She had brought the pair together four years ago, and she’d been sure they would make a good and happy marriage. The duke had assured her quite convincingly of his deep and abiding affection for Edie, he had promised to give the girl everything to make her happy, and yet, after his enormous debts had been settled by Edie’s even more enormous dowry, only a month after the vows had been said, Margrave had deserted his wife and departed for Africa. He had not been back once in the four years since, seeming quite content to leave his wife childless and alone, and wholly indifferent to the humiliating social limbo in which he’d placed her.
In introducing Edie to Margrave and encouraging a match between them, she’d never dreamed the marriage would fall apart in such short order. She’d had no doubts, no misgivings. She’d been absolutely sure Edie and Margrave would be happy. Too sure.
Sometimes, Belinda, you can be wrong.
Nancy’s words from the ball echoed back to her, and she sighed, for though she might have been wrong about the Margraves, she feared she was anything but wrong about Trubridge. That kiss rather proved it. She glanced down at the tea dregs in her cup, wishing she could read in the wet leaves the name of a girl who would not be made unhappy by marrying him. She didn’t want another girl to make her own mistake, and she didn’t want another Edie on her conscience.
Suddenly, Belinda felt swamped by doubts—doubts about her judgment, her abilities, and even the rightness of her profession. Not all the marriages she’d helped bring to fruition turned out well, of course. That was too much to hope for. But never before, not even after the Margrave debacle, had she questioned the rightness of what she did. Now she was doubting even that, thanks to one man and one electrifying kiss.
“Is something wrong, Belinda?”
She looked up with a start to find the duchess standing beside her. “Edie,” she greeted, ignoring the question. “Lovely party.”
“Thank you, but if you mean what you say, then why are you standing here in a corner alone, looking gloomy as an undertaker?”
“Was I? How rude of me. But I’m quite preoccupied today.”
“I can see that, darling. What’s troubling you?”
The kisses of a rake. She wondered what the duchess’s reaction would be if she said that aloud. “I’m dealing with a difficult client,” she said instead. “One I’m finding hard to steer toward a girl who would suit him.”
“Ah. Would we be talking of Lord Trubridge? What?” she added, laughing at Belinda’s surprised expression. “You think people aren’t buzzing like bees about who was sitting with whom in Claridge’s tearoom last Friday? But really, Belinda! Carlotta Jackson?”
Belinda laughed, too, her mood lightening a bit at the memory of the previous Friday. “I thought Carlotta a fitting match for him.”
“Why? Do you hate him that much?”
That kiss flashed through Belinda’s mind again, underscoring the fact that hate was not quite what she felt about Lord Trubridge. “I shouldn’t wish to place him with a nice, sweet girl, Edie. The man’s notorious.”
Edie made a face, her freckled nose wrinkling up. “Even a notorious man doesn’t deserve Carlotta.”
“I’m not sure I agree with you there,” Belinda countered with some asperity. “His father’s cut off his trust fund, you know, and he’s only looking to marry because he has to.”
“Yes, I read about it in Talk of the Town. So did everyone else, if the gossip that’s going round is any indication. But I am rather surprised that you agreed to help him. You’ve always had such a low opinion of fortune hunters.”
Belinda sighed as she handed off her teacup to a passing footman. “I didn’t have much choice. It’s a long story,” she added as Edie looked ready to ask for details. “I shan’t bore you with it. Suffice it to say, I decided to take Trubridge on, thinking it would be just what he deserved if he ended up with someone awful.”
Edie laughed. “So that explains Carlotta.”
“Yes, well, it wasn’t to be. He didn’t come away from tea with a favorable impression of her, I’m sorry to say.”
“So the man has brains and good judgment! That makes your task harder, I suppose, but it’s early days yet. Plenty of time to find him someone before the season’s over.”
“The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned,” she said with feeling. “And that would suit Trubridge’s book, for he wants to be married as quickly as possible. The question is who might do for him.”
