An Unsuitable Match

by Sasha Cottman

  ‘Done with what?’ Clarice replied.

  ‘This,’ he replied, his voice confident. He slid a hand under the nape of her neck and, bending his head, set his hot lips to hers. The warmth of his lips and the heady scent of his cologne enveloped her in a world in which she was powerless.

  ‘Open your lips,’ he murmured. A moment later his tongue swept into her mouth.

  They both moaned.

  His mouth worked over her soft and pliant lips. She grasped the lapels on the front of his jacket and pulled him closer. The passionate words of the love letter, permanently seared into her brain, roared to life. His other hand slid down her back and when it reached her bottom, he gripped tightly and pulled her against him in an open display of possession.

  Immediately she felt the hardness of his body. His strong muscles held her imprinted against his length. On the side of her hip, the telltale sign of his sexual arousal pushed against her. She gasped and tightened her grip on his clothes.

  At twenty-three, she knew enough to understand the powerful effect she was having on him. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest. To know he wanted her, that he lusted after her, was intoxicating. No champagne had ever made her feel this heady.

  She kissed him back with every ounce of passion and desire she could muster. Temptation and instinct now overruled her previous resolve. Her hungry lips moved in furious agreement with his. Danger and risk meant nothing compared to the flames his passion had ignited. Her whole body screamed for her to succumb to this moment, to give in to his masterful command.

  ‘David,’ she whispered as she released his lips and began to trail small butterfly kisses across his cheek and down his jawline.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ he moaned, and gripped her more tightly to him.

  A shrill whistle broke the moment. He froze and growled with disappointment. He released his grip and stepped back.

  ‘That was the warning signal. Someone is coming.’

  Clarice hurried over to the couch and picked up her bonnet. A moment later Lucy’s face appeared at the window and she tapped on the glass. David opened the door and Lucy poked her head inside.

  ‘Some other guests are heading down to the lake. Alex and Millie are delaying them as best they can,’ she said. Her gaze drifted from Clarice’s bonnet to her ruffled hair. She smiled. Her matchmaking plans were moving along nicely.

  ‘Give us a minute or two more and then come back,’ he replied. Lucy nodded and quickly closed the door.

  He walked over to where Clarice was picking up the scattered pins. She turned as he reached her side. Putting a hand into his jacket pocket, he withdrew a small box.

  ‘It would soothe my wounded pride if you would accept this gift, Clarice,’ he said.

  He opened the box and took out a long gold chain. On the end of the chain was a black onyx orb held in place by a gold bail. He offered it to her.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Please understand I am serious when I say I need time to consider my future. If I take that necklace, you will expect me to wear it. You will think it confirms something that has not yet come to pass. Something that may not.’

  She held a finger to her swollen lips. Allowing him to kiss her senseless had only further complicated the situation.

  ‘I do not seek to tease you, David; you know I would never do that.’

  He held out the necklace once more. ‘Then take it. Take it as a symbol of our agreement. If you decide you do not want me, you may give it back at some future point.’

  Lucy rapped on the door once more and Clarice knew it was now or never.

  ‘Very well,’ she sighed and taking the necklace from him, she held it in her hand. She was adamant in her resolve although it was clear David was not happy.

  She studied the black and gold pendant. While the gold was cold to her touch, the onyx warmed quickly, absorbing the heat from her hand. She hesitated, unsure as to whether she should keep it. David placed a warm, tender kiss on the back of her neck, and she shivered. He whispered into her ear, his hot breath further threatening to muddle her mind.

  ‘Do you like it? The onyx is the symbol of powerful love, which is why we have black on our family coat of arms. We Radleys love deeply those whom we take to our hearts.’

  She turned and faced him. ‘David, it’s beautiful. Are those the Strathmore stars on the bail?’

  He nodded. ‘How observant of you. Yes they are; it’s a family heirloom. I may not be my father’s heir, but I am still his firstborn and I claimed this necklace especially for you. I hope to see you wearing it very soon.’

  She nodded. He would continue to promote his cause for as long as it took to gain her acceptance. She slipped the necklace into her reticule.

  ‘We have an agreement, and I expect you to keep to your side of it,’ she said.

  As the necklace dropped to the bottom of the rose-coloured satin bag, David took hold of her hand.

  ‘There is one final condition of our agreement, and this is probably the most important,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’ she replied, looking at her hand held within his.

  ‘You must do whatever is required to avoid Thaxter Fox. If he offers for you, you must refuse him. If your father starts to make arrangements for you to marry him, you must fight. Can you do that for me? For us?’

  She rose up on her toes and placed a kiss on his cheek.

  ‘I may not be certain of much at present, but rest assured I will never marry Thaxter Fox,’ she vowed.

  He gave her one last kiss on the lips and whispered, ‘Thank you,’ as Lucy knocked once more on the door.

  By the time Alex and Millie arrived at the summerhouse, Lucy had fixed Clarice’s hair. Her gloves and bonnet were back in place. The two girls were seated serenely side by side on the couch chatting, while David stood a respectable distance away from them on the other side of the room.

