Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03]

by Duke Most Wanted

  He was dripping. It didn’t seem right to use the word “weeping,” for he felt calm enough except for the remaining unbalanced laughter and the tendency for his eyes to leak.

  He looked at Sophie. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  She nodded in unruffled sympathy. “Yes. You’re all alone now.”

  He tamped down on more wild hysteria. “No. I mean . . . yes, I’m alone. But more importantly, for I’ve virtually been alone all along . . . I’m the new Duke of Edencourt.”

  Sophie had always wondered why people used the word “heartbreak.” Hearts raced and sometimes stopped, but how could a muscle break?

  Completely without effort, it seemed.

  She’d thought herself immune. She’d arrogantly assumed that because she didn’t have a lover that she wouldn’t feel love.

  What an idiot she was.

  Through the pounding in her head and the roaring in her ears, she heard Graham say her name. He sounded so far away.

  He is, farther than he’s ever been.

  And he’s not coming back.

  Chapter Five

  The room that had once seemed a refuge against a hostile world now surrounded Sophie in all its tawdry dilapidation and deceit. Her sanctuary was only a room in a cheap, rented house and her prince was simply a man she couldn’t have.

  “Of course, there isn’t a penny to be had,” Graham was saying lightly, as if it were of no consequence. “All that land and not a bit of it offering up my just deserts as duke.”

  Money. He was talking about money—when he ought to have heard the crystalline shattering of her heart from across the room?

  What did you expect of a man like him and a woman like you?

  “So it seems,” he went on to say, “that I must marry immediately and marry rich, if I please to continue living in the manner to which I am accustomed.”

  Well. Thrice an idiot in a single afternoon. She’d thought her heart could break no more. She was truly going to have to learn not to make such naive assumptions.

  “Marry,” she repeated flatly.

  “Yes.” His gaze was on the view through the window—or perhaps much farther than that. All the way to Lady Lilah Christie’s house?

  “Who?”

  He blinked, his surprise bringing him back to the parlor, back to her. He grinned crookedly and shrugged, his hands held wide. “I haven’t the foggiest notion, I fear.” He tried to bring back his former teasing tone. “Why don’t you pick for me, lover? Preferably someone I can stand for more than an hour at a time.”

  He didn’t mean to be cruel. She had to believe that. If she’d needed further illustration of just how far out of her reach he was, all she had to do was look in a mirror!

  Enough!

  She stood abruptly. When had she seated herself? She couldn’t remember. “I’m sorry, Graham—ah—Your Grace. I just realized the time. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ve so much to do today . . .”

  Ridiculous excuse, when he’d caught her napping on the windowseat not an hour past. He was too polite to say so, but only bowed and made the proper apologies for keeping her. She nodded, trying to keep the frantic need to flee from her manner.

  “If you don’t mind showing yourself out—?” A swing of her arm toward the door and the porcelain vase—which had never been in any danger in all the hours they’d spent together in this room—sailed several feet to shatter against the wall.

  Sophie jerked away from the crash. No. Not now. Please not now.

  It was no use. In her hasty withdrawal, she sent the small side table toppling, the crystal inhabitants of its top smashing themselves on the floor as well.

  “Sophie—”

  She felt his hand warm on her arm, the concern in his voice—or the pity?

  Unbearable.

  She jerked away from him, sending the embroidered footstool shooting across the room with a random spasm of her ankle, then tripping over the edge of the carpet to nearly plant her face in the wood of the parlor door.

  “So sorry, must be off—” She had to get out get out get out—

  Then she was on the stairs, skirts held high in one hand, feet mercifully sure on the narrow treads. Her chamber, as bare as a cell in a convent, was blessedly empty of breakables.

  Good-bye, Graham.

  She wished she was the sort of female who could throw herself across the bed and weep copiously. Alas, she could only sit, cold hands twisting in her lap, as she faced the end of a dream she hadn’t even realized she had.

