The Unmarriageable Collection (Books 1–3)

by Lancaster, Mary

  I’ll wash and dress while I think about it. And if she donned her more becoming walking dress—another hand-me-down from Thomasina—well, she would be going out later in the morning.

  Of course, the outcome of her internal debate was inevitable. She might as well have made her decision as soon as he asked her yesterday evening, when the warmth of his company and the fun of their duet still enfolded her. Hesitating, between the matching pelisse and her old cloak, she snatched up the cloak and all but ran from the room.

  The maid kneeling at the front door to polish the brasses, rose and let her out with a cheerful, “Good morning, Miss!”

  “If their ladyships inquire, Molly, I’m just going to walk on the beach,” she said with determined openness. “If the tide is out.”

  “It is, Miss.”

  Of course it was. She doubted his grace ever made such mistakes.

  It was but a short walk to the beach and she saw no one but the butcher’s boy weighed down by parcels and a couple of maids scrubbing front steps. The nearest part of the beach looked deserted as she walked down the worn path, and she had no idea which way Alvan would come, if he remembered. Or, indeed, exactly when. All she could do was walk as far as the cove beyond the town and back again and enjoy the exercise and the scenery. If he joined her… well, she would worry about that if he did.

  She walked as briskly as she could on the sand—this was a much more pleasant beach than the pebbly one at Brighton—breathing in the tangy, salty air as she watched wispy clouds drift across the sky. More ominous clouds lurked in the distance, promising rain before the castle ball. A few boats bobbed in the water, approaching or leaving the harbor. In all, it was an idyllic scene and one she could appreciate, though it didn’t distract her entirely from searching the beach ahead for the duke.

  In the end, he surprised her by coming up from behind and simply falling into step beside her.

  All the breath seemed to leave her body.

  “I didn’t know if you would come,” he murmured.

  “Neither did I,” she managed.

  “I hoped that your curiosity at least would be in my favor.”

  He knew her too well. His stride was long and easy beside her, effortlessly keeping up with her brisker steps. She had always liked the way he moved, all controlled grace and latent strength. He must be physically perfect…

  Hastily, she dragged her mind away from its shocking speculations. “What is it that you wished to say to me?” she asked, almost desperately.

  “Nothing,” he confessed, then shrugged before the indignation in her glance. “And everything. I wanted to be alone with you somewhere I would not frighten you.”

  “You do not frighten me anywhere,” she snapped.

  “Not even at Mooreton Hall?”

  A blush rose up from her toes which he tried in vain to will away. “I expect you’ve forgotten that was not the first time you kissed me!”

  “Trust me, that is not the sort of thing I forget.”

  She risked a glance at him and found his eyes slightly rueful, yet warm enough to burn.

  He said, “I was rough and I was rude. I apologize unreservedly for both.”

  “You are forgiven.” She dragged her gaze free. “What did you mean when you said your hatred was not for me?”

  “It is—was—for me.”

  She frowned, bringing her gaze back to his face. “So you said. Why?”

  Now it was he, clearly, who found the conversation difficult. “I hated that you saw me like that,” he muttered. “I hated that I could even dream of treating you so, and could not tell the difference between dreams, fantasy, and reality.” He drew in a deep breath. “I am not, at heart, a good man and God help me, I so wanted—want—you to think well of me.”

  Because she could not help it, she touched his hand. “You are a good man. But no one is good all the time.”

  He smiled, such a rare event that she was dazzled and did not notice for a moment, that his hand had turned and his fingers curled around hers. “What a very comforting philosophy.”

  She drew her hand free. “I hope it is,” she said with dignity.

  He made no effort to take back her hand, though there was no one near them.

  “What of Thomasina?” she said in a rush. She felt his gaze on her averted face.

  “What of her?” he inquired. “I wish her well and happy.”

  “She was lying about being engaged to Lord Dunstan,” Charlotte admitted.