“Why don’t you bring him to Highclyffe for my house party? It begins sixteen days hence, the week before Whitsuntide. The party’s sure to be a large one, forty people or so, including quite a few pretty girls with fat dowries. One of them,” she added with a wink, “might be awful enough to pass muster.”
She sighed. “You never invite anyone that awful to your parties.”
“My, my. Is he as bad as that?”
“He’s a rake.” Perhaps if she repeated those words often enough, his kiss would stop burning her lips.
“Perhaps, but I’d still adore it if you’d bring him along. There never seem to be enough single men to balance the numbers at a large house party. And despite your scruples about material marriages, they suit some people down to the ground.” The duchess paused, turning to study the crowd milling about her dining room. “Mine certainly suits me.”
“What?” Taken aback, Belinda stared at her friend’s profile, noting in disbelief the little smile that curved Edie’s mouth. “You can’t possibly be content this way, with Margrave in Africa and you here.”
“Can’t I?” Edie turned to her and laughed. “Dearest Belinda, you look so shocked. Did it never occur to you that I wanted just the sort of marriage I have?”
“No,” Belinda confessed, still trying to wrap her mind around the idea. “It certainly did not. I suppose . . . I suppose because you seemed so genuinely happy during your engagement. I know it was a short one, but both of you assured me—not only me, but your father, too—that you adored each other. Not madly in love, you said, but deeply fond—”
“What else could we say? Daddy would never have allowed me to marry Margrave if we’d told the truth. And if we’d tried to act as if we were madly in love, you’d never have believed it. And even if you had, you’d have insisted we have a long engagement so we could be sure, and you’d have convinced Daddy to make us wait. But that didn’t suit us at all, so we decided fondness and affection was the way to play it.”
“Wait.” Belinda held up one hand, palm toward her friend to halt the flow of words. “You mean you and Margrave prearranged this marriage? You planned it all out?”
“Yes.” The duchess glanced down at the champagne cup in her hand, swirled the contents, and took a swallow before she looked up again to meet Belinda’s gaze. “I’d met him at the Hanford ball before you introduced us, and we discovered that our requirements for matrimony coincided exactly. So, we made the deal, the mercenary marriage you abhor. The terms were the usual ones; I’d be a duchess, he’d receive my dowry, we’d live together a few weeks for show, then we’d go our separate ways.”
“So when he asked me for an introduction to you, he already knew you. The scoundrel!”
“Don’t blame him, Belinda. The whole thing was my idea, not his.”
Belinda stared at her friend in complete astonishment, and as she did, Trubridge’s words echoed through her mind.
It’s not as if you’ve shown any compunction about arranging material marriages in the past. The Duke and Duchess of Margrave, for example.
How had Trubridge known about the Margrave arrangement, and she had not? Had he simply made a shrewd guess? Or was she so blind to the results of her profession that she couldn’t see the obvious?
“But why, Edie?” she asked after a moment. “Why would you marry a man you don’t love? Why would you settle for that?”
She shrugged sl
im shoulders. “It was almost the end of the season, and you know I hadn’t exactly bowled London over with my dazzling beauty and charm during my debut.” Belinda started to protest this self-disparagement, but Edie interrupted her. “It’s all right. I know I wasn’t the prettiest heiress, and I was certainly not the sweetest.” She paused for a grin. “Although I was definitely the tallest. Anyway, Daddy wanted to go back to New York, and I . . .” She paused, a glimmer of pain crossing her face. “I did not.”
“I know.” Belinda put a hand on her arm. “It would have been dreadful to go back. But still, to make a loveless marriage . . .” She sighed and let her hand fall. “Oh, Edie.”
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me!” The duchess shook her head, the shadow passed, and her radiant smile returned. “I was damaged goods back home, but here, I’m a shining social success. ”
“I know, but I wish you had told me this before now. I’ve been wrecked with guilt, thinking how miserable you must be.”
