And rude, she reminded herself. Entitled, stern, direct…
A rueful smile crept over her face. He wanted to marry her, and she was confident that this time, he really did have a title.
Could Fred have been right? Was it possible that after the pain of her first engagement, she could miss the opportunity to be happy with Albemarle?
One thing she was sure about. She deserved to know happiness. There was nothing more emotionally exhausting than always making a match for others, seeing them find that person who would make the rest of life’s struggles bearable.
Theodosia glanced down at the words of Fred again.
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.
It was time to make her own match.
Her fingers brushed over the signature of the first man she had ever given her heart to. Frederick. She had loved him so much. At least, she loved the idea of him.
Leaning forward, she allowed the letter to fall into the flames and watched until all the words were gone and the paper utterly indecipherable.
As she re-entered the drawing room, her hostess looked a little ruffled. “Miss Ashbrooke! There you are. I almost sent Benjamin out to check on you. I have been waiting.”
The words were spoken pointedly, but Theodosia smiled as she sat back down—this time, on the sofa opposite Lady Cramer.
“I know,” she said simply. “And so have I. The Earl of Lenskeyn is getting married in eight days.”
Chapter Eighteen
With a great sense of triumph and more than a little pleasure, Albemarle threw down a trio of kings with a smile.
“Oh, no!” Braedon groaned, looking at the pile of silver before them. “Three kings?”
“You blaggard,” said Devonshire, rather more good-naturedly. “To think, you have been huffing and puffing all this hand, and in reality—”
“He was bluffing!” chuckled Braedon.
Albemarle laughed. Cards were a great distraction from his heartache—not entirely sufficient, but useful. He knew his recent friends, Abraham Fitzclarence, Viscount Braedon, and Monty Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, had come over for the third evening in a row to keep him company.
It was kind of them, and he felt the benefit of their friendship as he had never felt with others before. Still, not enough to force Teddy from his mind.
“I have said it before, I think I will end up saying it a thousand times,” Braedon offered. “I am sure you are cheating! Are these cards marked? Do you have another pack hidden somewhere up those big earldom sleeves?”
Devonshire was still chuckling. “You only ever think others are cheating when you are losing, Braedon—almost all the time, now I come to think on it!”
The three gentlemen laughed. Braedon was smart enough to have learned to laugh at himself, Albemarle could see—a skill he had not entirely mastered himself. Living in a village in the middle of nowhere in Greece made him a fascinating figure for the locals. He was more accustomed to being adored and respected than laughed at.
Perhaps Braedon and Devonshire were good for him.
It was strange to think, had everything gone as it should have with Teddy and his mother, he would be having a very different evening.
If his foolishness had not tripped him up.
It would have been Teddy who sat opposite him, not Braedon, and instead of playing poker, they would have been planning a wedding.
Not a wedding. Their wedding. His wedding to the most wonderful woman in the world.
But he was gambling instead. He had more coin than he knew what to do with, and he was sufficiently adept at poker to ensure he did not lose too much.
Thankfully, their game was not accompanied by only a bottle, as it had last time. His butler, Blenkins, had sent up more than enough food to be getting on with. Half a roast chicken still sat on the sideboard, along with the vegetables that accompanied it, potatoes, gravy, and the pudding they had been unable to stomach.
“Well, I still think it’s a con,” said Braedon heavily as he pulled the cards toward him, ready to shuffle and deal the next hand. “And I think it most unfair of you, Lenskeyn.”
Albemarle spread his arms wide. “I cannot help it if I am more skilled at cards than you, Braedon.”
“Hmph!” said the viscount with a wry smile. “You know, for a gentleman who is supposed to be lovelorn, you are doing an excellent job of taking all my money.”
Albemarle glanced down at the pile of coins before him. It was true. It had certainly grown in the last hour. But money? What did he care about money?
The one genuinely precious thing he had, he’d lost. Just when he was sure he had secured her, Theodosia Ashbrooke had stormed out of his life. And he would never recover her; he was sure of that.
After his conversation with Braedon and Devonshire, he had made some…delicate inquiries. The story Braedon had told whirled around his mind, restless, and he had to put it to bed.
A part of him had hoped it was false. Sadly, the information he received demonstrated quite the opposite. A Miss Theodosia Ashbrooke had indeed been engaged to a man who called himself the Earl of Cragmore.
Albemarle had snorted at that. There was no earldom of Cragmore, and anyone could have looked that up in Debrett’s The New Peerage.
But Teddy had not. She had engaged herself to him, planned for their wedding, and then…the mother had arrived.
“You want a title, a fortune, a place in society your meager father was never able to give you! You have used your wiles to ensnare my son, to—”
It had all fallen apart, and so had Teddy. She had disappeared from view for a while until re-emerging into society as a matchmaker.
A loud banging just outside the house drew Albemarle’s attention back into the room. “Just deal the cards, Braedon,” he said smoothly.
“Happily,” said the man with a grin. “I will have to if I wish to win my money back!”
Devonshire smiled. “I would not be so certain, Braedon. Lenskeyn is a better bluffer than either of us—he has the whip hand at this table.”
