The Wedding Challenge

by Candace Camp

  Bromwell shot his sister a fulminating glance. “Well, you will simply have to borrow a pair from Lady Swithington. When we get back to her house, she will write a note to both your parents—or whatever poor benighted souls have guardianship of you—and say that due to the lateness of the hour and everyone’s exhaustion, the two of you are spending the night with her. Hopefully that will serve to salvage your reputations—providing no one who knew you saw you here tonight out of your disguises.”

  This speech sent Miss Swanson into further wails, and even Miss Turner’s foolish expression began to give way to trepidation. The earl ignored them, turning back to his sister and raising his brow.

  “Very well, Brom,” she told him testily, grabbing up her own things. “I am ready. Goodness, but you have turned into a prim sort. Is that Lady Calandra’s influence? I must say, it is not appealing.”

  “Stop.” His face was tight, his eyes hard. “Do not even mention her, or I fear you will hear much more than you wish to. We will discuss this later, after your charges have been put to bed.”

  With a shrug, she wrapped her domino around her and swept from the box, the girls hurrying after her. Bromwell escorted them home in silence. Miss Swanson was still sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, and Miss Turner seemed subdued and even, perhaps, a trifle ill. Lady Daphne kept her face turned to the window, even though the curtain cut off all view of the outside.

  Once they were inside, Lady Daphne’s maid took the two girls up to bed, while Daphne sat down with a sigh and wrote out notes to their parents as Bromwell had instructed her. Once she had sent the notes off with a footman, she turned to her brother, crossing her arms.

  “Very well. Out with it before you choke,” she told him shortly.

  “What the devil did you think you were doing?” he burst out. “Leaving Lady Calandra alone like that? Don’t you realize what damage you could have done to her reputation?”

  “Really, Brom, when did you turn into such a puritan? I was trying to help you.”

  “Help me? By exposing Callie to drunken bounders? By abandoning her in the midst of Vauxhall Gardens?”

  “Now that is doing it a bit too brown, don’t you think?” Daphne retorted. “You make it sound as though I left her in the middle of the promenade. She was inside a supper box.”

  “Where any passing stranger could glance inside and see that she was alone,” he shot back. “Oh, except, of course, for the man who was dead drunk on the table!”

  “I knew you would be along soon,” Daphne explained reasonably, “and that she would not be there for long. I did not intend for that foolish Swanson boy to pass out. How was I to know he could not hold his liquor? I simply wanted to arrange it so that you and she were alone together.” Her face softened, and she came toward him, holding out her hands to him. “Come, Brom, pray do not be displeased with me. I wanted only to aid you in your endeavor. I saw how close an eye that Haughston woman kept on Lady Calandra. I simply tried to arrange a situation where you could have her to yourself for a little while.” Daphne smiled a little smugly. “Long enough for you to accomplish your purpose.”

  “What? Ruining her good name?” he asked, not reaching out to take her hands. “Daphne, how could you think I would want you to do that? I told you I had no intention of destroying her reputation. Why should she be harmed? It was her brother who hurt you. He is the one who should pay for it, not Callie.”

  “What does it matter if she is hurt?” Daphne shot back. “She is a Lilles, just as he is, and I am sure that she is as haughty and cold as the duke. Or that bitch Francesca Haughston! They are as alike as two peas in a pod. Such fine ladies, such delicate airs, as if they had never had a wicked thought in their heads. Oh, no, they are far too refined to even think of lying down with a man.”

  Her face was hard and bitter, and her brother regarded her with some shock. “Daphne! I have never heard you speak so…look so…”

  “Try living trapped in Wales for the last fifteen years with some horrid old man!” she cried. “Never able to come to London or have any fun. A trip to Bath was considered his utmost treat! And all the while I was getting older, losing my looks….” Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

  “Daphne…” Her tears touched him, dissolving much of his anger, and Bromwell went to her, putting his arm around her. “I am sorry. I hate that you had to marry an old man whom you did not love. And then to lose your unborn child after making that sacrifice…It was terrible, and you should not have had to do it. I wish that I had been older, wiser. I should have done something besides rush in there and try to call Rochford out. I wish to God that I had been able to help you. But you are not old, and you are still the most beautiful woman in London.”

