Randolph raised a brow. “So?”
“So you know what happens in the trysting bushes, Randolph,” Jane said.
“As it happens, I do not. Pray, enlighten me.”
“Ohh, you are being purposely obtuse. Kissing happens, Randolph. Kissing and cuddling and Other Things.”
His right brow winged up. “And you know this from personal experience, I presume, Jane?”
Her brows slammed down. “No, of course I don’t. I don’t frolic in the shrubbery.”
Randolph muttered something that sounded very like “Perhaps you should.”
“Look what happened to her sisters!” Jane said.
“They got married, as most women do. I don’t recall any scandal attached to their nuptials.”
Randolph was right about that.
“But the Spinster House is for spinsters.” Jane almost shouted the words.
“Which Cat still is. I hope we don’t need to disqualify every unmarried woman who ever let a man kiss her.”
Lud, I hope so, too. Anne also hoped she wasn’t blushing, though she was rather afraid she was.
It didn’t matter. Neither Randolph nor Jane was paying her any attention.
“Haven’t you ever been kissed, Jane?” Randolph asked.
Jane turned quite red. Interesting.
“That is none of your concern.”
Randolph nodded. “Just as it is none of my concern what Cat may or may not have done in the bushes with the Duke of Hart, thank God. This whole business is difficult enough without having to be so bold as to quiz His Grace on his amorous intentions. And since he seems to believe marriage will be the beginning of his end, and since he knows full well Cat is a gently bred virgin and the vicar’s daughter to boot, I think we can absolve him of any salacious intentions.”
“But perhaps Cat is no longer a virgin.”
Randolph’s jaw dropped. “Jane! I cannot believe you just said that.”
Jane did have the grace to look somewhat embarrassed.
“And even if Miss Hutting was not . . . was not . . .” Randolph took a deep breath. “I cannot bring myself to repeat the ugly thing you just said. However, even if it were true, it wouldn’t make any difference. Isabelle Dorring’s instructions say nothing about that matter. And given that she found herself enceinte and unwed, one could reasonably assume she’d be sympathetic.”
“Still, the duke is in charge of the lottery.” Jane looked quite mulish. “If he is in any sort of a relationship with Cat, he might favor her.”
Heavens, Jane was right!
“We want to be certain we each have an equal chance,” Anne said. It was bad enough to leave the decision to something as arbitrary as lot drawing, but if the duke manipulated the process to give the house to Cat—
Anne’s stomach fell, and she thought she might lose her breakfast.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“That must be Cat now.” Randolph headed to the door. “And from the sound of that knocking, she’s quite desperate to participate in the drawing.”
* * *
“I think we need something stronger than tea,” Jane said, putting her cup down with a click. She and Anne were sitting at a table in a corner of the Cupid’s Inn taproom. The place was deserted. The villagers who’d stopped by for a bit of luncheon had left, and no one had yet showed up for an afternoon pint.
“Perhaps it would help if we added some French cream.” Anne poked at her meat pie again. She had no appetite.
“Good idea.” Jane got up and went over to try to wheedle some brandy from Mrs. Tweedon, the innkeeper’s wife. The woman had been sending them worried looks for the last half hour.
Well, knowing Jane, she would just tell Mrs. Tweedon they had need of the spirits and take a bottle. Jane wasn’t much for wheedling.
Anne jabbed the poor, innocent meat pie with her fork.
If only I hadn’t knocked Cat’s hand away, I would be the Spinster House spinster now.
Randolph had gone to great lengths to be certain no one could tell which lot was the shortest, and the duke had even donned a blindfold when he’d held the vase the lots were in. But she’d still thought Cat must know something, so when she’d seen which lot Cat was reaching for, she’d darted her hand in to get to it first.
Forcing Cat to take the last lot—the winning one.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Here we are.” Jane plunked a bottle down on the table. “There’s not much left, so we can’t do too much damage. And I’ve got a fresh pot of tea.” She put that next to the brandy. “Mrs. Tweedon insisted.”
