Albemarle could not speak. Thoughts were swirling in his mind so rapidly that he could barely hold one of them long enough to understand it.
Teddy, abandoned—Teddy, believing she was engaged to an earl, finding he was not who he said he was.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the mother then turned up, forbade the marriage anyway, and whisked away the man she loved.
Oh, Christ.
“She had to start working to pay off the debts incurred in planning the wedding,” said Braedon in a brittle voice. “Bills her future husband would have paid if he had been the man he said he was. She has been a matchmaker ever since.”
Albemarle’s mind rebelled from what he was hearing. It could not be true—it was not possible. People simply did not act that way!
But he had seen enough of humanity to know that was precisely how some people acted.
Perhaps Braedon was lying. It was a terrible tale…but then, why would he lie?
Teddy, engaged to a man she had thought was an earl. She had believed in him, fallen in love with him, been proposed to, accepted him, planned a wedding with him—a life with him!
And then the mother arrived to drag him away, break the affection between them.
Oh, God in his heaven.
“I did not know,” he said hoarsely, his voice cracking.
“’Tis a most unfortunate coincidence,” said Devonshire delicately.
Albemarle laughed darkly. “And, of course, my mother attempts to forbid our marriage!”
Braedon nodded. “No wonder your Miss Ashbrooke reacted the way she did. It must have brought up quite a few painful memories, those shenanigans you forced her through.”
Albemarle rose from his seat, unable to stay in it as his restless feet moved up around his rooms like a caged lion.
“How in God’s name am I going to make this right?”
Chapter Seventeen
Theodosia blinked, and her notes came swimming back into view.
Rebecca—beautiful, born 17—friends with…lately connected to…greatest skills are:
The individual words made sense, but together they were meaningless. What had she been attempting to write? What had she meant?
She swallowed, tasting the bitterness in her n throat. Two nights with barely any sleep had done nothing for her ability to concentrate. If she had been paying more attention, her notes would be better.
“—three years ago, and last year there was an almost dalliance with a gentleman by the name of—”
Embarrassment curled around her heart, but there was nothing for it. If she had been paying attention, she would not need to say this.
“I do apologize, Lady Cramer,” she said quietly, and the stately woman halted in her tracks. “There is…well, so much information about your charming daughter, I am struggling to jot it all down. I need to return to your thoughts about your daughter’s greatest skills.”
Lady Cramer looked down her nose and sniffed, clearly affronted. “Return? Why, that was five minutes ago!”
There was something rather unique about being stared at by a woman with a title who knew herself to be superior. It was like being examined by a large animal. They were not going to pounce. They did not need to pounce to prove they could hurt you.
The room, full of marble and silence, was still. Lady Cramer had requested a visit to the her rooms, but Theodosia had made that mistake only once. Never again.
So they were seated in the stifling drawing room of the Cramers. The lady of the house was being slowly enveloped by the softest sofa Theodosia had ever seen, while she had been offered a stool.
A wooden stool.
“Well?” said Lady Cramer into the silence. “Did you run out of pencil?”
“Yes—yes, my pencil,” Theodosia grasped at the excuse with relief. “My pencil has become blunt. There are so many things to note about Lady Rebecca. I would greatly appreciate it if—”
“Benjamin!”
Theodosia’s words were interrupted by a shriek from Lady Cramer. Immediately the door opened, and a footman walked in, bowed, approached his mistress, and bowed again.
“My lady?” he said quietly.
“The matchmaker requires another pencil,” Lady Cramer said imperiously as Theodosia carefully hid her pencil in her reticule. The last thing she wanted was for them to see it was perfectly sharpened. “A pencil for the matchmaker.”
The footman bowed, and the two ladies were left in uncomfortable silence.
In any other one of her appointments, Theodosia would have attempted to break the silence. It was always easier to find a match for a lady or a gentleman, for that matter, if one had a good understanding of the parents.
One did not always become one’s mother, Theodosia knew, but it was a taste of things to come.
Lady Cramer, on the other hand, was formidable. There was nothing in particular that Theodosia could attest to it, for she was not sharply spoken; she was not cruel; she was not rude.
But there was a coldness there. Something that made Theodosia shiver.
It was little wonder her daughter, Lady Rebecca, was eager to be married. And after that scandal with Edward Wynn, that viscount—well, it had been almost hushed up.
A not quite hushed-up scandal was liable to leave a lady, no matter her title or wealth, on the shelf.
The door opened once more, and the footman returned, carrying—Theodosia saw with a sinking heart—three pencils, carefully sharpened, on a silver platter.
She swallowed. It was a deliberate choice to make her feel inferior, and it was well done. But she had spent enough time with ladies of all dignities and titles to know that it was not personal.
At least, not to Theodosia. Just to all ladies who had not married a marquess or higher.
“Thank you,” she said to Lady Cramer rather than the footman, as society expected. “That is most kind of you.”
Graciously taking all three pencils from the silver tray, she placed two on the table beside her and poised one above the paper in her notebook.
“So, your daughter, Lady Cramer. Her talents.”
