A Marriage of Inconvenience (Endearing Young Charms Book 5)

by M C Beaton

  “Surely a thirty-year-old man will not wed some girl chosen for him by his parents?”

  “Well, Harry’s deuced fond of Ma and Pa. The way he’ll look at it is that if they need the money, then he may as well go along with the marriage. I mean, it’s not as if you want anyone else, Isabella.”

  “The sad fact is I do not want anyone at all.”

  “You can’t mean that.” Lucy rubbed at her nose in the way she always did when she was worried or upset. “I mean, I haven’t met anyone yet, but I dream of a beau. I haven’t ever been kissed. Have you?”

  Isabella repressed a shudder. “No.”

  “I would like to find out what it’s like. I mean, do people tremble with love and go ashen pale like they do in the romances?”

  “Probably not.” Isabella carefully chose a skein of silk thread.

  “But Shakespeare wrote of love, and he was terribly clever. He must have known what he was talking about.”

  “I do not want to talk of fairy tales,” said Isabella. “Let us be practical. Suppose I am pressed into this marriage. What experience has your brother had of polite society?”

  “Not much. He left Eton at fifteen and went straight into the army. I read however that Wellington likes his officers to be able to dance properly. He cannot be devoid of the social graces, and why should it matter anyway?”

  “I like the elegancies of life,” said Isabella. “I detest coarse, loud-voiced men.”

  “Never mind. Let’s go out for a ride. It’s a glorious day.”

  “Why?”

  “Why, why … why because we can ride like the wind through the countryside in the sunshine.”

  “What an energetic girl you are! Very well.” Isabella stowed away her sewing things neatly. “Wait until I change into a riding dress.”

  Soon they were riding over the springy turf on the cliffs above the sea. The weather was glorious. Little boats like toys bobbed on the blue sea, and clumps of sea pinks fluttered at the edge of the cliffs on the sage green grass. They were accompanied by two grooms from Appleton House, which Lucy, who rode everywhere on her own, felt restricted their freedom. But Isabella seemed livelier than she had been for a long time.

  They reined in their horses on the edge of the cliff. “Of course, if we could find grandfather’s treasure, Harry wouldn’t need to marry you,” said Lucy.

  “Oh, that!” Isabella laughed. “Do you remember how when we were children, we searched and searched through the castle. What was the treasure supposed to be? A box of jewels? What romantics we were then!”

  “But it’s not just a tale,” said Lucy eagerly. “There’s a portrait of Grandma in the library, and she’s simply dripping with jewels.”

  “Why would your grandfather bother to hide them?” asked Isabella.

  “Because he had windmills in his cockloft before he died, and he took against Mama and didn’t want her to have them. Perhaps they were buried with him? Perhaps we should dig up his coffin!”

  “Nonsense. If they were buried with him then the earl would know about it. We looked everywhere, if you remember.”

  “But we were terribly young and immature,” said seventeen-year-old Lucy. “A systematic search is called for.”

  “Another day,” said Isabella and turned her mount toward home.

  The ride with Lucy had done her good, and Isabella decided she had not been firm enough about this marriage. She sought out her parents who had just returned from a visit to their lawyers and said, “This has got to stop. I am not going to marry Lord Harry, and that is that.”

  Her parents looked at her coldly. “For once,” said her father evenly, “you will do as you are told. That is an end of the matter.”

  In vain did Isabella plead. Her usually indulgent parents had grown hard and adamant.

  Her mind twisted this way and that, trying to find an escape. The old earl’s treasure might be an answer … if it still existed, and Isabella was sure it did not.

  Captain James eyed the bulk of Tregar Castle nervously. It appeared to be hanging onto the edge of the cliff. “Do my eyes deceive me,” he said, “or has a bit of it fallen off?”

  “Yes, it has,” said Lord Harry. “My father told me that a bit of the east wing had dropped into the sea. I’m afraid our rooms are in the east wing—or what’s left of it—so if you hear a rumble in the night, you’d best be smartish about getting out.”

  The castle door was opened to them by an elderly butler. “Here I am, Stokes,” said Lord Harry cheerfully. “Turned up again like the proverbial bad penny.”

  The butler grunted by way of reply.

  The captain removed his hat and gloves and held them out. The butler ignored them.

  “Leave them on the side table, James,” said Lord Harry.

  “Why doesn’t this servant take them?” asked the captain.

  “Why should I?” demanded the butler passionately. “Mark my words, the day will come when the likes o’ you will be hanging from the lantern.”

  “Quite right, Stokes,” said Lord Harry amiably. “Come along, James.”

  The captain took out his pocket handkerchief and pointedly dusted the side table before putting down his hat and gloves. Then he followed Lord Harry, his impeccably tailored back stiff with outrage.

  “This is your room, James,” said Lord Harry, kicking open a door in the middle of a passage.

  The room was cold and dark. Ivy grew thickly over the mullioned window. Two elderly footmen came in carrying the captain’s bags.

  The captain struck the bedcovers with the flat of his hand. A cloud of dust rose and then hung in the air.