  Alex and David exchanged a furtive glance, but Clarice caught it. In response to Alex’s raised eyebrow, David shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘If you ladies would please make your way back up to the main garden party, David and I shall follow behind. It is getting late, and no doubt Clarice’s father will be looking for her shortly,’ Alex said.

  Clarice followed Lucy and Millie back to the garden party. In her reticule lay the necklace David had given her. In her heart a tiny spark of something new had begun to burn.

  Was it possible that she was falling in love with him?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  David was in no mood to haunt the parties and balls of London later that day, settling instead for an evening at his club. His private rendezvous with Clarice had left him in the oddest of tempers.

  She had not refused his suit, but neither had she accepted him. ‘Maybe’ and ‘perhaps’ were such foreign concepts to a man who lived his life making unequivocal decisions.

  ‘At least she didn’t say no,’ he’d muttered to himself as he followed the rest of their group back to the garden party.

  Now, hours later, he sat, cards in hand, trying to get his mind to focus on a game of whist. He looked across the table at his playing partner before making a slow study of the other players sitting on either side of him. All were several glasses of whisky and brandy further into the evening than him.

  He smiled to himself. How ironic it was that Alex’s marriage had been the spur for David’s recent run of sobriety. Without his drinking partner beside him each evening, he had lost the taste for long evenings of drunken debauchery.

  ‘Come on, Radley, play,’ said the man to his right.

  David gave his cards a cursory glance. He always knew exactly what he held in his hand at any time. He pulled a card out and threw it down on the table, confident that he had remembered the cards already played. The opposing pair of players put their cards down and reached for their drinks. He yawned.

  When did gambling become so boring?

  The final trick played itself out, at the end of which he drained his glass and got to h
is feet. He picked up his gloves and left the table.

  While waiting for his hat and coat to be retrieved by a club servant, he checked his money. He had arrived at White’s with fifty pounds in his pocket and he was leaving with exactly the same.

  ‘It appears to be my day for not making any headway,’ he said and headed out into the night.

  He hailed a hack, but once inside could not decide where he wanted to go. Finally, he instructed the driver to head to Strathmore House. Even at this point in the season, someone from his family would be at home.

  He chuckled at the thought of what his youngest sister Emma would say if he suddenly decided he wanted to read to her at this late hour.

  Sitting back in the seat, carefully avoiding putting pressure on his slowly healing wound, he looked out into the London night.

  Usually, when faced with a problem, the decisive David Radley met it head-on. If it had been a man causing him such grief, he would have tracked him down and sorted out matters like a gentleman. Occasionally a disagreement had resulted in a dark laneway brawl, but he never left a fight without having resolved the situation.

  Clarice Langham was an entirely different matter. Only the most dishonourable blackguard would coerce a woman into marrying him. She presented a problem to which he was forced to admit he had no skills or experience to overcome.

  A sly grin formed on his lips. He might not know how to soften her resolve, but he knew someone who did. He rapped on the roof of the carriage and bellowed to the driver.

  ‘Change of plans. Take me to George Street.’

  Late the following morning, he travelled to Park Lane. After calling upstairs and saying a quick hello to his youngest sibling, he knocked on the door of Lady Caroline’s sitting room. At this hour of the day he could count on his stepmother being busy with her needlework.

  As he entered the room, the duchess put down her fabric and needle. She rose from the couch and greeted him with open arms. She brushed a kiss on the side of his cheek and gave him one of her special smiles.

  ‘My beautiful boy,’ she said.

  He chuckled. For as long as he could remember, she had always called him her beautiful boy. Whatever terms of endearment she used for his brothers, she always reserved this one just for him.

  ‘Your Grace,’ he replied.

  Her eyebrows rose in disapproval.

  ‘Mama,’ he corrected himself.

  ‘Better. It’s lovely to see you today; I was wondering when you would come and visit me. Lucy told me you were at the Brearleys’ garden party yesterday, but you didn’t attend the Archers’ evening ball. Are you well?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I just didn’t feel I could spend the evening at yet another gala ball. I think I may be suffering from mid-season fatigue.’

  Caroline laughed.

  ‘Have you put your head into your father’s study yet? I think he will be back by now. How was the trip to your new estate? We have not had a moment to catch up on all your news. I can’t wait to hear how things went.’

  David smiled.

  ‘Sharnbrook Grange is exactly what I would have chosen. Of course it needs work, and the bloodlines of the livestock will need to be re-established, but yes, I think I can make it a viable estate once more.’ He nodded. ‘And yes, I shall make sure I see Papa before I go. But the truth is, I came especially to see you.’

  Caroline’s brow furrowed as David began to rub the smallest finger on his right hand. Since childhood, it had been a telltale sign that he was decidedly uncomfortable about something.

  She motioned toward the couch and he took a seat beside her.

  ‘So?’ she said, taking his hand before he could do further damage to his now-reddened finger.

  He took a deep breath. ‘It’s about my mother.’

  Caroline nodded.

  ‘I need to understand why she left. Why she ran away.’

  Caroline closed her eyes and fell silent. When she opened them, she blinked away tears.