Anne didn’t really want more tea, but she reached for the pot. “Shall I pour?”
“We can have the tea later.” Jane picked up the brandy bottle and put a healthy dose in each teacup. She raised her cup. “To spinsterhood.”
“Yes.” Anne lifted hers and dispiritedly clicked it against Jane’s. “To spinsterhood.” And living with Papa and Mrs. Eaton and the hellions. Dear God.
I might have to consider marriage.
Blast! That thought should not conjure Lord Hellwood’s face, no matter how handsome. He was as bad as his friend, the duke. Neither had proposed marriage in the shrubbery.
Not that she would have accepted the scurvy marquess if he had asked.
She took a sip of the fiery liquid.
“We need a plan,” Jane said. “Cat is only twenty-four. She could outlive us both.”
“I know.” Anne let out a long sigh. “I suppose I’ll have to marry someone. I can’t continue to live at Davenport Hall once Papa marries Mrs. Eaton.”
“You’re sure he’s going to do that?”
“The Bigleys certainly think so. And Papa all but admitted it to me himself.”
Jane propped her head on her hand. “Is she really dreadful?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
Anne tried to be dispassionate, but her head was already rather fuzzy from the brandy. She should eat some of her meat pie.
She picked up her fork, but her stomach protested. She put the fork back down.
“She’s a year younger than I am, Jane. How can she not be dreadful?”
Jane nodded. “That is a bit . . . a bit . . .” She was clearly searching for a polite word to describe the union of a twenty-five-year-old woman and a fifty-year-old man.
“Disgusting. It’s disgusting that Papa would wed a woman half his age.”
“Well, er, yes. But men will be men, I suppose.”
Ugh. Men. Anne took another sip of brandy. “What about Randolph?”
Jane’s brows rose. “What do you mean, ‘what about Randolph?’”
“He’s a man. Young—well, not as old as my father.” Randolph was thirty-three, five years older than Jane, but he seemed much older. “Do you think he’ll marry?”
Jane tapped her teacup—or, more accurately now, brandy cup—gently against her lips. “N-no. I think he may have loved someone when he was young, but then our parents died and he had to take care of me. If there was someone, she didn’t wish to become the mother to a half-grown girl.” Jane looked down into her cup. “I do appreciate that. It’s something I think about when I wish to rend Randolph limb from limb.”
“It is quite sad.” Anne tried to picture Randolph in love, but her imagination failed her.
“Yes.” Jane wrinkled her nose. “But now he makes use of the Widow Conklin for all his amorous needs. He has an appointment from eight to nine o’clock every Wednesday evening.”
Anne wrinkled her nose. The widow was pleasant enough, but everyone knew her trade.
Men really were revolting.
She took another sip of brandy. “What are we going to do, Jane? I wish there was some way we could get Cat out of the Spinster House.”
Jane divided the last of the brandy between them. “Perhaps there is.”
Was Jane bosky? Surely she hadn’t imbibed that much.
“How? I’m not willing to resort to murder.” And she cou
ldn’t wish that Cat die from some disease or accident. Cat might be standing between Anne and her freedom, but she was still her friend.
“Not murder,” Jane said. “Marriage.”
“Marriage? Why would Cat marry? She has exactly what she’s always wanted.”
“What she always used to want. I don’t think she wants it any longer.”
Oh, blast. Jane had got her hopes up for no purpose. “If she didn’t want to be the Spinster House spinster, she wouldn’t have participated in the lottery.”
Jane must have drunk too much brandy. Anne likely had. She poured herself some tea.
“Oh, she may still think she wants to be a spinster, but didn’t you see how she looked at the duke when he arrived?”
“No.” Anne had been too nervous to analyze Cat’s behavior.
Jane smirked at her. “You should pay more attention.”
“Apparently. So tell me how she looked.”
“As if her heart’s delight had just entered the room.”
Anne looked at Jane suspiciously. “How much brandy have you had?”