  Daphne relaxed against him at his words, and she turned her face up to him, smiling despite the tears glittering like diamonds in her eyes. “Really? Do you truly think I am the most beautiful woman in London?”

  The thought of Callie flashed into his head, but he pushed the image aside, saying stoutly, “Of course I do. You are. You always have been. You know that.”

  “There. I knew you could not love her more than you do me,” she said with satisfaction, wiping away her tears with her fingers.

  “Love her more than you! Of course not,” Bromwell said, reaching into his pocket and handing her his crisp white handkerchief. He released her shoulders and stepped away. “How could you possibly think that? I do not love her at all. I simply do not want an innocent person hurt. The Duke of Rochford is the only one I care to harm. I told you that when we talked before. I never meant to ruin her. Only to bring Rochford out of his den and force him to deal with me.”

  “And what did you think would happen to her?” Daphne asked. “How could you harm Rochford without harming his sister? If you dance attendance on a woman, she is bound to expect something of you. A gentleman does not lavish attention on a woman unless he is trying to seduce her or he expects to ask for her hand. It is certainly an embarrassment if he does not then make her an offer. All of the ton will gossip about it.”

  “But I have only begun courting her. I have not—” He stopped.

  “You have not what? Called upon her practically every day?” Daphne asked. “Invited her to go riding at Richmond Park or taken her out in your curricle? Or popped up at every party she has attended?”

  Bromwell frowned. “I have perhaps hung about her more than I had intended,” he admitted. “I had not expected her to be quite so assiduously chaperoned, I think. I had thought I would be able to spend more time with her alone.”

  “That is precisely why I arranged that little interlude at Vauxhall Gardens,” Daphne exclaimed triumphantly. “So that you could have the opportunity to be alone with her. If there is no whiff of scandal, why should Rochford be alarmed?”

  He sighed and ran his hand back through his hair. “I don’t know what to say. If you are right, then I have already harmed her.”

  “That is right,” Daphne agreed. “So…”

  “Perhaps I should stop.”

  “What?” Daphne gaped at him, thunderstruck. “You mean, end this? Do nothing to her? To Rochford?”

  His mouth twitched in a grim semblance of a smile. “I have hopes I still will hear from Rochford.”

  “But Lady Calandra? You are going to stop pursuing her?”

  “I am not sure,” he said, looking distracted. “I must think on this.”

  His sister opened her mouth to speak again, but he was no longer paying attention. Turning, he strode toward the door and down the hall, leaving Daphne staring after him.

  Bromwell took his greatcoat and hat from the footman and went outside. He jammed the hat down on his head, and threw on his coat as he trotted down the steps and onto the sidewalk. A breeze fluttered at the edges of the fabric and stole beneath it, but he did not bother to do up the buttons as he strode along the street, scowling.

  Should he stop calling upon Callie? Something twisted insid
e him at the thought, and he knew that he did not want to end this. He thought of her smile, her dancing dark eyes, the thick lustrous black curls that made his fingers itch to touch them. The idea of never seeing those things again, never again enfolding her in his arms or pressing his lips to hers as he had tonight, made him want to smash his fist into something.

  Yet if he continued to see her, how would it end? In all likelihood with himself and Callie’s brother at each other’s throats. It would be pistols at dawn or, at best, them going at each other with their bare fists. The one way it was certain not to end was with what polite society would expect—Bromwell proposing marriage to her. He let out a snort at the picture of Rochford’s reaction should Bromwell ask him for his sister’s hand in marriage.

  Rochford would never allow it. And, of course, Bromwell knew that he would never ask it. Ally himself with the family of the man who had disgraced his sister? It was unthinkable. It would be a betrayal of Daphne, a thoroughly dishonorable thing to do.

