by Julia Quinn
The fierceness in his blue eyes dissipated, replaced with electric heat.
Ah, yes, she thought as he kissed her back. This is the husband I need. My Something New.
Something Borrowed
Elizabeth Boyle
Chapter 1
North Audley Street, London
Less than a week before the wedding of the Duke of Dorset and Miss Anne Brabourne
Dear Cordelia,
Here is the sixpence we found all those years ago. I am passing it along to you as promised. There can be no doubts that your faith in its powers was well-placed as it has worked for me, and now, dear friend, it is your turn, even if it is, as your Aunt Aldora writes, that you’ve already found an eligible parti. Still, I do hope and pray that this coin will ensure that he is the one and I insist you have this paragon accompany you to my wedding. How else can your aunts and I can pass judgment on him if you do not bring him to Hamilton Hall?
Your friend always,
Anne
Miss Cordelia Padley set the letter down and turned the old sixpence that had come with it over in her hand. For all her faith that this coin would bring the four of them happiness, Cordelia now found herself filled with doubts.
For here was Anne expecting her to arrive with the man she intended to marry.
Save for one small problem. She didn’t have a betrothed.
“Is that the fabled coin?” Kate Harrington asked. Her hired companion set down the morning paper and looked with nothing less than a raft of skepticism at the battered bit of silver.
Cordelia went to agree, but then she realized one thing. She’d never told Kate about the coin. “What do you know about this?”
Kate huffed a little bit and picked her paper back up, showing a renewed interest in the gossip columns. “Nothing more than what is written in your journal.”
“My journal?” Cordelia set the coin down beside Anne’s letter. “You read my journal?”
Nose in the air, Kate turned the page. “You needn’t sound so incredulous.”
“That is private.”
“Not when it is so dull. And now that I see that coin, it seems rather dull as well. Hardly capable of leading one to true love.”
“Apparently it worked for Anne,” Cordelia replied, holding up her school friend’s letter. “She’s betrothed to the Duke of Dorset.”
The mention of such a lofty prospect brightened Kate’s interest, but not in the way Cordelia might have supposed. “Is this Anne pretty?”
Cordelia nodded. “I haven’t seen her since I left school, but most likely she’s very pretty. She was as a child.”
That seemed to answer Kate’s curiosity. “Then I’d say her good fortune had more to do with her face and not some old coin.” She returned to her paper, then paused. “What did the note from your father’s solicitor say?” She glanced at the unopened missive from the singular Mr. Abernathy Pickworth, Esq., the one Cordelia had pushed to one side earlier.
“I have no idea. I suppose I will have to meet with him soon enough.” If it was anything like when she’d left India, having had to use nearly all her money to pay her father’s remaining debts, it was a meeting she was going to avoid for as long as she could.
She might have had the comfort of her family’s fortune while she’d been at Madame Rochambeaux’s, but in the ensuing years, her father had lost nearly all of it in imprudent investments and reckless speculations.
At least there was still this house, well situated as it was in Mayfair. It had been let out for years, and would have to be again. Not that she was overly sentimental about the place. Cordelia hadn’t lived in it since she was nine, before . . .
Well, before her mother had died in Paris and everything had changed. With the loss of his beloved wife, Sir Horace had abandoned England, fleeing to India on a pretense of scientific explorations and leaving Cordelia at school. And then when he’d died the previous year, Cordelia had discovered that his true legacy hadn’t been one of intellectual discoveries, but one of debt and expenditures.
She wagered Pickworth’s note was going to be more bad news. So with one finger, she nudged it under a napkin and changed the subject.
Or rather, returned to the previous subject.
“Kate, don’t you believe in the magic of love at first sight?”
“No.” The answer was direct and firm. “Not unless the gentleman in question is standing before his vast and prosperous estate with a battalion of servants behind him ready to do my bidding. I’m quite certain I’d be vastly smitten at that point. As should you be instead of writing about lowly sailors.”
Cordelia blushed. “Whatever were you doing, going through my belongings?” After all, she’d kept her journal tucked in the very bottom of her trunk, beneath her undergarments, if only to ensure her privacy.
Kate sighed. “It was a long five months on that ship from Bombay. What else was I to read when you insisted on going up every night to look at the stars? And to answer your other great question, no, I don’t think you were in any danger of being kissed by that particular first mate—he rather fancied one of the lads.”
Cordelia shook her head. She knew hiring Kate, against the advice of every lofty matron in Bombay, hadn’t been the most proper decision of her life, but she liked the forthright widow for all the reasons that were now coming back to haunt her—mostly that Kate Harrington wasn’t opposed to a bit of unorthodoxy or impropriety. And her knowledge of the larger world, the world beyond drawing rooms and good society, had seemed more insurance than risk at the time.
Of course, that was before the woman had unearthed Cordelia’s journal and read it.
Meanwhile, Kate continued to stare at her as if expecting something. Knowing her companion, it was probably an apology. Or to be thanked for her insight as to the first mate.
So Cordelia returned to the original subject. “Yes, well, this is the fabled coin, though I hardly see how it will get me out of my current predicament.”
“You could always change your mind about that coal clerk,” Kate replied, glancing back down at the ads on the front page.