“Oh, no, you mustn’t feel that way!” Edie looked at her in dismay, conscience-stricken. “I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d hate me for deceiving you and for selecting my husband in such a calculated fashion. So I kept putting it off, and the more time that passed, the less important it seemed to tell you the truth. I didn’t realize I was a blight on your conscience. If I had known that, I’d have told you much sooner.” Edie bit her lip, her green eyes regarding Belinda with some uncertainty. “Are you terribly angry?”
“Angry? No, I’m too shocked to be angry. I’m . . . I’m . . . oh, hell, I don’t know what I am.” She sighed and rubbed a hand over her forehead. “I think I’m in need of a drink.”
Edie laughed. “But you don’t even like spirits.”
“I’m making an exception.” She lifted her head and glanced around. Spying a footman with champagne cups, she waved him over and pulled one of the cocktails from his tray. “After the day I’ve had, anyone would take to drink.”
She took a swallow of the cocktail and grimaced, making Edie laugh.
“You always look like you’re taking cod liver oil when you drink. So if it isn’t me, what’s troubling you enough to make you imbibe?”
She sighed and lowered the cup, staring into the milling crowd. “I’ve come to be so sure of myself,” she murmured, “but I am beginning to appreciate that I don’t really understand anything about myself or anyone else.”
“That doesn’t sound at all like you.”
She made a face. “It doesn’t, does it?” She took another swallow of her cocktail and made another grimace. “To think that all this time, ever since Margrave went to Africa, I’ve been thinking you were secretly miserable and just putting on a good front for society.”
“Yes, well, no one seems to believe me when I say otherwise. It never occurs to anyone that a woman can be perfectly happy without a man.”
“And you are happy?”
“Of course I am! Who wouldn’t be, with an enormous income, complete social acceptance, a luxurious house in Grosvenor Square, several lavish country estates, and the freedom to manage it all myself without a husband messing about getting in my way?”
“And the duke? Is he equally content?”
“I expect so.” Edie gave her an impish grin. “We don’t correspond. But if he wasn’t content mucking about in Africa, his mother would be sure to tell me so—in her subtle, well-bred British way, of course. No, Margrave and I are both happy as clams in the mud. For us, separate continents has proved to be the perfect recipe for marital bliss.”
“Oh, Edie, that’s not at all what I wanted for you.”
“You’re a darling.” The duchess put an arm around her shoulders for a quick hug. “But it’s what I wanted. And you, of all people, should understand how wonderful it is to be an independent woman of means.”
“It can be,” she admitted. “But I never chose it.”
“I did.” Edie grinned and took another swallow of her champagne cup. “There, now. See how simple I’ve made things for you? All you have to do is find Trubridge a woman like me.”
“The situation isn’t quite that simple.”
“Dearest Belinda, that’s because you know the deal’s what Trubridge wants, and you don’t like that because you’re a romantic at heart.”
She felt compelled to protest. “I am not in the least romantic!”
“Nonsense! Of course you are! You adore romance. Why do you think you became a matchmaker? Even more telling, why do you think you became infatuated with a charming, handsome devil like Featherstone, then expected him to reform?”
“Well, yes, but I was a silly girl when I married Featherstone. I’ve changed since then—”
She broke off as the memory of Trubridge’s kisses came back as if to taunt her. Her lips began to tingle, and her cheeks flushed with heat, making a mockery of any notion that she was wiser than the girl who’d married Charles Featherstone. Belinda hid her hot face behind her free hand with a groan of dismay.
“Are you all right?” Edie asked. “What’s wrong?”
She merely shook her head in answer. She didn’t look up, for she knew she must be pink as a peony, and she cursed Trubridge for reawakening physical desires and romantic notions she thought she’d left behind ages ago.