  If he had no intention of marrying Callie, though, he should not continue seeing her. Daphne was right, of course. His pursuit of Callie had been determined. Everyone, including Callie, would expect a proposal of marriage from him if he continued to court her in this way. Even after the few weeks that he had been calling on her, it would cause gossip if he suddenly stopped seeing her.

  The thought of Callie being subjected to the whispers of the gossipmongers twisted his gut, but he knew that it would be much, much worse if he waited. Every day, every nosegay delivered to her house, every dance they shared at a ball, would increase everyone’s certainty that he was on course to propose to her. Therefore, when he stopped seeing her, it would make the gossip all the stronger.

  And if it ended with Rochford exploding in anger and rushing to town to confront him, then the scandal would be even graver. It would probably follow Callie all her life.

  Bromwell’s scowl deepened. Why had he ever thought that wooing Callie would be such perfect revenge on Rochford? He should have just settled his account with the man with a swift right uppercut to the jaw then and there. After all, none of this had anything to do with Callie. She had done nothing to deserve it, and yet she would be hurt worst of all by it.

  He remembered his words to Archie, how he had shrugged off the idea that Callie was an innocent and did not deserve to be hurt. He had gotten angry with Daphne just now for doing something that could hurt Callie’s reputation. Yet he had set out to get his revenge without caring at all how badly she might be hurt by his scheme. He had been a fool, he thought, a shallow, callous fool.

  There was no way he could make up for the harm he had already done to her. The only thing he could do was to ensure she was not hurt any more. He would not call upon Callie again. But why did doing the right thing leave him feeling so empty inside?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CALLIE WAS SOMEWHAT SURPRISED and disappointed when Lord Bromwell did not call upon her the following morning. However, she did not think anything of it. She was not feeling very hearty herself. Her head hurt, her stomach was a bit queasy, and the winter light streaming in the windows of Francesca’s morning room made her eyes hurt. It was all due, she knew, to the strong arrack punch that she had drunk the evening before. Callie had never drunk anything more than white wine with dinner or perhaps a glass of ratafia or sherry. Given the way she felt, she thought that she would prefer to stick to that course in the future.

  Francesca asked her a few questions about the evening. Even though Callie had planned to tell her nothing about the events at the Gardens, she realized that she must reveal that Lord and Lady Radbourne had not been there, as they were close friends, and the subject was bound to come up when next they saw Lady Irene.

  Therefore, after telling her a bit about the beauty of the lights and the fireworks, Callie finally said, “Lord and Lady Radbourne did not come.”

  “What?” Francesca, who had been darning a stocking as they talked, dropped the darning egg in her lap and sat up straighter. “They were not there?”

  “No.”

  “But what—who—oh, dear, I knew I should have gone,” Francesca moaned.

  “Do not worry. It was all quite uneventful. Lady Swithington was there, and Lord Bromwell. It was quite a big party. Miss Swanson and her brother and another young lady were there, also.”

  “I cannot imagine why Irene would not have notified us if she could not go,” Francesca said, looking worried. “Well, at least you had on a domino and mask. You kept it on all evening, did you not?”

  “Oh, yes. No one would have recognized me,” Callie assured her. “I did not even go out to the dance floor,” she lied.

  Francesca nodded, looking somewhat relieved, but a frown still married her forehead. “You know, I believe that I shall pay a call on Irene this afternoon.”

  “You think perhaps one of them was ill?”

  “I am not certain what I think,” Francesca replied thoughtfully. “But I would like to discover why they were absent. Irene is not the flighty sort. Would you care to come with me?”

  Callie declined. She did not feel like going out, and she was hopeful that an afternoon nap with a lavender-scented cloth over her forehead might help her headache. Besides, she found that she often preferred to stay at home, given Lord Bromwell’s frequent calls.

  As it turned out, he did not come to call in the afternoon, either. But the nap in her darkened room did help restore her, so that when Francesca returned, Callie was feeling much more the thing and greeted her cheerfully.