  ‘What can I tell you that you do not already know? My sister decided that she did not wish to marry your father and she left.’

  ‘I need to know it all. I am certain that, being her sister, you know more about this than either Papa or I do,’ he replied.

  She looked away. ‘Your father knows everything that I know regarding what happened then. I have no secrets from my husband. But you are correct in thinking that you do not know the whole story. Before I tell you, can I ask why you want to know? Why would you now desire to drag out painful old memories? They cannot serve any purpose but to cause you distress.’

  ‘I have decided to marry, and have made my feelings plain to Clarice in both letter and in person.’

  Caroline let go of his hand. ‘Go on.’

  He scratched his cheek, remembering the long hours he had lain awake the previous night. It was only in the early hours of the morning that it occurred to him he might have to put his own shadowed past behind him in order to move matters forward with Clarice.

  ‘Clarice did not say yes, but fortunately she did not say no to my proposal either. I have thought long and hard about this, and while a major impediment in my suit is her father, the fact that I do not know the whole story of my birth also plays a part. I cannot fight a battle when I do not know how the war began.’

  Caroline sat silent for a moment before she gave him a smile that filled him with hope. His beloved stepmother, whom he thought of as his true mother, could always be counted upon to bolster him in his occasional bouts of self-doubt.

  ‘At five and twenty I suppose it is time. But wouldn’t you rather hear it from your father?’ she replied.

  ‘No. I need to understand matters from a woman’s perspective,’ he replied.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  David did not call in to see his father before he left Strathmore House; he was too numb with shock. He hailed a hack out in the street and once inside, pulled the window blind down.

  As he sat listening to Caroline explain how an earl’s daughter had jilted the Duke of Strathmore for a penniless naval officer, he felt an icy hand take hold of his heart. Lady Beatrice Hastings had made a terrible error of judgement in assuming her paramour would accept her once he knew she carried another man’s child.

  Abandoned and alone, she had given birth to her son. And died.

  Eyes closed, and with his head resting against the thick leather squab of the carriage, the cruelty of fate’s hand burned in his heart.

  If his mother had come back to his father, gone through with the marriage and given birth to him as the Duchess of Strathmore, he would be the Marquess of Brooke, not Alex.

  ‘Your father begged her not to call off their betrothal, but she refused. Even after she jilted him, he would have taken her back, forgiven her. No-one knew where she was; our families searched the length and breadth of the country. We only learnt of your existence because the maid she took with her felt honour-bound to write to your father,’ Caroline noted sadly.

  At that moment she looked away, and would not meet his eyes. He suspected there was more to the tale, but seeing his beloved mama in such pain, he decided he would take his leave.

  ‘Bloody hell, he would have taken her back,’ he muttered. No wonder his parents had kept the truth of the circumstances of his birth quiet for over a quarter of a century. He had lived his entire life believing his mother had been too scared to return to his father. That she had died of shame.

  He was a bastard because she’d refused to put her own bitter disappointment aside and return to marry his father. Instead of giving her son all that by rights should be his, she had deliberately condemned him to a lifetime with the stain of illegitimacy.

  ‘I am sorry you are dead, but I can never forgive you for what you did. How could you do that to your own child?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In the early afternoon Clarice received a note from Susan asking her to walk in Hyde Park with her cousins at five o’clock. Considering how things had been
between them of late, she decided it was prudent to agree.

  At half past three Bella knocked on the bedroom door and admitted Lady Susan Kirk.

  She was alone.

  Susan stood just inside the doorway and waited until Clarice had dismissed her maid.

  ‘You are early; I thought we were going to the park at five?’ Clarice said. She put down the book she had been reading and rose from the window seat.

  Susan nodded. ‘Yes, well, I wished to speak to you in private before my cousins arrive. There are important matters we need to discuss, and I don’t think their presence will serve any useful purpose.’

  In all the time Clarice had known Susan, they had never shared more than the mere semblance of a friendship. They walked in the park regularly, they shopped together very rarely, but never did they share anything akin to a secret. She ushered Susan to the small drawing room across the hallway and, after ordering some refreshments, took a seat on the couch next to her.

  Susan cleared her throat. Her hands were held tightly together in her lap.

  ‘Firstly, I must apologise for my behaviour yesterday. I was rude to you in front of your grandmother and that was unacceptable. I offer my unreserved apology.’

  Clarice watched as Susan slowly wrung her hands.

  ‘Accepted. But only if you will accept my apology,’ she replied.

  Susan stared at her, her brow knitted in confusion.

  ‘I spent time with the Radley girls during the past week at the cost of spending time with you. I treated you poorly, and for that I am sorry. I know things are difficult for you at the moment, and it was wrong of me to abandon you.’

  She took hold of one of Susan’s hands and held it in hers.

  ‘Now, let’s have something to eat and we can go to the park as soon as the others arrive,’ she said.

  A small, terse smile formed on Susan’s lips. ‘Thank you; that’s very kind of you, but it was not the main reason why I came here today. It’s Mr Fox.’

  An image of the small exchange between Susan and Thaxter Fox at the garden party leapt into Clarice’s mind.