  “So I gathered when no announcement was forthcoming. If we are being frank, I doubted Dunstan’s modest fortune would allow the repair of Lord Overton’s. But there was no need for her to go to such lengths to dismiss me. I am good at hints.”

  “She didn’t want rid of you,” Charlotte said earnestly. “She was trying to make you jealous and finally speak. She was distraught when you left.”

  Part of Tommie’s distress, of course, was her thwarted ambitions to be a duchess, but she could not betray her sister that far. In any case, she was sure he already knew.

  “I am sorry for that,” he said. “For the whole misunderstanding, in fact. And I confess that Thomasina’s false engagement gave me the excuse I needed to back out. I could not marry your sister.”

  “Then why did you come?” she demanded, almost in despair.

  He looked up at the sky and she knew he didn’t want to talk about this either. But she would not let him off the hook.

  “A man must marry. I am seven and twenty, and I knew it was time.” He glanced down at her. “Whatever people might think, I did not pluck Thomasina out of the air, out of a short-list of well born young women. When I met her in London, I sensed… a warmth beneath her civil discourse and pretty manner. And I liked that she was a little older, a little different from the average debutante. I thought she would make a good duchess, and a pleasant wife.”

  “But you did not love her?”

  He shook his head. “I do not allow myself to love. In my experience, my title and my wealth distort every natural feeling, my own included. I did not think Miss Maybury expected me to love her.”

  “She didn’t. She hoped you would like her.”

  “I did. I do.” Roughly, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “And then there was you.”

  “Don’t,” she whispered, in agony.

  “I did not mean to love you. I did not even notice that I did, just that I rejoiced in your company, in your every word and gesture, every smile, the sound of your laughter… then, the night of the robbery, when I thought you would be shot, when you clearly expected me to take you with me in pursuit… I had a moment of revelation mixed with reckless idiocy. I thought I could solve everything by taking you with me. If you were compromised, you would have to marry me and then I could not marry your sister, and you and I would be happy. Only, it didn’t quite work out that way. You would not have me.”

  Annoying tears lurked in her throat, but she ignored them. “How could I accept the man destined to be my sister’s husband?” She swallowed. “You should still speak to Thomasina.”

  “About marriage?” He shook his head. “It would be a lie now. That is over. It’s you I wish to marry.”

  “You must see that is impossible,” she whispered.

  “There is only one thing that would make it impossible.”

  She could not help her quizzical glance up at him.

  “That I repel you,” he said flatly. “And I don’t believe I do.”

  Her face flamed as she dragged her gaze free. But quite suddenly, his fingers closed around her wrist and tugged. She spun, stumbling in the sand and found herself pinned between the cliffside and Alvan’s large body. His arm swept around her under her cloak.

  “May I kiss you?” he asked softly.

  “No!” she gasped.

  “But your eyes say yes.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “The warmth of your trembling body says yes.”

  “You have just apologized for treating me roughly!”

 
“Oh, I shan’t be rough,” he promised. “One kiss. I’ll make it sweet.”

  She tried to block the desperate temptation with visions of Thomasina, but all she could see was his blazing eyes, the texture of his lips, the quickened rise and fall of his chest. In the end, it was only sheer stubbornness that saved her.

  “No,” she said.

  She thought he might do it anyway, and God help her, most of her wanted him to. Certainly, instead of releasing her, his arms tightened, and his gaze lifted very slowly from her mouth to her eyes.

  “I shan’t give up, you know,” he murmured.

  She tilted her chin. “Neither shall I.”

  “Your heart says otherwise. It beats like a rabbit against mine.”

  “That changes nothing.”

  “Do you love me, Charlie?”

  “Don’t ask me that,” she said brokenly. “It is not kind.”

  Slowly, his arms loosened. He took her hand and stepped back. “I can wait. Don’t be upset. I’m trying to look after us both.”

  From somewhere, quite inappropriate laughter sprang up. She tried to swallow it down, which made her voice shake. “You have very odd methods.”

