The Bridal Season

by Connie Brockway

  Cabot’s superiority fell away with a sigh. “It was short. She apologized for the inconvenience caused by her marriage and sent a money order reimbursing the Bigglesworths for their initial outlay. She then listed some firms in London whose services she could recommend to replace her own, and closed by stating that she would be out of the country for several months. On her honeymoon.”

  Letty blew out a deep breath. Good. Lady Agatha was still safely away and the Bigglesworths none the wiser. Her immediate danger passed, she found herself smiling. She lifted the seam she’d been working on again. “Good for her,” she said.

  “Good for her,” Cabot intoned, “but not good at all for Miss Angela.”

  “Well, there is that,” Letty conceded, her needle flashing expertly. It left little Angie in the lurch, and Angie already had problems enough, what with the former boyfriend making threatening noises. Not that it was any of her lookout. She smoothed the newly created seam with her fingers. A bit of lace would cover the crease on the outside and dress it up a bit.

  “And that,” said Cabot, “is precisely why you have to stay and arrange Miss Angela’s reception.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Letty asked flatly without looking up. “I won’t even be here tomorrow night. I wouldn’t be here today if the dratted train ran on a regular schedule.”

  She cast a weathered eye on the satchel. It stood where she’d left it. No sense in unpacking. She’d already purchased the train ticket. Not to Whitlock, as she’d told Sir Elliot, but south to York. She had one more night in which to be a lady. One more night in which to— One more night. He probably wouldn’t even be there.

  “Letty. You can’t leave. I mean it.”

  “Just watch me,” she said, feeling suddenly dismal.

  She snipped off a length of the lace she’d selected, stabbing pins into it as she fixed it to the seam.

  “If you leave,” Cabot said, “I shall immediately go to Sir Elliot and tell him who—and what—you are.”

  Letty stopped what she was doing. “The man I knew wouldn’t have blackmailed a friend,” she said.

  “You leave me no choice,” Cabot replied, refusing to drop his gaze.

  It was she who broke off their staring contest. She was being unfair. Cabot was only trying to do right by the family who’d earned his loyalty. It wasn’t Cabot’s fault that what he suggested was exactly what she most wanted to do. But that didn’t mean she’d risk her life to do so.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Cabot,” she said. “I’ve kept to my part of the bargain. I said right from the beginning that I wouldn’t be here more than a few days. You didn’t object then. Nothing’s changed. The Bigglesworths are in exactly the same boat as they were when I arrived. Why, they wouldn’t have even received Lady Agatha’s letter until today. At most they’ll have lost a few dozen hours in which to find a new wedding planner.”

  “And what do you expect them to do when they discover they’ve been abandoned by their miracle worker and duped by the woman they put on a pedestal?” he asked.

  That hurt. But she was growing used to her heart being pricked and bruised. It didn’t matter if you hurt. It only mattered if others saw the weakness. And Cabot wouldn’t see hers.

  “They’ll just have to find someone else,” she said. “What with all Anton’s money, I’m sure someone in London will be willing to light a fire under his staff.” She only wished she felt as certain as she sounded.

  He gave her a look that spoke volumes, but refrained from comment.

  She hated this feeling, this alien, horrible, bewildering sensation of guilt. She didn’t have anything to feel guilty about—well, not very much, anyway.

  “Besides,” she said defensively, “the Bigglesworths should be glad I came. And they will be as soon as they see Angela’s dress made up to my design and her looking every bit like a princess in a fairy story.”

  “I know,” Cabot said. “That’s exactly why you should stay.” He sat down on the settee next to her and took hold of her hand. “You can do this, Letty. I know you can. You’ve your mother’s eye for style and your stepdad’s sense of drama.”

  She gave him a sour look. “Being raised by a first- rate costumer and a second-rate magician beneath the footlights of West End music halls doesn’t exactly qualify one to plan a Society wedding, Sammy.”

  He lifted the skirts of the gown she was working on. “Yes, it does. Why, only look what you did for Miss Angela and what you’re doing here. You’re as dab a hand as your mother with the needle, Letty. And you needn’t worry about the food, or dishes, or the waiters and other attendants. The caterer is already taking care of all that.”