The uproar outside was growing louder.
Albemarle ignored it. “I think it most unlikely you will win back all of it, Braedon, old boy! I’m more likely to take a few more coins from you!”
He was forced to raise his voice as the banging and clattering rose. It almost sounded as though someone was attempting to batter down his door.
Sighing, he leaned over and picked up a silver bell. Within a minute, his butler appeared at the door. “You rang, your lordship?”
“I did,” said Albemarle quietly as Braedon dealt out the next hand. “Do me a favor and find out what on earth the matter is, will you? That damned noise is disturbing our game.”
Blenkins bowed and disappeared from the room as Braedon cried, “There, and much good may they do you!”
Albemarle shook his head with a smile as he reached for his cards. Two threes, a six, and a nine—and none of the same suit.
It did not matter. He had at least a decade of experience playing poker over the impetuous Braedon, and he had managed to bluff his way to winning with worse hands.
“Now, what does that smile mean?” Devonshire said thoughtfully.
Braedon looked up hastily. “What smile? Lenskeyn is smiling?”
Albemarle chuckled as he rearranged his cards into a completely arbitrary order. “Now, if you start to look for tells, Braedon, you are going to be disappointed. A guinea.”
He threw the coin into the center of the table.
Braedon looked aghast. “You can’t start the bidding at a guinea?”
“Why not?”
“Because…because…” Braedon was lost for words.
Devonshire chuckled. “You must have an incredible hand to start the bid at a guinea, Lenskeyn!”
Albemarle allowed his face to relax. The thundering noise was still crashing about outside, but if he could
just concentrate…
“Fine. Fine!” Braedon threw down his cards. “I fold. Are you happy?”
Albemarle could not help but grin again. If he decided to stay in England, he could foresee many happy—and profitable—evenings playing cards with Braedon.
“I know what I have, and I am willing to take you to the cleaners to see what you have,” he said aloud, more to Devonshire than to the viscount. “Will you match my guinea?”
Before the duke could reply, Blenkins returned and lowered his head to murmur into his master’s ear. “There is a lady outside.”
By pure coincidence, at that precise moment, the banging and crashing noises outside ceased, and the whisper carried far further than the butler intended.
Both of the guests laughed.
“A lady, outside! At this hour?” Braedon said, turning to look at the window as if that would reveal her identity. “How rebellious of you!”
“Well, I expect he thought we would be gone by now,” said Devonshire quickly. He laughed at the confused look on his friend’s face. “Old Lenskeyn probably ordered one from the nearest bawdy house and thought by this hour, we would have lost all our money!”
Albemarle smiled mechanically and glanced at the grandfather clock. It was just past nine o’clock.
Not particularly late for him, but very late for a lady to be out, and on her own?
He frowned. “Who in God’s name is she, Blenkins?”
The words he so desperately wanted to hear were ones he never would. Teddy would never demean herself to come and see him.
She had made it clear she considered their engagement ended. The letter he had written, groveling, desperate, had been returned unopened. He had burnt it, as though the destruction of the letter could remove the pain.
He had last seen her almost a week ago at the Assembly Rooms with his mother.
Now neither woman was speaking to him.
In all honor, he should have been more upset about his mother. He had been refused entry to her rooms, and she would not answer his letters.
His mother on the one hand, his lover on the other. His heart was Teddy’s, utterly and without strings, and he couldn’t just take it back because she no longer wanted him.
Another hearty bang on his front door echoed through the room.
“Damnit, what does she want?” he snapped at his butler.
Blenkins glanced carefully at his master’s guests before speaking. After just a few weeks of serving the earl, Blenkins managed to get on with him quite nicely. The butler knew never to disagree with his master, and Albemarle knew not to take a step into the kitchen. It was an uneasy truce, but it worked.
“The lady,” whispered Blenkins, “wishes to see you, your lordship.”
“Goodness, she is persistent,” said Devonshire with a grin. “Who do you owe money to, Lenskeyn? That sounds like the knock of someone determined to come in!”
It certainly did. The banging was starting to get genuinely irritating, and out of sheer annoyance, Albemarle snapped at his servant. “Well, let her in then, damnit, and we can get the foolish business over and done with,” he said with very bad grace. “She cannot possibly make as much noise in here than out there.”
“Very good, my lord,” said Blenkins quietly.
“You know, you certainly lead a wild and rebellious life, Lenskeyn,” said Braedon affably. “I am not sure whether I would be able to keep up! Women turning up in the middle of the night!”
“Hardly,” said Albemarle dismissively. The sooner he saw her, whoever she was, the sooner she could leave. “And I am still waiting for Devonshire to see my guinea or fold. Devonshire?”
Albemarle watched the man carefully. There was that tell, the tugging of his left ear, that told the world that the cards in his hand were useless.
But he was intrigued, Albemarle could see that. Devonshire wanted to see what he could be throwing a guinea at, and that meant…
“You know what,” he said slowly. “I think—”
“Teddy.”
Albemarle had not intended to speak the word aloud. Teddy had just walked into the room, cheeks pink and pelisse wrapped tightly around her.