  She’d thought herself adjusted to the idea that he would never be more than a lovely fancy and she’d determined to enjoy it for as long as she could, then walk away with no regrets. She’d thought herself realistic, yet though she’d known he would never want her, she hadn’t a clue how devastated she would be when he chose someone else.

  Good-bye forever.

  He would find someone soon, for what more did any rich family want but to use their money to purchase a title?

  Just like Sir Hamish Pickering.

  Sophie paused as it dawned on her. No. She couldn’t do it. There was no possibility that she could convince Graham to marry her without breaking the conditions of the will by telling him—which would cost Deirdre her chance as well.

  No, the money was Deirdre’s, not hers. It was as good as decided, for Deirdre’s husband would be duke soon enough, and Deirdre had won him without cheating in the slightest. For Sophie to now steal it away with tricks would be too unfair.

  The quiet of the room pressed down on her. Silence. Isolation. She ought to be accustomed to it by now.

  She’d best become so, for she wouldn’t have much of a future if the world found out how she’d taken the money sent by Tessa to come to London without telling a soul, unaccompanied and unallowed. Unwanted.

  The future of a woman alone in England was an uncertain and dangerous one. Sophie had seen how the orphanage near Acton had turned its grown girls out with nothing but a dress, a meal tied in a handkerchief and barely enough reading ability to follow signs on the road.

  Some found work in the fields or even in Acton’s kitchens, and some disappeared entirely. Some traveled to find work in the factories—hard, filthy work that left young women old before their time. Some reemerged later as victims of violence and murder and some became pale faces in the windows of bordellos in the city.

  She had a few more advantages than that. She had a lady’s education and a lady’s standing. That standing actually worked against her, however, for a relative of the Duke of Brookmoor would hardly make an acceptable governess. She might secure a place as a lady’s companion, but that too closely resembled what she’d run away from in Acton.

  She could sponge off Deirdre or Phoebe, be their household fixture as she aged and stultified. She could just see herself now, her spectacles thick from too much reading, her curling hair gone grizzled, her mind frayed from a lifetime of not mattering to anyone, lurking in unused portions of the great house, mumbling translations to herself.

  Mad Cousin Sophie, the Wicked Witch of the West Wing. After all, the nobility wouldn’t be the nobility without the required mad relative or two, would it?

  Unless she did something about it first. . . .

  After all, there was no reason she shouldn’t take advantage of her final weeks here to find a husband of her own. Not love, certainly, but she couldn’t stay here and she couldn’t return to Acton.

  There were men . . . out there. Men who might not mind a hardworking, plain sort of woman who wasn’t too good to step foot in a kitchen.

  “You could wipe them all from the minds of Society if you wished it, my darling. All you need do is say the word and I will make you my muse, my pièce de résistance, my masterpiece!”

  A wild recklessness rose in her as she remembered the words of the premier dressmaker in all of London. She’d had that feeling once before, when she’d opened the first letter from Tessa proposing the Season and secretly arranged her own futu
re.

  All you need do is say the word . . .

  He was mad, of course, a master of exaggeration at least. Lementeur’s very name translated from French to “the Liar.”

  Tessa had sniffed and said that no one had ever heard of the man a few short years ago—he’d simply appeared, creating gowns for some of the most influential women in London. A poseur, she had put forward, convincing all that he was the best in the business when he was probably just some tailor who’d lifted himself up from the gutter.

  Naturally, Tessa had been quick enough to take the gowns when offered. How could he be a fraud when his gowns were so very beautiful and had made Phoebe look like a princess and made Deirdre look like a goddess?

  Perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . he could work a bit of his magic on her and transform her into a normal woman?

  She must take charge of her own destiny yet again. It wasn’t enough this time to simply be Sophie Blake. She must become someone else.

  Someone who will attract Graham?

  She suppressed that hope hurriedly. She was done dreaming such impossible fantasies. No, all she needed was a practical arrangement and a home of her own. For that, she would throw herself into the world with a vengeance.