  When she didn’t reply, he went on. “I heard Miss Bigglesworth telling Grace Poole about your idea of tricking the place out in an Oriental manner. She’s most enthusiastic about it.”

  “Dear Lord,” Letty said faintly. She felt a bit ill. She’d been carried away by her role, was all. Carried away by the challenge and excitement of being a part of something. Something that didn’t have an ulterior motive to it.

  “I was just babbling,” she said. “Just rambling so as they’d think I knew what I was talking about.”

  “But you do!” Cabot insisted. “I heard what you said about capturing the audience’s fancy, and you’re right. A wedding reception is a production just like any of a dozen you’ve been involved in. I remember how you were always playing about with the stage settings of our acts.”

  “I just muddled about a bit and besides, those were stages,” Letty protested desperately, because—God help her—she was beginning to think that just maybe she could pull this off. If she did, it would be the biggest con of her life. And the prize? A young girl’s happiness.

  And a few more days with him.

  “Letty—” He squeezed her hand.

  “Just let me think for a minute!” It was madness to even consider it. She pulled her hand free of his and clasped her head between her hands, squeezing her eyes shut. Immediately, his image sprang to life, his black hair tousled by the wind, the way he’d smiled before raising his eyes to meet hers, his gaze intent yet deferential.

  She’d never met anyone like him, a man who could set her pulse to racing, and who made her want to be someone else. The men she’d known were crude, rough, eager for the fight hungry for the smell of fear and the taste of blood. There was no violence or coarseness in Sir Elliot—the men she knew would eat him alive—but he was still bewilderingly, potently masculine.

  She gave a little moan. If she stayed, wouldn’t she just be making it harder not only on herself when the time came to leave, but also on him?

  For the last six years, she’d been used to thinking only of herself, of taking care of Letty Potts first and last. She backed suspiciously away from the notion of putting his welfare above her own. A habit like that could make her soft, make her incautious. Besides, she thought defensively, in what way would her staying be unfair to him?

  He was Sir Elliot March. He had wealth, property, and friends who both loved and admired him. She closed her eyes even more tightly, struggling through a quagmire of conflicting emotions.

  “Letty—”

  “Someone would know. Someone would find out,” she said frantically, opening her eyes.

  “No, they won’t. You’ll be gone in a week or so, long before any of the Society folk who might know the real Lady Agatha arrive. The wedding is two months out yet.

  “You’ll just make the plans and send out the instructions to those places Lady Agatha recommended in her letter. Then you’ll go away. I’ll help. Grace Poole will help, also. You can do this, Letty. You can.”

  “And what about Lady Agatha? What about when she comes back?” Letty asked harshly. “Angela will be the laughingstock of the town if anyone discovers she let a…a…limelight lark plan her party.” There it was again, this odd insistence that she take into consideration others’ problems, even ones that didn’t affect her.

  “Who’s going to
tell?” Cabot asked, his bulldog features grave. “There aren’t any pictures of Lady Agatha. And you heard what she wrote: She’ll be on her honeymoon for months. When she comes back, if anyone even remembers to say anything about the party, she won’t dare admit she wasn’t here. She’d look not only a fool, but a scoundrel. Her reputation would be in shambles if it was learned that she’d abandoned a sweet, innocent girl to…” he trailed off abruptly, his face turning brick-red.

  “—to the clutches of a gold-digging confidence trickster?” Letty supplied sweetly. She gave a little, painful laugh. “That’s all right, Cabot You’re right. No reason to suspect I’ll change now.”

  He didn’t deny her allegation, and that hurt even more—and that surprised her. Time was she would have laughed at such an estimation of her and hooted “spot on, ducks” to her denouncer.

  “There’s another reason you have to do this, Letty,” Cabot said.

  “Yeah? Besides the little matter of you turning me over to Sir Elliot if I don’t? What’s that?”

  “Because, despite what you think, I know that if you don’t do this, no one else will.” He took her hand once more in his. “So, will you do it Letty?”