Just as many ladies did, in Theodosia’s experience, Lady Cramer immediately preened. “Well, of course, Lady Rebecca is rather like me in every regard, so we may find we do not have sufficient room in that little notebook of yours!”
Theodosia smiled automatically. Every mother felt the same about her daughter. It was one of life’s little rules, which eventually became grating.
“Of course,” she said aloud. “We will have to see when my pages run out! I will, naturally, summarize for my notes.”
Lady Cramer tried to look at the matchmaker’s notes so far. Theodosia leaned back ever so slightly to ensure her nonsense could not be read. Even upside down.
“Beauty, naturally,” Lady Cramer snapped, thoroughly irritated she had been unable to peek. “A fine wit, too, only the other day Lady Romeril was telling me…”
Theodosia tried. She really did. Concentrating as hard as she could, with every intention of writing it all down faithfully, the pencil worked quickly across the page.
After all, this was not only Lady Cramer, wife of the Marquess of Pembroke, but a new client. There were six daughters in this family. If Theodosia could make a good impression for the first, the other five could find their way onto her books—and their fees into her purse.
Ladies, ladies, she was always on the hunt for ladies. One would think it would be the other way around, of course, but in fact, it was often the gentlemen who were desperate to find the right match.
Not just the right lady, but the right family, the right fortune, someone to be mother to their heirs.
As her pencil scratched across her notebook, her mind was frequently interrupted by thoughts of that…that damned man.
She was allowed to curse, after all, if silently.
“I don’t want the damn fee. I want you. Christ alive, Theodosia Ashbrooke, I still want you, and you are not making this easy for me.”
Theodosia pushed the thought away. She had to concentrate—if she asked Lady Cramer to repeat herself a third time, she could say goodbye to Lady Rebecca as a client, or any of the Cramer girls.
“—plenty of admirers have noted on that,” Lady Cramer was continuing. Her nose scrunched up. “I will own that my daughter has had a fair number of potential suitors. None, of course, who have lived up to the standard her father and I would want for her.”
Theodosia nodded. “I quite understand, Lady Cramer.”
Yes, she understood better than almost anyone what it was like to not quite live up to the expectations of a mother.
“I know precisely what you want, you harlot.”
She forced a smile. She would not dwell on the past. She would move forward. She had always managed to make her way through the world.
“It is imperative, I feel, to find someone of the right caliber,” Theodosia continued, giving that little speech that always placated exacting parents. “Marriage is for life, after all, and it is not merely between a gentleman and a lady, but their families. If the families are not well-suited, it matters not what connection the couple themselves have. The families must be matched just as carefully as the gentleman.”
For the first time in their interview, Lady Cramer smiled. “I am so glad you understand, Miss Ashbrooke. Believe it or not, my Rebecca took a little time to come to my way of thinking.”
It did not surprise Theodosia at all, though she made some murmurs of surprise. No, today, there were plenty of daughters who were starting to discover that they had opinions, and their desires, and their wishes for their own lives. It was taking the older generation a little while to absorb this.
“Now when it comes to the gentleman in question, a title of course,” Lady Cramer continued. “We cannot have our eldest daughter married to a nobody. Even a viscount would be preferable to a mere esquire.”
She spoke the word as though it tasted foul.
“A good income would be advantageous, but a house both in town and the country is what, I believe, would make Rebecca most happy,” the caring mother finished.
Theodosia nodded as she wrote in her notebook. She estimated that it was Lady Cramer who would appreciate two homes for her daughter. She looked down at her notes.
Title, viscount minimum. Good income. House in town and country.
It was impossible not to notice the description of the perfect suitor for Lady Rebecca was…well, Albemarle. Her earl.
The earl. The fourteenth Earl of Lenskeyn. She must stop considering him something of a possession of hers—he was not hers anymore.
He had never been hers to begin with, and she needed to forget him.
A small part of her, treacherous and irritating, wondered whether the best way to get rid of him, both in her heart and in reality, would be to do what her instincts forbade, introduce him to Lady Cramer’s daughter. If Lady Rebecca was all her mother described, even putting aside poetic motherly license, then it would be a good match.
And that, she thought dully, would make her the most noble matchmaker in the world.
As though able to peek not merely into her notebook but into her mind, Lady Cramer leaned forward and spoke in a mock whisper. “I have heard a rumor that a gentleman who fits my description perfectly is on your books, Miss Ashbrooke. Of course, it may be pure speculation.”
Theodosia carefully constructed a look of mild puzzlement. “My word, Lady Cramer, that would be fortunate indeed. What rumor, and about whom?”
It was too much to hope, of course, that Lady Cramer was thinking of someone utterly different. Perhaps she had not heard about the Marquess of Exeter’s engagement?
“Do not be so modest,” the older woman said with a knowing smile. “You have proved yourself to be a wonderful matchmaker for Lady Romeril’s oldest boy, and I am sure if you had another specimen of that caliber—an earl, let’s say—you would not keep him from me.”
Her coyness was not sufficient to mask who she was referring to.
