark up her arm. “Ah, the other option. I sense that the son is your father’s choice and not yours? I still want to know why not you and me?”

  She closed her gloved palm about his and dropped it to the bench. “We are not engaged yet. You can’t be so familiar.”

  He chuckled, then swooped in. “I sense you are on the verge of deciding. I’ll take an unfair advantage. Besides, I like the hint of henna that blooms on your face when I touch you.”

  She folded her arms about her as if that could keep her heart from racing. “Do you know what it’s like to hear your deep baritone say those sweet words to me?”

  “Then hear my soul speak, dear lady. The very instant I saw you, did my heart fly to your service.”

  He was quoting Shakespeare to her as he had quoted it on stage when he performed The Tempest, but those words of instant love couldn’t be Bex’s. They were Ester’s. She closed her eyes, forgetting the noisy inn and even Bex’s honey voice and said, “‘The very instant that I saw you did my heart fly to your service, there it resides to make me a slave to it.’”

  “No. No one is a slave, or they shouldn’t be. No, you have choices. I want to be your choice, Miss Croome.” His tone had hardened, then softened upon saying her name.

  “I don’t know what to think, Mr. Bex. I can’t pretend not to be awed by you.”

  With a sigh, he sat back. “You are free to walk away from this moment, but I think we should try. Where else will I find a lover of Shakespeare’s words? Yes, you are special. I think you should accept me. You, too, I assume, are not married, have no benefactor arrangements. I presume you are not sick or hiding from criminality. On your criteria alone, I think we are perfectly suited.”

  How many times had she thought of this man during theater season and hushed Frederica or their friend Theodosia, just to hear his voice, clear and true? How many times had she kicked herself for lacking the courage to say a few words to him at Theodosia’s wedding celebration? Ester picked up her sketchbook and waved cool, sweet air to her face. “I don’t have time to rationalize this, Mr. Bex, or think about it a hundred and five times. This is either madness or a dream come true.”

  “I hope for truth and righteousness. I feel that it is, but I won’t rush you, Miss Croome. You can take—”

  “No, I must rush you. If we are to do this, we must elope tonight.”

  “Tonight? There would be no time to get a license. The banns have not been read. We’d have to go to Scotland.”

  “Yes.”

  His brow wrinkled. “The blacksmith at Gretna Green who’ll do the ceremony is at least four or five days away. It will be a ten-day trip in total to return to London. That is traveling day and night, unsupervised. It would be better if we waited for a proper license. We could get to know each other, without testing each other so soon.”

  “It must be tonight. A harrowing escape will bind us together. Doesn’t adversity do that? It does for friends. Why not man and wife? But if you’re not inclined, I won’t push.” She put her hand on the table to rise but his palm pressed atop hers.

  “I’m inclined. And a woman who can make up her mind so quickly and in my favor is to be treasured. I was thinking of you. I don’t want to run as if this were illicit, like we are wanted criminals.”

  His voice had changed. It seemed to hold the softness of a bad memory, one that he failed to repress.

  Her weak-for-him heart softened more. He deserved to hear the whole truth. With a quick breath, she forced her tongue to admit it. “If we don’t elope tonight, I’ll be forced to marry my father’s choice on my twenty-first birthday, a month from today. The man is a womanizing brute.”

  “Then you do need saving.” He folded his arms. “If we make good time, we could return in time for the rehearsal of my next play. Yes, Miss Croome. Let me be the one. Let us elope, tonight.”

  “No one is safe from my father’s wrath. Josiah Croome’s temper is legendary. Once he figures it out, he will give chase. The more I think about it, the more I fail to believe we have a chance. Forget I said anything about eloping tonight. Thank you for the tea, Mr. Bex.”

  “I like challenges, particularly one with poor odds and dire consequences. Let’s try, Miss Croome. Let’s prove wrong the naysayers, even the ones beneath your pretty bonnet. I’ll take a gamble on a fellow Shakespeare lover. Where do I meet you?”

  “Come to Nineteen Fournier. At five minutes after midnight, I’ll be at the far corner of the house, waiting in the parlor beside the wide window. I’ll jump down from it, and we can ride off to Gretna Green.”