“No more than you and none before the lottery. And I’ll tell you this as well, since it seems you were woolgathering.” Jane leaned closer as if sharing a secret. “The duke looked at her in the very same way.” She sat back and giggled. “Well, rather more lasciviously.”
Jane must be making this up, but if she wasn’t . . .
There was that interlude in the trysting bushes.
Which had resulted in exactly nothing.
“What difference does it make? Cat won the lottery, and now that the Spinster House vacancy is filled, the duke will leave Loves Bridge and that will be the end of it.”
“No, he’s staying here.” Jane flushed slightly. “I happened to be talking to the duke’s friend—”
“Lord Haywood?!”
Oh, blast, Jane’s eyebrows shot up. Anne had sounded a bit too . . . upset. And for no reason. What did she care whom Lord Hellwood conversed with?
Though he’d better not have been entertaining Jane in the Spinster House bushes—
“No, not Lord Haywood. Lord Evans.”
“Oh.” And she shouldn’t be feeling so happy to hear that. “When did you speak to Lord Evans?”
“Just a little before I ran into you in front of the Spinster House. Apparently the duke and Lord Haywood argued last night and again this morning—Lord Evans didn’t say about what, of course—so he came into the village to get away from all the brangling. He told me that he and Lord Haywood were leaving, but the duke was staying, at least until Mary’s wedding”—she grinned—“when he and Lord Haywood would both be back. Lord Haywood is a musician and has agreed to play for the festivities.”
“Oh.” Instead of delight at Lord Hellwood’s departure, Anne felt a surge of anticipation that she’d see him again. Stupid!
“I think the duke must be staying because he is interested in Cat,” Jane said.
I cannot be happy to see Lord Hellwood.
“Likely he is. He did go into the bushes with her.” Anne pushed her teacup away. She should go back to the Hall. Sitting in her room and sulking sounded like the perfect way to pass the rest of this dreadful day. Perhaps she’d come up with a solution to her problems in the morning.
She could marry the boring Mr. Barker.
Heh. She’d clearly had too much brandy.
“But don’t you see?” Jane said. “If the duke loves Cat and marries her, the curse will be broken.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in the curse.”
“I don’t, but the duke does.” Jane’s expression hardened. “So all we need to do is force his hand.”
“Force his hand? You lost me there.”
“Don’t be dim, Anne. Everyone knows what happens in the trysting bushes. If word spreads that the duke was there with Cat, he’ll feel honor bound to offer for her.” She grinned. “We don’t even have to gossip ourselves. A word or two in the Boltwoods’ hearing, and by the end of the day—if not the end of the hour—everyone in Loves Bridge will have heard the tale.”
Anne felt a second’s hopefulness—and then shook her head. “We can’t do that. Cat’s reputation would be ruined. Everyone would shun her.”
Jane covered her mouth to muffle a hiccup. “Don’t be so negative. If Cat loves the duke, we’ll be doing her a favor.”
“Well . . .” Anne wasn’t being negative; she was being realistic, wasn’t she?
“Look.” Jane leaned toward her, her expression intent. “This will work to everyone’s benefit. The duke will marry the woman he loves, breaking the curse, if there is one; Cat will get a wealthy husband who can support her writing; and we’ll get another chance at the Spinster House.”
“Hmm.” Hope began to stir in Anne’s breast. “Put that way, it does seem that a little gossiping could be a good thing.”
Chapter Five
Loves Bridge, a week later
Nate looked at the organ. It was small, but the Loves Bridge church was small. A large organ would overwhelm the space both in size and in volume. The question was, how well did it play?
“Lord Haywood, permit me to make myself known to you.”
Nate looked up politely. The man who’d spoken was an inch or two shorter than he and roughly twenty years older, with brown hair graying at the temples and lines bracketing his mouth and radiating from his eyes.
Nate’s gaze moved to the woman at his si—
Oh, God! Please don’t let my reaction show.
Perhaps his prayer would be answered, standing as he was so close to the altar.