  DESPITE THE FACT that Sophie had only been there once, she had no trouble finding the entrance to the grand salon of Lementeur—so much more than an ordinary dress shop. There were no wares on display in great glass windows for passersby to gawk at, for one. Neither was there a sign of any sort, but for the unique knocker in the shape of an exotic bird on the substantial oak door. One could have driven right by without noticing, were one not a woman in London with her wits about her.

  Even as Sophie approached, and even through the murmuring chaos of her thoughts, she could feel the tendrils of expensive luxury reaching for her. Normally, she would have cast a longing glance and walked on by, for gowns such as those created by Lementeur were not to be dreamed of by girls like her.

  She actually owned two—simple white muslin day gowns which could have been produced by any competent dressmaker, if one gave no account to perfection of fit and attention to creating the most flattering silhouette.

  However, those had been gifts from Deirdre’s magnanimous husband, Lord Brookhaven. Even Tessa had benefited that day. Lementeur had appeared briefly, sized up all four women with a glance and then, inexplicably, had focused all of his intense energy upon Sophie. It had only been for a moment, indignantly interrupted by Tessa, of course, but for that single moment, Sophie had seen herself as possibly, someday . . . someone else altogether.

  At this moment, someone else altogether was precisely what was needed.

  At the door, her knock was answered swiftly and she was ushered into the rarified air within by the rather decorative young man she’d seen here before, Cabot.

  “Is he here? I must see him.” Her words came out in a rush. She would plead if she had to, beg if she must.

  Cabot indicated the double doors down the hall. “He is in his office—”

  Sophie moved at a near run, before her nerve could desert her. With a single push, she was through the doors and standing before the great designer himself. A little man behind a very large desk, cleared of everything but strewn sketches and pencils.

  Sophie emptied her reticule on the desk, her hands shaking as the last coin hit the blotter.

  “It is everything I have. You have to take it. You said—you said—” She couldn’t breathe, for what if it had all been empty promises, a cruel joke at her expense? What if there was no chance that she could ever—

  Nevertheless she could not go on without knowing for sure. She took a shattered breath and stiffened her spine. Then she gazed at the small, dapper man behind the desk, who was still frozen in surprise. “You said you could make me beautiful.”

  He shook his head slowly. “No, I didn’t. No one can make you beautiful.”

  The disappointment hit deep beneath her heart, dizzying her with its profundity. No breath—no hope—

  A hand gripped hers, tightening until she was forced to blink back the water swimming in her eyes and meet Lementeur’s intense gaze. “I did not promise beauty,” he said. “I said I could make you outshine every other woman in Society.”

  Sophie gasped a sob. “So you admit you lied.”

  He shook his head slowly, a smile forming on his lips. “My darling, beauty is something you are born with, or not. Pretty girls abound, like dandelions in the field. Pretty is common, simple, easily enjoyed and just as easily forgotten. Style, now—elegance, presence, being completely unforgettable—that is what I promised you. With your bones and my gowns—and a few lessons in deportment, for you slouch abominably—you will take London by storm.”

  Sweet relief—was that hope?—began to trickle through her. “Gr—men will like me?”

  “Men will duel to the death for you. They will long. They will ache. They will pine. There will be so many sonnets written in your honor you’ll be sick of them. I will turn your height into superiority, your thinness into elegance, your shyness and clumsiness into hauteur and languid grace!”

  She could only laugh damply at such ridiculousness. It was all so impossible—but perhaps, just perhaps, with his help she just might become attractive enough—

  “Is that enough money?” It must be, for there was no more.

  Lementeur huffed and swept the money to the floor with his other hand. “Did Leonardo da Vinci charge his Mona Lisa?”

  Sophie sniffled and swiped at her eyes. “Well, actually, it was a commissioned portrait, so—” Then she realized what he was saying. “Why—why would you do this for nothing?” She drew back. “What do you expect of me?”

  He patted her hand. “I know you don’t trust anyone, pet. No reason why you should, eh?” Then he gazed into her face with sudden intensity. “We recognize each other, I think. The outcasts always do.”