  “I do not mean to criticize your hospitality,” said the captain coldly, “but I would like clean blankets and linen.”

  The two footmen cackled wildly as if he had said something very funny.

  “Don’t look so outraged, James. They’ve got out of the way of service for the simple reason they probably haven’t been paid for years.”

  James looked horrified. “But one should always pay one’s servants. Why did you not let me bring my man with me? I have an idea.” He said to one of the footmen. “Fetch that butler here … Stokes.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Lord Harry. “Horsewhip the lot of ‘em?”

  “Just watch.”

  Stokes creaked in. “What does ee want?” he demanded.

  James took several guineas out of his pocket and began to toss them up and down. “Gold, old man,” he said, “which will be paid to you to distribute among the staff if this room is cleaned and aired, the ivy stripped from outside the window, and washing water brought to the toilet table.”

  The butler bowed low. “Certainly, master,” he quavered.

  “I’ll move into your room while they get busy with mine,” said James. “Really, Harry, badly treated servants always behave badly. You should know that.”

  “Tell my parents. Here’s my quarters along from yours. I hope you’re right in telling them to cut the ivy away from the window. I’m sure it’s what holds this castle up.”

  The door opened, and the elderly retainer creaked in. Lord Harry greeted him warmly. His name was Biddle, and Lord Harry could never remember him having looked any younger or having any specific job, although he wore the indoor livery of a footman.

  “Hey, Biddle,” cried Lord Harry. “Here I am, back home.”

  “Them’s gone to Appleton House, and you and the gennelmun here is to go fer dinner.”

  Lord Harry raised his eyebrows. “So I am to meet my bride so soon. What’s she like, Biddle?”

  “Fair as the flower o’ May and as cold as charity,” said the old man.

  “How would you know if she’s cold?”

  “Cos when she passes un, there’s a cold wind.”

  “Fustian. Well, come along, James. We’ll ride over. Put your evening dress in a saddle bag. Don’t look like that, man. Neither the Chadburys nor my parents will remark if your coat is creased.”

  Th
e castle, reflected James as they rode off, looked better in the distance, its gray towers softened by the mellow light. It was not a large castle, had no moat or portcullis, but it looked as if it had stood for centuries. James wondered how Lord Harry could bear to see his family home descending into the sea, bit by bit, and yet he envied his friend his insouciance. He himself could not bear a household of such weird servants, nor could he ride easily out to meet a future bride. He was obsessive about manners and appearance, and yet, as he rode through the lazy Cornish countryside, he wondered for the first time why he should control his life with so many finicky little taboos. What would it be like to be like Lord Harry? Happy, he thought suddenly.

  “We’ll leave the horses at the stables and walk up,” called Lord Harry as Appleton House came into sight.

  This was more like it, thought James, as a correct groom said their bags would be carried up to the house.

  “Beautiful place, isn’t it?” said Lord Harry. “But almost too perfect. Let me show you the rose garden. Round the side here and through the little gate. There! What do you think of that?”

  Roses rioted over trellises and from urns, filling the air with their heady scent. Somewhere a thrush sang and then fell silent. “Home in England again, hey, James?” said Lord Harry softly.

  “And that,” said the captain quietly, “if I am not mistaken, is your future bride.” He pointed toward the house. The Green Saloon overlooked the rose garden. Standing, framed in the window, was Isabella. Both men recognized her from her miniature. “Move closer,” muttered Lord Harry. “I want to get a better look at her before we’re introduced.”

  They moved quietly forward through the roses. Lord Harry realized Isabella was talking to his parents.

  Her cool voice reached their ears. “So, Lord and Lady Tremayne,” said Isabella, “as I am being forced into marriage with your son, may I point out to you that as he left school and went straight into the army, he must be in need of some town bronze, some refinement. To that end, I suggest we introduce him to London society. You would not have me marry some uncouth lout I take it? May I beg the marriage is delayed until after the Little Season so that he may be allowed to experience some civilizing influences?”

  Lord Harry tugged James’s arm and drew him back. “I have a plan,” he whispered, his eyes dancing. “I’ll give the minx what she wants. We’ll say we do not want to be announced yet. I’ll tell you what I have in mind when we’re inside.”

  “So what’s the plan?” said James, looking around the well-appointed bedroom with pleasure. There was a new bed with brocade curtains hanging from a central coronet. Curtains of finest Brussels lace fluttered lazily at the long windows. An exquisite little nosegay of flowers had been placed on a table beside the bed.

  “I am going to be a veritable Pink of the Ton,” said Lord Harry gleefully. “I am going to mince and scrape and bow and treat Miss Isabella as if I find her the veriest provincial. To that end, I need to borrow your clothes, my peacock.”

  “But your shoulders are broader than mine, and you’ll ruin my coats!”

  “With your fortune, James, you can replace them. You have often offered me money, and I have always refused. It will be like charades. You act like me for a change. Do you good.”