She didn’t want to feel these things, for they were as insubstantial as cobwebs. Trubridge was a man she didn’t like and didn’t respect, and she knew it was crazy, self-punishing, and just plain stupid to feel anything for a man like that.
BELINDA WAITED TEN days before she sent word to Trubridge suggesting another meeting. During those ten days, she strove to suppress memories of his mouth on hers and the thrill of desire she’d felt at his touch, but though she didn’t quite succeed in that endeavor, she knew she could not put him off forever.
The fact that she had dismissed him as unworthy of most of her clients and yet had found his kiss so intoxicating herself was a nauseating irony Belinda preferred not to dwell on. It was clear that scoundrels still held an inexplicable fascination for her, but she did her best to quell it.
She redoubled her efforts to find suitable candidates for him, and the more awful they were, the more suitable she liked to think they were. She prepared a social calendar for him that would put him in the path of as many of those young ladies as possible. She repeated to herself the various things he’d said that she found most infuriating. She refrained from considering any of his good points. And every time she remembered his kiss and felt again that warm, intoxicating wave of desire, she immediately suppressed it. By the time ten days had passed, she felt sufficiently in command of herself and the situation to invite him to call, and by the time he arrived, she was confident she would be as indifferent to his charms as she’d been during their very first meeting.
But then he walked through her door and ruined all her efforts.
His wide-shouldered frame in the doorway reminded her of the strength of his arms wrapped around her. A glance at his mouth burned her lips and curled tongues of fire in her belly. He’d already given over his gloves, and the sight of his bare hands evoked memories of how he’d cupped her buttocks in his hands, lifted her up, and pressed her hips against—
“You wished to see me?”
The sound of his voice jerked her out of these most unhelpful contemplations, and Belinda took a steadying breath.
“Yes, I did.” She glanced at the butler, who was still standing by the door. “Tea, Jervis, if you please,” she said, feeling in need of the bracing fortification of a cuppa.
After the butler had departed, she returned her attention to Trubridge. “Shall we sit down?”
She gestured to the large round tea table where her appointment book, her client book, and her inkstand were already laid out, relieved that the table was large enough to provide a substantial barrier between them, but the fact that she felt the ne
ed for barriers proved that ten days had not been enough time.
It would tickle his vanity, no doubt, to discover that humiliating fact, but a quick glance at the mirror on the wall showed that she looked just as usual, and as she sat down, she could only thank heaven that what she felt wasn’t plainly written on her face. Gesturing for him to take the chair directly opposite, she pulled her pen out of its holder and opened her appointment book.
“My friend, the Duchess of Margrave, is having a house party at her home in Norfolk. She was kind enough to invite me, and she suggested I bring you along. The party begins six days hence, and concludes on the following Thursday. It will be a large party, and the duchess assures me there will be several young ladies there who might be suitable for you.”
“Suitable to my way of thinking?” he asked wryly. “Or yours?”
At this point, she was desperate enough to get him married off that she wasn’t sure she cared either way. “The more young ladies you meet, the better your chance of finding someone who . . .” She paused, feeling her skin flush with heat, but she forced herself to carry on. “Someone who attracts you.”
He didn’t reply, and she forced herself to look at him. But she only got as far as his mouth, which was curved in a hint of a smile, before she lowered her gaze again at once. She could not be indifferent if she looked at his mouth. No woman could, not after being kissed the way he had kissed her.
“Since you’ve never met the duchess,” she continued, desperate to keep her mind on her job, “I think it would be best if we travel to Norfolk ahead of the rest of the party. That way, I can introduce you to her before everyone else arrives. I shall look up the schedule for trains to Clyffeton, consult with the duchess, and inform you of which train we shall be taking. I hope that suits you?”
Without waiting for a reply, she made a notation in her book as if he had answered in the affirmative. “In the meantime, the theater and the opera might be good places for you to be seen. You are staying at Lord Conyers’s home, if I’m not mistaken?”
American Heiress [1]When The Marquess Met His Match Page 12