  Sophie blinked. The man before her, the successful, sought-after mantua-maker faded away for a moment, revealing someone who had once been just a boy . . . a boy perhaps unlike other boys.

  He saw the enlightenment enter her eyes and smiled. “I should think that being too tall and too thin and too plain—and perhaps unwanted in the first place, eh?—might be a little bit like being a poor Cockney lad who dreamed only of beautiful fabrics and fine lace. Understanding was as hard to come by for you as it was for me.”

  Then his smile widened. “However, someone helped me. A costume-maker for a theater troupe, who saw me fondling the silks at a market stall. He took me in and taught me to sew. I tried to repay him once, as if I ever could, but he told me to find another lost soul and save it instead. ‘You cannot pay it back,’ he told me. ‘You can only pay it on.’ ”

  Sophie shook her head. “But . . . you helped Phoebe and Deirdre already!”

  He leaned one hip back on his desk and folded his arms. “And I charged them very well for it, too!” He smiled confidently. “It was worth every penny.” Then he tilted his head. “Furthermore, I thought perhaps if you saw what I could do for them that someday you might come to ask what I could do for you.”

  She smiled. “And perhaps you overcharged Lord Brookhaven just a tad, just in case?”

  Lementeur laughed and kissed her hand. “Sofia, you are priceless.”

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I am just Sophie.”

  He caught her chin in his fingers, his gaze suddenly serious and just a bit too intense for comfort. Who was this man, really? “My love, my muse, my darling,” he said softly and sternly. “If you ever call yourself ‘just Sophie’ again, I will wash my hands of you, do you understand? That and only that will send me packing forever.”

  She blinked wide eyes at him. He was mad. Then hope tingled anew. “Mad” might be precisely what was required.

  He released her and straightened. “You are, from this moment forward, to be known far and wide as ‘that stunning Miss Sofia Blake.’ Now, we will need some time, and an invitation of approp
riate weight and countenance—which I can easily arrange—and you must be completely available to me for . . .” He eyed her slumping posture. “A while.”

  Sophie straightened self-consciously. “I haven’t always done so,” she mumbled. “I simply felt so tall around—around London ladies.”

  Lementeur pursed his lips. “You are rather too polite, my dear. Let me be clear. Lady Tessa is a well-known shrew. No one likes her, not even her alleged friends. Besides, I know for a fact that she has always longed for some height. I might venture a guess that she is actually jealous of your stature.”

  Tessa jealous? Of her? How very . . .

  Delightful.

  Sophie allowed her lips to curve in a slow, unfamiliar smile of satisfaction as she straightened to her full inches and gazed serenely down at the top of Lementeur’s head. “Is that better?”

  He matched her cat-who-swallowed-the-cream gaze and doubled it, approval shining from his face. “That is perfect.”

  Chapter Six

  John Herbert Fortescue was a free man, servant to no master . . . at least temporarily. His employers, the Marquis of Brookhaven and his bride, were attending the elderly Duke of Brookmoor. For the moment, Fortescue, butler to Brookhaven, could pretend to be an ordinary fellow, spending an evening with an extraordinary girl.

  If the atmosphere of his office in great Brook House was rather more that of a classroom, that was because he’d taken on the task of teaching Miss Patricia O’Malley to read. The fact that, as butler and head of staff of Brook House, he had not a moment to spare had been dismissed without a thought.

  He caught a glimpse of himself in the gleaming silver vase on the mantel—and quickly wiped away the besotted smile that kept crossing his face when he forgot to pay attention to his usual dignified demeanor. He was one of the highest of the high, by God, of the vast servant class of England. He had best retain his somber demeanor or he’d soon lose his post!

  With an effort, he returned his reflection to its normal haughty, chiseled state and quickly smoothed the silver streaks at his temples that gave people such a top-drawer impression. He’d earned every one of them through hard work and years of service—years that he sometimes wished he hadn’t wasted so.