  “I won’t deny it.” Threading her hand through his arm, he began to walk on. “Tell me about poor Spring. What is he doing without you?”

  She grasped on to the easy topic like a drowning woman to a strong arm. And somehow in the funny conversation, the tension evaporated into something that came close to their old camaraderie. By the time they reached the house in Shore Street, she could cope with the invasive thrill of his company, because deep inside, she was more content than she had been since he’d left Audley Park.

  *

  Her encounter with the duke added a secret thrill to preparations for the castle ball. For though she suspected he had spoken as he did out of mere kindness, still trying to right the wrong of their reckless pursuit of the robbers, she could not deny that she loved him to distraction. That he, the Duke of Alvan, should even look at her, the unmarriageable daughter of the family, seemed absurd and she could not allow herself to think seriously about his words. And yet she did, somewhere, for insidious fantasies of him in her future kept creeping up at all sorts of odd times.

  She wanted to eat breakfast and dinner with him, ride with him around his vast estates, and help look after his people. She wanted to walk by his side, talk with him, laugh with him, enjoy his kisses without guilt. She wanted desperately to keep him from bouts of melancholia. And if she couldn’t manage the last, she wanted to care for him until he was better again.

  Somewhere during the afternoon, she finally remembered with a twinge of unworthy jealousy, that Lady Gordyn was in Blackhaven. She wondered if anyone had warned him. And then she wondered again if Lady Gordyn was not the real reason for his presence here. But no, he would not propose to Charlotte while conducting an affair with a married lady… would he? It seemed dishonorable to her, but as her mother had been at pains to explain to Thomasina and Henrietta, men were strange that way. What they did outside the home had nothing to do with the regard and respect in which they held their wives.

  Which was another aspect of marriage that had always repelled Charlotte. Even her fantasy of living with Alvan would be quite spoiled if she had to accommodate his visits to a mistress, even Lady Gordyn whom he had loved before… and how had she allowed herself to be thinking this way in the first place?

  Blinking, she found herself gazing at her own reflection in the glass. Cecily’s dresser had just put the finishing touches to her hair, and she had to admit the woman had done another excellent job. Thomasina’s green ball gown looked rather fine with its new trim and seemed to flatter Charlotte’s coloring.

  “Why, you have made me look quite elegant!” she said in surprise.

  Cecily laughed. “You look lovely, silly girl. Well done, Cranston! Come, Charlotte, let us promenade for Alvan’s benefit!”

  Alvan, discovered kicking in his heels in the drawing room, pronounced them both delightful. Charlotte imagined his eyes glowed as they surveyed her, but then, she seemed to be imagining a lot these days.

  “You’re looking rather handsome yourself, Alvan,” Cecily said generously. “You suit evening dress, does he not, Charlotte?”

  “Indeed,” Charlotte said hastily.

  “He scrubs up well enough,” allowed Lady Barnaby, splendid in acres of lavender silk with a somewhat startling headdress of peacock feathers. “Let us go before he wears a hole in the carpet and my feathers wilt.”

  Obligingly, Alvan held the drawing room door and bowed them through. Charlotte paused, allowing Cecily to get several paces ahead, and kept her voice low. “I don’t know if you’re aware that Lady Gordyn will most probably be at the ball tonight.”

  He blinked, with no sign of the shock he had given away at the Laceys’ party. “No, I was not aware,” he replied gravely.

  She nodded and made to pass, but this time, he detained her, standing in her way. A faint frown married his brow. “What I felt for her is long since in the past. I hope you don’t imagine anything else.”

  “It is none of my business,” she said hastily, although she wasn’t entirely sure it was past for Lady Gordyn, whatever his feelings. “I merely tell you as a friend. We should join the others.”

  He stood aside. “Of course.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Inevitably, Charlotte and Cecily argued over who should sit beside Lady Barnaby facing the direction of travel and who should have their back to the horses next to Alvan. Cecily won, by virtue of being there first and refusing to budge. Charlotte didn’t know whether it was easier to sit close to him or opposite him when their eyes could meet by accident or design.