  She tried to find another reason besides syrupy sentimentality and a partiality to being “courted,” a reason that better fit her idea of who and what Letty Potts was. She found one.

  What a flash dodge it would be! The best of her jaded career. Bless Sammy, he’d reminded her just in time who she was: Letty Potts, who dared anything and anyone and laughed while doing it.

  “Lighting, set, wardrobe. Plan a few entrances, teach the bride to hit her marks, that about the size of it?” she asked roughly.

  “Yes. Will you? Please. I’ll even give you the money order Lady Agatha sent.”

  She knew, right then, that if she decided to light out this very minute, Cabot wouldn’t turn her in. He didn’t have it in him. He was soft. Not like her.

  And she also knew that he didn’t think she’d help the Bigglesworths out of simple decency, or sympathy, or pity, or any of the impulses that led people like Sir Elliot and the Bigglesworths and Dr. Beacon to do things. Because Cabot thought she was hard. Not like them. And he was right So why did she feel like crying?

  “Letty.” His voice was soft and pleading.

  She blinked away the treacherous tears and faced him. “Stay and help these folks with their wedding and in the meantime sleep in a feather bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wear rich clothes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Eat fine food and drink fine wine?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then get a nice fat purse for me trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  And be with him.

  “Sure,” she said. “I ’spect worse things ’ave ’appened to a girl.”

  Chapter 18

  The lower your decolletage,

  the less the need for conversation.

  “Looks a right princess, she does,” sighed Grace. Merry, standing behind Grace’s shoulder, bobbed her head in mute agreement.

  “Lovely,” breathed Miss Eglantyne. “I hope he appreciates how handsome she is.”

  As one, the three women peered over the gallery railing to the floor below, where Lady Agatha stood frowning into a mirror in preparation for the Bunting’s party this evening. She’d no cause to frown.

  She was dressed for the evening’s party—well, mostly dressed—in a gown of soft buttery satin that showed her remarkable figure to unfair advantage. Billowing sleeves of delicate transparent muslin fell off her shoulders. Her throat, shoulders, and bosom rose above the deep decolletage. The rich satin flowed over her torso like molten wax, snugging her small waist before falling in sweeping, gored panels to the floor. She twirled lightly, her gaze assessing the effect on her elegant chignon. The thick taffeta petticoat she wore beneath the gown rustled flirtatiously.

  “Oh, you need have no worries there, mum,” Grace said. “He’d have to be half dead not to be, er, impressed.”

  “Impressed” would have to do, though “hot as a stallion at stud” was more in the way of what she meant.

  Lady Agatha lifted her slender arms, encased by pristine white opera gloves, and pinned an errant lock.

  “He won’t be able to keep ’is hands off her,” Merry blurted out.

  “Hush!” Eglantyne whispered, scandalized, and then, “Do you really think so?” She liked Lady Agatha and the thought of gaining so agreeable a neighbor helped ease the pain of Angela’s nearing departure a bit. Still, there was the matter of Elliot’s, ahem, ardor to overcome, though apparently, he’d made an acceptable apology for his bold behavior on the croquet field, because the two seemed to be very much in accord these last several days.

  “Absolutely,” Merry said, with the air of a connoisseur. Just how she’d acquired such assurance in these matters Eglantyne didn’t even want to know.

  “For certain,” Grace agreed. “He came over yesterday just to see Lady A. And Dr. Beacon’s Sal ’eard him asking Lady Agatha to go drivin’ with him after church last Sunday, which Lady Agatha didn’t, but I just know she would ’ave if she weren’t workin’ so ’ard on Miss Angela’s wedding.”

  “But you say Cabot thinks our,” Eglantyne coughed delicately, “endeavors toward matchmaking are futile.”

  “Cabot’s an old lady,” Merry said in a disgusted tone.

  Beneath them Lady Agatha bared her teeth at her reflection and tilted her head to the side, checking her teeth. Merry stifled a giggle. “I didn’t think as ladies did that!”