To someone who barely knew her, she would be unrecognizable. No bonnet, her pelisse pulled up to her face, and her hair pulled back in the simplest hairstyle—but it was her.
Albemarle knew every inch of her intimately. He would know her anywhere.
“I say,” said Devonshire slowly, looking between the two of them.
Braedon looked up and whistled. “My word—the girls these places send are getting far more refined than I remem—ouch!”
Although Albemarle could not be sure, it appeared Devonshire had kicked him under the table.
Teddy’s cheeks, already pinkened by the night air, darkened.
“What did you do that for?” Braedon rubbed his shin with an angry look.
“I want to speak with you,” said Teddy quietly, looking straight at Albemarle.
Was he dreaming? Even with the sensation of the cards between his fingers, it was difficult to believe what he was seeing was real.
Teddy—here, in his rooms, late at night! What did she think she was doing?
A part of him was so thrilled to see her; he did not care. He could look. He could spend the rest of his life just looking at her, knowing she was safe, knowing at any moment, he could reach out…
But pain played harmony to the melody of affection. Though she was before him, she did not belong to him anymore, and it was his foolishness that had lost her.
If he had just taken the care to find out about her past, ask her about her family, her time in London, anything like that…
Well, then he would have known just how upsetting his stunt at the Assembly Rooms would be.
Damnit, he did not deserve her. He wanted her, that was true, but it was not the same thing.
If he were honest with himself, and a physical wrench seemed to twist his stomach as he thought it, she would probably be happier without him.
“Albemarle?”
He stood up hastily as Teddy said his name. “Yes, yes, of course, we can talk. Let us go into the—”
“No,” she cut across him quietly. “Here. Do you love me?”
How could she ask such a thing of him—and before strangers to her, too! Albemarle could see the hurt as she asked him. The very fact that she had to ask…
The gazes of both Braedon and Devonshire burnt his face, and it was difficult to ascertain who was the most embarrassed, himself, Teddy, or his guests.
Albemarle swallowed. The last thing he wanted was to embarrass himself by pouring out his heart before two men he only met a month ago—but he had no choice.
If he did not embarrass himself now, he would spend the rest of his life wondering.
What if? What if he had pushed himself, finally, outside his comfort zone? Instead of laughing, jesting, being sarcastic…what if he was honest?
Teddy needed him to make that gesture. He understood that now.
He nodded.
“I don’t think I caught that,” said Braedon with a grin.
Albemarle cuffed him about the head and then immediately looked back at Teddy. His heart swelled.
She was everything to him. Of course he would embarrass himself—anything to have a second chance to win her heart.
“Yes, Ted—Theodosia,” he amended hastily. “I love you.”
Teddy took a step toward him. “You have never declared anything like that in your life, have you? It is time for you to be the man I know you can be. Are you sure you love me?”
“Yes,” croaked Albemarle. He was not entirely sure where his voice had gone, and he coughed before saying, “Damnit, Theodosia, you know me better than anyone—you know me better than I know myself. You know how I feel about you.”
“It’s not enough.”
Her words were soft, but they cut into Albemarle’s heart like knives. “Not—not enough?”
Out of the
corner of his eye, he saw Devonshire glance at Braedon.
“Well, I should be off,” said the duke hastily, rising to his feet. “The wife will be wondering where I—”
“Will you love me tomorrow?” Teddy’s question was simply asked. There was no guile in her voice. This was something she needed to hear. “Next week? Next year?”
Albemarle knew she needed far more reassurance than he could give. How could he predict the future? Yes, he loved her now. He would gamble his entire fortune that he would still love her tomorrow, and next year, certainly.
He would not live forever, but she needed to know he would love her for every instant he was on this earth.
What were the words she needed to hear?
“Yes,” he said simply. “All the days of our lives.”
He stepped toward her as he spoke, his fingers itching to touch her again. It had been too long since Theodosia Ashbrooke was in his arms.
Teddy whispered, “I am not sure if I am ready to trust you yet.”
“I am sure,” he said boldly, pulling her into his arms. “And you have all the time in the world to learn just how trustworthy I am.”
She did not resist as he kissed her. She melted into his arms, kissing him back just as fiercely as he poured down his affection for her.
He was home. He had never felt adrift before he had met this matchmaker who teased and tantalized—but now he had her in his arms, she was the anchor of his world.
Everything he wanted in the world, everything, was in his arms at this moment.
He had never wanted a bride. He certainly had never wanted a wife.
But Teddy was not just a chit of a woman he would have to put up with. She was his perfect match, his better half, the person he wanted to love every single day.
When he finally pulled away from her, she was blushing.
Without taking his eyes from her, Albemarle barked, “Braedon? Devonshire? Out!”
He heard Devonshire laugh. “And well, you may say that, you old dog—I have just peeked at your cards! I cannot believe you were bluffing on such a terrible hand!”
“But I want the chance to win all my money back!” came Braedon’s plaintive voice. “You mean to tell me you are just going to throw us out?”
Always the Matchmaker (Never the Bride Book 8) Page 19