“It is very flattering to hear such good reports of my skills, and from Lady Romeril,” Theodosia said placidly. “Now, Lady Rebecca. After she completed finishing school, where did—”
“The Earl of Lenskeyn, of course!” Lady Cramer’s patience ran out. “I had heard he was to be married in ten days, God knows who to, which I must say you have kept very quiet! But then I heard, and from Mrs. Bryant no less, that the wedding had been called off. So is he available, Miss Ashbrooke?”
Theodosia hesitated. It would be so easy to say yes. She knew, in her heart, that the chances of marrying the earl had disappeared.
She had walked away from him, broken off the engagement, and refused to see him. The one letter that had arrived with his seal had been returned unopened.
She was not going to be marrying Albemarle Howard, the Earl of Lenskeyn.
But saying it aloud, to another person—to the mother of a client, no less—would make it all real in a completely different way.
Taking a deep breath, Theodosia closed her notebook. Her fingers brushed against something tucked in the back.
Her heart twisted. She had kept it, against her better judgment, and had not read it in all the eight years it had rested there.
She had almost thrown it out two years ago, but something had stopped her, as though it could, one day, bring her joy.
Perhaps now was the time…
Pushing aside what she was about to say, she said, “Lady Cramer, would you be so kind as to give me a moment, alone? I…I need to consider your daughter and the range of suitors that I currently have,” and she lifted up her notebook, “on my books, as it were.”
She could have said nothing better to excite the woman before her.
“What—that is how you make the match?” she asked excitedly. “Just like that?”
Theodosia smiled. She had never revealed her process for matchmaking and probably never would. A magician never revealed his secrets.
“Not entirely,” she conceded. “But ’tis the first step, and can often lead to the greatest connections. And now I have the earl in mind from our conversation…”
Allowing her voice to trail away was the perfect trick. Lady Cramer could not look more pleased and wished to strike while the iron was hot.
“Of course—I believe the fire in the breakfast room is still lit. You will be warm enough there.”
Theodosia’s smile was just a little brittle. Far be it from Lady Cramer to exit her room when she was so comfortably ensconced on the sofa. No, it was for Miss Ashbrooke, the matchmaker, to rise from her uncomfortable wooden stool and find her way to another room which, she was sure, would be freezing.
“How kind,” she said aloud.
Lady Cramer bellowed, “Benjamin!” And the footman appeared.
“My lady?”
“Take Miss Ashbrooke to the breakfast room,” said Lady Cramer. “And give her anything else she requires.”
She even deigned to incline her head as Theodosia rose and curtseyed. It was a relief to step across the drawing room, down a corridor, and into the breakfast room, which had a little more cheer. Decorated in fashions from at least ten years ago, it was cozier, with less marble and a fire far warmer than she had expected.
“Anything else you need, miss?”
Theodosia shook her head. “No, thank you.”
Bowing his way out of the room, the footman closed the door, and Theodosia was left alone.
Heart twisting painfully with the anticipation of what she was about to read, she sighed and stepped across the room to sit nearest the fire. Gently, taking care not to disturb the other bits of paper which she had stuffed into the notebook, the letter finally rested in her hand.
The letter from him.
Resting her notebook on her lap, she carefully removed the letter from its envelope, smoothed it out on the notebook, and read it.
Dearest Theo,
This is the fifth version of this letter. I may have to write
a sixth. I may never even send it.
You know I cannot apologize enough. I know mere words will never be sufficient to heal the pain I have caused you, and so I say once again, I am so sorry, knowing it cannot atone for my heinous crimes.
I really do love you, more than I can ever say. More than words can express—but I was blinded by fear, that enemy of love, that taunted me saying I was not worthy of you.
Inventing the title was wrong. It was wrong, and I am sorry, and I have been punished more severely than I could have thought: by losing you.
Please do not weep for me. I do not deserve your tears, and the last thing I would wish is for you to distress yourself on my behalf.
Mourn for me, as though I had died. The gentleman you thought you knew never really existed. So much of myself was hidden from you, even as I fell in love with your innumerable excellent qualities, and so you have not lost a man to another. He has died.
Mourn me, and then like any widow, look to find love again. You are young, you are precious, and you are deserving of love.
The very last thing I would wish would be for you to distance yourself from life. Happiness, joy, connection: all these things you should seek, when you are ready.
Theo, you have so much to offer a gentleman. I would know better than anyone, I think, just how happy you can make a man, even without trying.
Besides, I know you. I know it is possible for you to completely miss out on finding the best gentleman for you because of your own stubbornness.
Please accept my apologies, consider me lost to the world forever, and when you are ready, look for love elsewhere.
I am sorry.
I am, forever, your most faithful servant,
Frederick Marsh, esquire.
Theodosia looked up, her eyes dry. Even now, reading his words, the pain returned—but it was dull.
In the silence of the room, she gasped. She could no longer remember Fred’s face.
Looking into the flames, as though their flickering light would help jog her memory, only one face appeared.
Albemarle. His face surfaced in her mind, handsome and brilliant.
Always the Matchmaker (Never the Bride Book 8) Page 18