  Francesca, however, looked a good deal less than cheerful. Indeed, her deep blue eyes were snapping, and there was a pugnacious set to her delicate chin.

  “That Swithington woman!” she said scathingly when Callie asked her if aught was amiss.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” Francesca said, biting off each word, “that Irene told me that Lady Swithington wrote her a note on Sunday saying that she was sorry to tell her that the party to Vauxhall Gardens had been called off, but that she hoped very much that they would plan for it again in a few more weeks.”

  “Oh.” Callie was not very surprised, though she had been hoping that the whole thing would turn out to have been an unhappy accident.

  Francesca continued to pace the room, talking angrily about Lady Swithington’s deception, but Callie listened to her with only half an ear. Her mind was occupied with thinking about what Lady Daphne had done.

  It was clear now that Bromwell’s sister had arranged things the night before to turn out as they had. She had not wanted the restraining influences of Lord and Lady Radbourne—or perhaps it was simply their respectability she wished to avoid. She also clearly had not wanted Callie to know that Gideon and Irene would not be among their party, for she had pretended ignorance at their absence and kept assuring Callie that the pair would doubtless come later. So it was not simply that she had wanted to be free to indulge in her own scandalous behavior, she also wanted Callie to be there and a part of it.

  But why? It made no sense to Callie. The only result she could find was that it made her distrust Brom’s sister.

  Brom had obviously not known about whatever his sister had planned. He had been shocked and angry when he found her alone in the supper box. He had also expected Irene and Gideon to be there. And, Callie thought, he had given no indication that he could not have been with them earlier. In fact, he had seemed rather surprised at the length of time they had been there, and when Callie had commented that she had been afraid he was not going to come, he had looked surprised and said something like, “Daphne said—” and then stopped. Callie felt rather certain that he had been about to remark that his sister had told him not to come any earlier.

  Callie could not escape the conclusion that for some reason Daphne disliked her intensely, despite the sweet way Daphne acted toward her. Could it be that she hoped to somehow influence her brother against Callie?

  If Callie had not tossed a bottle at that
fellow last night, might he have climbed over the ledge of the box and tried to take advantage of her? And what might Brom have thought if he had arrived at the supper box to find Callie all alone in the arms of another man?

  Callie gave a little shiver. If that had been Daphne’s reason for the way she acted last night, she must be a very cold and uncaring person, to sacrifice another woman that way. It also seemed a most uncertain sort of outcome. Things were just as likely, surely, to turn out as they had, with Bromwell arriving and being annoyed with his sister for leaving Callie alone.

  She was glad that they had no social engagements for this evening. She did not feel like going out, especially if there was any possibility of running into Lady Swithington. It was rather nice, really, to spend a quiet evening at home, and she managed to get letters written to both her grandmother and her brother. However, she had to admit, at least to herself, that she did miss Lord Bromwell. She tried to remember when was the last time that an entire day had gone by without her seeing him.

  Callie awaited his call the following day with anticipation, but, surprisingly, he did not come by. Late in the afternoon, Francesca asked, “Where is your friend Lord Bromwell? I must say, I have become rather accustomed to seeing him.”

  Callie shook her head, aware of an odd little pain in her chest. “I do not know.”

  Francesca frowned a little, but said lightly, “How odd. Well, we must take him to task for his neglect next time we see him.”

  But they did not see him—not that evening when they attended Mrs. Cutternan’s soiree, nor the next afternoon when they received callers. Callie determinedly kept a polite smile on her face as they chatted with their visitors, doing her best not to appear as though she was waiting each moment for Lord Bromwell to appear. But she could scarcely attend to what was being said. All she could think of was Lord Bromwell and whether he would call on her later in the afternoon, and if not, why not.

  Had she said something wrong? Done something wrong? Had he thought she acted imprudently the other night, that she should have left Vauxhall as soon as the party turned boisterous? Or that she should not even have gone there without Irene and Gideon in attendance?