“Tallow,” Cordelia corrected.
From the wrinkle of Kate’s nose it was clear that she saw no difference.
Truly there wasn’t.
And there was the rub. The difference was lost on her aunts as well—all they saw was an eligible bachelor in need of a wife.
“I probably shouldn’t have written Aunt Aldora that letter,” Cordelia admitted.
Kate sniffed. There was no need for words, for her intent was clear. You think?
But she had. Written her aunts that she was betrothed to a perfectly eligible and amiable gentleman. She’d only done it so they would stop sending her lengthy letters extolling the virtues of their new vicar, or offering up Sir Randolph’s second cousin’s son—who, despite an unfortunate wen, had, as Aunt Aldora had written, “high hopes of a promising career in tallow.”
Tallow. Cordelia shuddered.
No, no, if she arrived at Hamilton Hall alone her lie would most certainly be laid bare, and her aunts would immediately set about scrambling to find another vicar (for fortunately theirs had found a bride), or another second cousin twice removed (for even Sir Randolph’s unlikely tallow-loving cousin had found a matrimonial candidate), or whatever fellow—breathing or otherwise—they could prop up beside her in front of the local vicar all to see her properly and promptly wed.
Picking up the coin, Cordelia turned it over a few times, remembering when she and the others had found it in that dreadful old mattress.
From across the table, Kate sniffed. “I hardly see how that coin can conjure up a likely fellow—you are far more apt to find a promising candidate in the gossip columns. Take this fellow Captain Talcott. You know him, don’t you?”
“Yes, but that was a long time ago,” Cordelia replied, not bothering to ask how Kate knew about Kipp.
Not when he was often featured in her journal. As in every time she spied a me
ntion of him in the paper.
Which, given the captain’s splendid career in the navy, had been quite often.
“He’s a veritable rogue—if any of what I’ve read is to be believed. How unfortunate it’s his brother who’s the earl—a dull, stodgy one, from all reports.” Kate sniffed at the waste of a good title. “But your Captain Talcott, oh my stars! He’s a devil. Opera dancers. Some mention of the brokenhearted daughter of Lord W—” Kate paused for a moment as she tried to puzzle out who that might be, but then dismissed it as unimportant. “He’d do well.”
Cordelia shook her head. “Do well for what?”
“For a betrothed, you peagoose. You could borrow him for a sennight. He’d be the perfect fellow to toss you aside and break your heart.”
“Borrow him? It isn’t like he’s an extra hair ribbon or a spare stocking one can make use of in an emergency.”
Kate got straight to the point. “I’d say your current straits qualify as an ‘emergency,’ or do you like the idea of smelling tallow for the rest of your life?”
Well, Kate had the right of it there. But this wasn’t so much an emergency, more of a reckoning of sorts. Like seeing Kipp again.
A flicker caught her eye and she glanced down at the coin, which seemed to be winking at her, but when she blinked again, she realized it was just a bit of light streaming in from the window. And out the window, there lay the garden, where she had played as a child. The familiar curved path to the house next door with all its memories . . .
And of promises once made.
Cordelia stilled. No. She couldn’t. She didn’t dare. And yet, she couldn’t shake the recollection of something old and most opportune.
Rising from the table, she went to the window as if pulled by a thread, by that long-ago vow, and took a searching look at the house next door.
Perhaps Kate had come up with the perfect plan.
“I wonder . . .” she murmured, and knew very well that behind her, Kate was grinning like a well-pleased cat.
“You’re up early.”
Winston Christopher Talcott, the fourteenth Earl of Thornton, shrugged off his brother’s surprise, and took his place at the head of the table. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Getting married will do that to a man,” Captain Andrew Talcott commented, glancing up from the note he’d been reading.
“I’m not even engaged yet, Drew.”
“Ah, but you will be before the day is out,” his brother remarked—no, make that teased—and tossing aside the note he’d been reading, he got up and refilled his plate. “Wish you’d told me you were in the running for Miss Holt’s hand. I could have made a fortune in wagers. I don’t think your name has even been mentioned.”
“I can hardly believe it. But Holt himself assured me the other night that his daughter was inclined to my suit, and now there is only one thing left to do.” Kipp stole a glance over at the well-laden sideboard and shuddered a bit, finding that he didn’t have the stomach for any of it.
Not even the bacon.
Not so his younger brother, who returned to the table and heartily dug in. Newly returned from sea, the much decorated and celebrated Captain Talcott ate each meal as if he hadn’t had a decent one in years.
Then again, he hadn’t the prospect of marriage weighing him down like an anchor.
But suddenly Drew seemed to sense his brother’s reluctance and put down his fork—a feat of sorts. “Demmit, don’t marry the chit if you don’t want to.”
“It isn’t what I want that matters. The estates are . . . well, you know damn well how Father . . .” Kipp didn’t need to finish the sentence.
They both damn well knew how their errant sire had left things.
A complete and utter ruin. As had his father and his father before that. For nearly a century, the once prosperous Thornton estates had been slipping into disarray, and none of their forebears had taken the time (or blunt) to right their falling fortunes.