“I’m Lord Richard Davenport,” he heard the man say, as if from a distance, “and this is my daughter, Anne . . .”
His heart, which had felt as if it had stopped and then leapt and spun in his chest, settled down, though it still beat rather more quickly and forcefully than normal.
And his cock—
He would not think about that. He would pretend he knew nothing about the activities happening below his waist and hope that Lord Davenport’s gaze did not venture in that direction. Fortunately the man was standing too close to observe any, er, protrusions without making a special effort to do so.
And surely in a few moments that unruly organ would settle down just as his heart had.
Anne was as beautiful as—no, more beautiful than he remembered, and he had remembered her often. She’d slipped into his waking thoughts and haunted his dreams, no matter how hard he’d tried to exorcize her.
Damnation, he should have been prepared for this. He’d known she would be at Miss Mary Hutting’s wedding, but he’d thought—he’d hoped—that he’d be too busy playing the organ during the service and the pianoforte at the festivities following to be able to exchange more than a distant nod.
She was wearing blue again, to match her eyes. A beam of light from one of the church’s high windows touched her hair and made it glow like a halo.
“. . . whom you’ve already met, of course.”
What?! His eyes snapped back to Davenport’s face. The man’s expression was rather too bland.
Had Anne told her father about their interlude in the Spinster House garden?
No, if she had, Davenport would be far less cordial. Hell, he’d likely be insisting the vicar marry them today as well. He was letting his imagination run away with him.
He glanced back at Anne. She was noticeably pale, staring at her father with a look of horror.
Right, then. Time to say something, anything, to keep the baron’s attention on him, because if Davenport looked at his daughter now, he’d have his suspicions, whatever they were, confirmed.
“Yes. I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Davenport briefly at Cupid’s Inn the day after I arrived in Loves Bridge.” He looked at Anne. She was still too pale. “I believe you were there for a planning meeting regarding the village fair, were you not, Miss Davenport?”
Her lovely—but panicked—blue eyes regarded him blankly.
“Are plans for the fair proceeding well?” he prompted her.
“Oh.” She blinked and gathered her composure. “Yes. Yes, everything is shaping up nicely. The fair isn’t for a while yet, so there’s plenty of time to attend to the details. And it really doesn’t change much from year to year. We—”
Her father put his hand on her arm to stop her nervous chatter. “We should let Lord Haywood get back to what he was doing, Anne. The ceremony will begin shortly.”
“Yes, I’m afraid I do need to familiarize myself with this organ. Each instrument has its own peculiarities, you know. But perhaps we’ll have the opportunity for further conversation later.” He bowed slightly to Lord Davenport and gave Anne what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
Well, perhaps reassuring was not the message he should be trying to send her, he thought as he watched her walk away. He definitely intended to have a few words with her, but they might be anything but reassuring.
He turned back to regard the organ, but his mind wasn’t on the instrument. When he’d arrived at Loves Castle yesterday, he’d had a number of upsetting surprises, but the worst was learning that rumors about Marcus and Miss Catherine Hutting and their disappearance into the vicarage bushes had spread throughout the village.
There could be only one source for that gossip.
He clenched his hands. Worse, he’d discovered Marcus had actually offered for the girl. Thank God she’d turned him down. If she hadn’t, the tenor of his upcoming conversation with Miss Davenport would be very different.
He forced himself to concentrate on the organ—the musical organ. His own organs—his silly heart and randy cock—were insisting that Miss Davenport was innocent of any wrongdoing despite the evidence to the contrary or, if she wasn’t innocent, that she should be forgiven.
He sat down and focused on the music he was about to play.
* * *
“Lord Haywood, Mr. Linden, please, take a break and have something to eat and drink,” Mrs. Hutting said. They were in the parish hall, entertaining the villagers now that the ceremony was over.
Mr. Linden, farmer and Loves Bridge fiddler, put down his instrument and wiped his brow with his handkerchief. “I am a mite thirsty, Mrs. Hutting.”
How to Manage a Marquess Page 6