  James hesitated. Had he not been envying his friends carelessness earlier on? James had always worked to keep up appearances. Even after a bloody battle when all his comrades were lying about exhausted, Captain James Godolphin sat in the middle of them, carefully brushing his uniform. He had even invented a concoction for removing bloodstains. But just for a little, just to relax …

  “Very well,” he said.

  “Right. But I need paint and powder.”

  “I have some hair powder. Paint? I do not paint, Harry.”

  “My mother does. I wonder if she’s brought her toilet case along. I’ll go on a raid. Back in a minute.”

  After a while Lord Harry returned, triumphant. “Good old, Mama. Look at this. Blanc and rouge and some vile perfume, too. Here’s my traps, James, and I’ll take yours. Wait until you see the finished man.”

  James unpacked Lord Harry’s evening wear and, after a wash, put it on. It hung slightly loosely on him, particularly about the shoulders, but it felt amazingly comfortable. He brushed out his hairstyle, the Windswept, and then combed it back into a simple fashion.

  An hour later, Lord Harry appeared in all his glory, and James laughed out loud. Lord Harry now had his hair teased and curled into the Windswept. His face was covered in white blanc with two circles of rouge on his cheeks. James’s dark blue evening coat was strained across his shoulders, and James’s breeches on Lord Harry’s thighs were tight to the point of indecency. His watch chain was decorated with seals and fobs. He carried a large lace-edged handkerchief in one hand and a vinaigrette in the other.

  “What do you think?” he asked, twirling about.

  “Horrible. Don’t you want to marry her?”

  “Not much. I’ll probably have to, all the same. Let’s go down.”

  The Chadburys and Tremaynes waited impatiently in the drawing room. Dinner had been put back an hour. “What can be keeping them?” asked Lady Tremayne anxiously. “It’s not as if Harry ever bothers about dress.”

  Lucy, for her part, envied Isabella’s calm. The servants had said her brother had brought a friend with him. Would this prove to be the man of her dreams? Possibly not. Harry was thirty, and so it followed that his friend was probably old as well. She noticed a wine stain on the bodice of her dress and dabbed at it with a grubby handkerchief. “Try spitting on your handkerchief,” said her mother.

  “Seltzer is the best thing,” said Isabella. She carried over a small bottle of seltzer, soaked her own clean handkerchief with it, and then efficiently began to remove the stain from Lucy’s dress.

  “Viscount Tregar and Captain James Godolphin,” announced the butler.

  Isabella stood frozen, the seltzer soaked handkerchief in one hand. Lucy whispered, “Oh, dear.” The earl and countess stared, their mouths open, while Mr. and Mrs. Chadbury looked at each other in despair. Then the tableau broke up. The countess rose to her feet and darted to her son and flung her arms around him. “Harry, oh, dear Harry.”

  He put her gently aside and said in a rather high, precise voice, “Do be careful of Weston’s tailoring, Mama.”

  “Why, Harry! How you have changed. So this is your friend? Charmed.” The countess looked flustered. “You know the Chadburys, of course, and this, my dear, is Isabella.”

  Lord Harry bowed so low his nose nearly touched the ground. He waved his handkerchief in a series of elaborate swoops.

  Then he straightened up and raised a quizzing glass and studied his bride to be from the top of her burnished curls to her small and dainty feet.

  “You might do,” he said. “A little town bronze needed, I think.”

  “Isabella has had two Seasons in London,” commented her father stiffly.

  “Indeed!” Lord Harry walked slowly around Isabella as if examining a statue. “And she did not take?”

  “On the contrary,” exclaimed his mother. “Isabella received many proposals of marriage.”

  “Stap me! Never would have believed it!”

  “Harry,” snapped his father. “Stop prancing around like a coxcomb and mind your manners.”

  Lord Harry sat down after carefully raising the skirts of his coat. James, attempting his new role, lounged back in a chair next to him.

  “So tell me how the war goes,” said the earl. “Will we defeat Boney, think you?”

  “Tut, tut,” reproved his son. “Ladies present.” He turned to Isabella. “I must have new gloves made. I believe lavender is the latest color.”

  “Yes, for ladies,” said Lucy.

  “Nonetheless, I think lavender would suit me very well.” He began to discourse on glove makers in that new high mincing voice of his until Mrs. Chadbury said in desperation that they should all go in for dinner.

/>   James found he was sorry for Isabella. She was trying to mask her horror, but her beautiful eyes kept straying in Lord Harry’s direction as if looking at some species of loathsome insect. He found himself seated next to Lady Lucy. She was a pleasing, if messy, child, he considered as he amiably stooped several times to retrieve her napkin. “We don’t have these new things at the castle,” said Lucy. “We just wipe our mouths on the tablecloth in the good old English way.”

  James repressed a shudder. His man carried clean table linen as well as clean everything else for his master, even to the battlefront.

  Lord Harry was describing a play the officers had put on in Lisbon. “I was most effective,” he said. “I played the wronged virgin. You should have heard Wellington laugh. He said I had the neatest ankles he had ever seen.”