Which left it up to this Earl of Thornton to remedy. And despite all of Kipp’s hard work and attempts to raise the sinking ship, he’d come to the bleak realization that no matter what he did, it would all be for naught without one thing—gold.
And lots of it. Which Josiah Holt had in spades and was willing to share with the man who would elevate his only child and beloved daughter, Miss Pamela Holt, to a lofty position in society.
Say, that of a countess.
“You know I have money—” Drew began.
“No!” Kipp couldn’t say the word with any more emphasis. He wouldn’t think of it.
This was an argument they’d had a number of times—Drew would offer his prize money and Kipp would refuse it. But before Drew could continue—which he always did—the door to the dining room opened and both brothers glanced up.
“Yes, Tydsley?” Kipp asked the butler.
But the man had his gaze fixed on Drew. “Captain Talcott, your guest is becoming most insistent. She claims the matter is of some urgency.”
At this Drew groaned.
“We have a guest?” Kipp glanced from his brother, then back to his butler, having given the man’s words a second recall. “Tydsley, did you say ‘she’?”
“I did indeed, my lord,” The older man’s bushy gray brows rose in a disapproving arch. “She’s a most presumptuous young lady. And impertinent. Barged right in,” Tydsley added, most likely in his own defense.
“Demmit, Drew,” Kipp said, pushing away from the table. “How many times do I have to tell you, you cannot make this house your personal harem.”
“Oh, it was only that once,” his errant brother shot back, retrieving the note he’d discarded earlier. “Why, this is all madness,” he said, shaking the bit of paper. “The dollymop can’t even sign her name without leaving a blot of ink.” Once again, he tossed the note aside.
“Nonsense or not, I want her out.”
Drew groaned and slowly rose to his feet. “Just some gel trying to entrap me.”
“Truly?” Kipp replied. Granted, Drew was wealthy in his own right, but this was too much. “If that is the case, then we’d best both go in there and discover what scheme she’s managed, so she can’t claim you ruined her under my roof—that is, if you haven’t already.”
“I most certainly have not.” Drew blew out a breath as if he hadn’t the time for such nonsense, when, in fact, he had nothing but time for mischief. “Like I said, she’s just some mad bit and I’ll have her dispatched posthaste.”
“I don’t need a scandal blowing up in my face right now. Would ruin everything,” Kipp told him, getting to his feet. He was about to follow his brother to the door, but the missive caught his eye, and he picked it up, following Drew to the foyer.
“Oh yes, how could I forget,” his brother prosed on. “Proper Miss Holt, and all. Dreadful shame if she was to withdraw her affections.”
Kipp looked up from the mysterious note. “She has very exacting standards of conduct and I won’t have you going and ruining everything with one of your flirts.”
Drew stopped before the salon door. “My flirts? You would do well to spend some time with one of my flirts. Give you something to be passionate about.”
“I have no time for passion,” he replied. “I have an estate to save.”
There was a huff of impatience from his brother. “Still, a little bit of passion might loosen up some of that boring starch of yours. I do say, Kipp, this Miss Holt has made you dreadfully dull. I don’t even want to think of what she’ll do to you once you are—”
But Kipp had all but stopped listening, having started to scan the note again.
Drew poked it. “I told you, it makes no sense.” He shook his head. “Look at what she writes. ‘I have need of your services,’” he intoned. “What do they teach these misses these days?”
“Who is this RSE?” Kipp asked. Yet even as he said it, the squared initials, arranged one atop the other, prodded at some old memory, pushed him to look again at the small “blot” Drew
had described, which as it turned out was hardly a case of sloppy penmanship, but rather a perfectly drawn miniature of a compass rose.
A voice from the past whispered in his ear. It must be a compass. For the RSE will go in every direction. We’ll go, Kipp. You and I.
A jolt of something ran through him and his gaze jerked up to the door before them.
No . . . It couldn’t be.
Tydsley announced them, and over Drew’s shoulder, Kipp could see a slight figure turn from the garden window.
The pixie curve of her face, the soft brown hair, the eyes like cornflowers, they were all the same. And yet now those very features that had intrigued him as a child were all grown up.
Cordelia.
And for the very first time in what seemed like a lifetime, his heart did something most odd.
It thudded to life in a wild cadence.
One might even say passionately.
Chapter 2
Cordelia turned from the window when she heard the door open and the butler making his announcement, not quite sure what to expect. For a moment, all she could do was stand there and hope, the sixpence clutched in her hand.
Yet everything was wrong. The man standing in the doorway before her was hardly what she expected. Oh, he had the same dark hair, the same blue eyes, but somehow the pieces did not add up the way she’d expected. “Captain Talcott?”
“Yes.” There was a note of question in his reply as he hesitantly stepped into the room, his head tipped as he studied her. “Have we met?”
She let out the breath she’d been holding. Absently dropping the sixpence into her pocket, she moved forward, her hands outstretched. “Kipp, is it truly you? ’Tis me, Cordelia.”
But Captain Talcott hardly appeared happy to see her, for he stepped back and then turned slightly. “Kipp, indeed! Now whose services are in question?” he asked, not of her, but of the man behind him, the one she hadn’t noticed.