  Eglantyne didn’t bother hushing her this time. She was too busy thinking about Sir Elliot and Lady Agatha. She wished she felt more optimistic. Not that Lady Agatha didn’t give every appearance of being enamored of Sir Elliot. She did. She blushed and glowed and sparkled whenever she was near him, and he… Well, the way he looked at her made Eglantyne uncomfortable, as though she was witnessing private and passionate moments.

  But there was an undercurrent she couldn’t quite name in Lady Agatha’s response. Something that tainted the anticipation and pleasure she evinced in his company.

  Something like desperation.

  Atticus came into the hall to find his son grimacing at his reflection. Amazing. He hadn’t seen Elliot disconcerted in years, and in the last week he’d seemed nothing but.

  “Nothing left over from dinner in there, I trust?” he asked mildly.

  In his present state of mind Elliot didn’t note the humor in Atticus’s query, but only peered more closely into the mirror and muttered, “Gads, I hope not.”

  He smoothed his already smooth hair and tugged on impeccable cuffs. He looked nervy as a racehorse and just as impatient. Atticus liked it. He liked seeing the fire in his son’s eyes, the possessiveness with which his gaze tracked the lovely Lady Agatha, the deep timbre in his voice when he spoke of her.

  It also helped that Atticus liked Lady Agatha. There was humor in her direct gaze and perceptiveness in her conversation. She didn’t seem the sort of woman to take offense easily or become involved lightly. And unless he was mistaken, she wasn’t altogether comfortable with her feelings for Elliot.

  Which was good, Atticus thought happily. Love shouldn’t be comfortable.

  That had been the problem between Catherine and Elliot. His affection for her had been “comfortable.” At least, that was Atticus’s opinion—because his gallant, reticent son would never have disclosed anything that reflected poorly on a lady. But it was Atticus’s belief that one of the reasons Elliot was so courtly toward Catherine was because he felt guilty about the relief he’d felt when she’d broken off their engagement.

  Atticus couldn’t see Lady Agatha as inspiring anything in the least bit “comfortable” in a man. And if Elliot was impatient and ardent, Lady Agatha was equally affected. Witty and saucy she might be, but as soon as Elliot was near her she became breathless and bemused. Again, good.

  “Are you ready?” Elliot asked,
breaking Atticus’s pleasant reverie.

  Atticus patted himself down. “I think everything is in order. Pants. Shirt. Waistcoat. Jacket. Tie. Begads, I even remembered my shoes. Yes. I believe I’m ready, Elliot.”

  “Good.”

  Atticus shook his head as he followed his son out the door to the waiting carriage. He’d seen it happen before, a man becoming so focused on a woman that he lost all sense of proportion. He’d just never seen it happen to Elliot.

  Atticus grinned.

  Catherine Bunting had a high, perfectly pitched and abysmally bland soprano voice to which, after ten minutes of polite encouragement, she finally treated her guests. For forty-five minutes.

  Letty grew so bored she barely refrained from yawning. There was nothing to do but sit and watch Fagin twine Eglantyne around his dewclaw because no one dared speak while Catherine droned on.

  She hadn’t even left Letty the undeniable pleasure of sitting next to Elliot. Not content with having monopolized him for every minute since Letty’d arrived, Catherine had now commandeered him into turning her sheet music as she played the piano. Oh, yes. She played the piano, too. Adequately. The woman’s accomplishments were legion, if not legend.

  Finally, Catherine came to the end of her repertoire after lisping out some saccharine song about little bunnies, chirruping crickets, and the other assorted vermin lurking about in a “little country woodpile.”

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly impose upon you anymore,” she said coyly. “Surely we have other singers amongst us?” Her gaze touched on Letty and dismissed her.

  The woman was so annoying, always watching her, especially when she was trying to find a moment alone with Elliot. Because they hadn’t had any minutes alone. Not one.

  He’d seen her every day since he’d told her he was courting her, and never once had he repeated either his profession or his kiss. Because there was always someone about. He seemed to have planned it that way. In fact, he’d been a perfect bloody gentleman and it was driving her to distraction!