  Ester stood up, but he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “I’ll be there, five after midnight.”

  “I’ll understand if you don’t show, Mr. Bex.”

  “I’ll be there to catch you, my future wife. And I’ll knock on the door and come inside if you don’t come down. Don’t make me ascend a balcony for you. I will. You’ve seen me do it.”

  The smile he sent her made her knees knock, even more so than the eyes of everyone in the inn looking at Bex romance her. She shook her head and focused on him. “I remember your performance as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. It was quite good. This isn’t pretend.”

  “I’ll be there, for we are now engaged, my sun.”

  This could be fun with endless references to theater plays. She smiled at her sweet prince. “Sorrowfully parting from you until tonight, Mr. Bex.” She floated out of the inn, not looking back, not wanting this moment to be taken from her. Arthur Bex knew Ester’s name and wanted to elope.

  She leaned on Frederica’s carriage door. Everything would change at the toll of midnight. This daydream of marrying Arthur Bex would surely go away. At five minutes after midnight, the truth would return and the arranged engagement set up by her father would begin. Josiah Croome believed he could run the world and that included his daughter’s domestic happiness. The men who crossed him were doomed. One had even fled to the Americas. Would that be Bex’s fate?

  She hugged her sketchbook before taking the door handle. The naysayers in her bonnet, as Bex had put it, were robbing her of the joy she’d stumbled upon. Tonight, she’d be engaged, either to Arthur Bex, the man of her dreams, or the womanizer dreamed up by her father. Ester shook her head. The hours until five after midnight would be the longest ones in her life.

  Chapter Four

  Pacing and Partying

  From the top of the stairs, Ester snuck unnoticed past the floor where the dining room was and on to the lower level. On the bottom tread, she took a breath and traced the glow of the tall beeswax candles in the Rococo chandelier in the main hall of Nineteen Fournier.

  It had been old and dusty when Papa first took possession of the house, but Mama had cleaned it, found artisans amongst their old neighbors to make it shine, like she had done for the rest of the house.

  Ester had been such a fool to think them happy. The grim look upon her mother’s face when they’d first lit the chandelier should’ve been a warning. How could one be saddened by a fixture with gilded carved acanthus leaves made to suspend cut glass that l
ooked like diamonds? With the long candles installed on the chandelier and even in the mirrored wall sconces, this party would go to three or four hours in the morning. Very good. She and Bex would have a head start—if he came—if she leaped to him.

  Though indecision warred inside, she’d changed her dress to one she could manage without a maid and her undergarments to ones with a corset and ribbons in the front. Being on the run meant being quick, and she’d not be the reason they’d be caught. In her bag, she’d packed two easier buttoning dresses, a nightgown and robe, lilac soaps, a sack of charcoal, and her never-to-be-forgotten sketch pad. She was ready to elope. That seemed brave, but could she truly do it? Did that type of courage exist in her bones?

  “Miss Croome, shouldn’t you be upstairs readying for dinner?”

  She nearly jumped out of her skin at Clancy’s sudden appearance. “Yes.” Her voice sounded like a croak.

  “You have your traveling bag? You going to stay with your friend with the two names, now Cecil-Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam-Cecil after the party?”

  Ester never lied, but misdirection—that was something entirely different. “I’m planning to leave by the time the party ends or even before. You know how long these things go.”

  “Sounds like you’re up to something.”

  Her eyes popped wide, but she relaxed at the wail of his laughter.

  “I’m just jossin’ with you. Here, I’ll take that.”

  Ester’s heart started to beat again. Time to act as if nothing was wrong. She handed the bag to him then adjusted her creamy silk gloves. They matched her robin’s-egg blue gown with its high lace surrounding her neck. “You are a dear. Put it in the closet in the parlor.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He picked it up. “Your mother’s upstairs in the dining room. I think she’s looking for you.”

  “Thank you, Clancy. If I’ve ever failed to thank you for your service, for every kindness you do, let me tell you how much you mean to me, this family.”

  The old man dimpled and then headed to the parlor. He was a dear, and his humor would be needed to help soothe Mama and Papa when they discovered Ester had eloped.