  “Apparently the ball is a tradition every spring,” Lady Barnaby said. “It used to be a smaller affair, largely for the local gentry, although prominent families came quite large distances to attend. In the last few years, Braithwaite has brought friends from London, too, and of course, there are a lot of visitors to the town Lady Braithwaite feels obliged to invite.”

  “Like us?” Alvan asked wryly.

  “I don’t think anyone feels obliged to invite you, Alvan,” Lady Barnaby said, “They merely hope, generally in vain. I’m sure her ladyship will be gratified to see you.”

  “Who wouldn’t be?” Alvan murmured.

  “He thinks it’s because he’s a duke,” Cecily informed Charlotte. “While in truth, he has simply made himself so mysterious by accepting so few invitations, that everyone is agog when he does deign to turn up.”

  It was only a short drive to the castle, which stood in a blaze of lights. They entered by an impressive front door and were guided along a richly carpeted floor to the old part of the castle where the ballroom was located. Apparently, it was the castle’s original great hall, but it made a wonderful ballroom, hung with greenery and spring flowers and lit from hundreds of candles, and with recently installed French windows leading onto a well-lit terrace and formal garden below. The grandeur of the surroundings and the brilliance of the guests overwhelmed Charlotte at first.

  Lady Braithwaite welcomed them graciously. The earl, her son, greeted them with less formality, kindly telling Charlotte that he was acquainted with her parents and her sister. Almost immediately, she felt lost in a sea of people, but Alvan navigated a way through the crowd and found them seats close to the dance floor. There, they were besieged by people known to Cecily and Lady Barnaby, a few of whom Charlotte had met at the assembly rooms.

  Alvan backed away, looking contented, as if he was glad to be free, although the next time she saw him, he was standing up to dance with Lady Frances, the earl’s sister. A duty dance, but one that certainly did not irk him.

  Charlotte, appalled by these sudden, uncharacteristic twinges of jealousy, tried to concentrate on her own partner. During this dance, she also saw Frank Cornell arrive in company with an army officer. When he won Cecily’s hand for the next dance, she felt uneasy, perhaps becau
se she knew Alvan would not approve. Alvan however, was dancing now with Lady Braithwaite’s younger daughter, and Lady Barnaby had made no objection to Cecily’s choice of partner, so she tried to put it out of her mind. It was easier, certainly, because she had no shortage of partners of her own.

  As she sat down at last with Cecily and Lady Barnaby, and was presented with lemonade to cool down, she caught sight of Alvan strolling around the ballroom with Lady Gordyn, deep in conversation. She looked away hastily, appalled that such a little thing could hurt her. She wanted him to be happy, did she not? So, she would have to get used to seeing him with other women, with a wife, and children who were not hers…

  She gulped down her lemonade in a manner not quite ladylike. The gentleman who had brought it—she could not remember his name, but he had a sick sister—seemed more amused than disgusted. He even asked if she would do him the honor of standing up with him for the next dance, which was a waltz.

  “How dare you muscle in?” an officer said at once, in a half-joking manner. “I asked the lady first.”

  “I don’t remember that,” Charlotte confessed. “Did I say yes?”

  A speculative look entered the officer’s eyes.

  “Of course you did not,” his rival said at once. “If you don’t remember it, you can’t have said it. I stand by my claim.”

  “What claim?” the officer demanded. “She didn’t accept you either.”

  “In that case, you had better leave them to fight it out,” another very different voice advised, and she looked up in startlement at the Duke of Alvan. His lips quirked. “And dance with me instead.”

  He held out his hand compellingly, as though she had no choice. And it seemed she didn’t, for her other suitors melted aside, though with bad grace. Reluctantly—at least she told herself she was reluctant although her heart beat so wildly—she took his hand and stood up.

  “I shouldn’t dance with either of them,” Alvan recommended as they walked across the floor.