The Proper Wife

by Julia Justiss

  He shook his head in bemusement. “You certainly sound like the colonel.”

  Lord forfend, she thought. “The Park tomorrow, then?”

  He took a deep breath. “The Park tomorrow. Whatever your reasons, whatever the outcome—thank you. Your beauty is exceeded only by your kindness. Now, I should take you back before ’tis your reputation the ton is buzzing about.”

  Clarissa repressed a shudder. Still gripping his numb left hand, she let him lead her inside. She could almost feel the eyes of the crowd focus on them as they walked to the dance floor’s edge. Satisfied, she leaned close.

  “Can you lift your left hand with mine resting on it?”

  He raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Y-yes. But—”

  “Kiss my hand, please.”

  She knew the moment he realized Lady Barbara stood behind her. A grin blossomed on his face, obscuring the pain lines and making him look young and light-hearted again. “You,” he murmured as he touched her fingers to his lips, “are a minx.”

  “I should be delighted to drive with you in the Park tomorrow,” she said in a carrying voice. As a scowling Lord Alastair hastened to claim the hand the lieutenant relinquished, she gave him a quick wink.

  He acknowledged it with a nod, then bowed. “Until tomorrow, Miss Beaumont.” Without a sideways glance—as if no one else in the room was of any importance—the lieutenant crossed the dance floor and exited the ballroom.

  She watched his theatrical departure with an approval that intensified as she stole a glimpse at the surprise—and dismay—on Lady Barbara’s sweet young face.

  Several of her swains looked no better pleased. She singled out Lord Alastair and gave him her most captivating smile. “I feel…flushed, Robert. Could you escort me to the refreshments? I should love a glass of champagne.”

  Looking somewhat mollified, Alastair led her away. Miss Deidre and Miss Anabelle, she noted as she passed, stood with mouths agape.

  Helping Lieutenant Standish, she thought with great satisfaction, was going to be quite amusing.

  Having touched little of the substantial luncheon laid out for them, Sinjin rose to follow Hal, Englemere and his host out of the classically appointed dining room and down the marble hallway. Like Daniel going into the lion’s den, in a very few moments he would enter the parlor to make the acquaintance of Mr. Motrum’s daughter. Mercifully Englemere and Hal would remain for the introductions.

  He’d come to the luncheon alive with trepidation, some of which had been speedily allayed. A trim man of middle age with a quiet air of authority, as might be expected of one who oversaw a financial empire stretching from England to the Indies, Mr. Motrum had a blunt but refreshingly honest manner and displayed not a trace of nouveau-riche vulgarity. His home, decorated in neutral tones with classical detailing, was equally elegant and well-run. If the young lady was anything like her sire, Sinjin might well be able to end his quest at its beginning.

  If only they might conclude this as a business deal and meet for the first time at the altar, as often happened in weddings of state. But understandably, though frankly acknowledging the nature of the negotiations Englemere had undertaken on Sinjin’s behalf—and indicating his own investigation of the potential bridegroom reassured him Sinjin was an honorable man to whom he’d feel confident turning over his beloved daughter—Mr. Motrum stated his blessing on the union would be given only if his pet found the young aristocrat to her liking.

  As they turned a corner and entered the front hallway, Sinjin found it increasingly hard to move forward. By the time they reached the Adamesque archway outside the parlor door, his neck cloth had grown uncomfortably tight and his palms inside the kid gloves were damp.

  As favorably impressed as he’d been by his prospective father-in-law and as often as he’d steeled himself to the inevitability of it, Sinjin was discovering that actually presenting himself to Miss Motrum as a matrimonial offering was infinitely more degrading than he’d ever imagined.

  He reminded himself this was the fastest, most honorable way to fulfill his familial duty. He reassured himself there was no subterfuge—the young lady would not be expecting sham declarations of affection. He tried to convince himself the lady must meet his standards as well.

  He still couldn’t stop feeling like a high-priced stud about to be put on the block.

  Only ingrained duty and iron self-discipline kept him in place, his best attempt at a smile plastered on his face. He’d never abandoned his post, no matter how desperate or hopeless his position, and he didn’t intend to start now.

  He jumped, however, when Hal touched his elbow. “Steady,” the big man whispered. “Worst be over soon.”

  Grateful for the support, Sinjin took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and feeling for all the world as if he were about to face a firing squad, followed Mr. Motrum into the parlor.

  Chapter Eleven

  With a sense of unreality Sinjin murmured the correct greeting to Miss Motrum and her chaperone, then focused his attention on the young lady.

  Her lace-trimmed jonquil gown of expensive cut and costly material would have won the instant approval of his discriminating mama. Hair a shade more golden than Sarah’s, eyes of a deeper blue, and pleasant, regular features gave her a quiet beauty that was quite lovely.

  Neither vulgar nor an antidote. He was conscious of a sharp relief—and then anxiety. She looked…she looked just like a young lady of quality.

  Well, what had he expected—homespun? Her enormously wealthy papa, he’d been told, had her educated at one of England’s premier schools for young ladies and could well afford as many gowns and fripperies as she fancied.

  He bowed over her gloved hand, uncomfortably conscious of her nearness and a faint scent of violets.

  “A great pleasure, Miss Motrum.”

  “An even greater pleasure for us, dear Lord Sandiford,” her duenna enthused before Miss Motrum could reply. “You’re of the Hampshire Sandifords?”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Such a lovely county. I was just yesterday telling Anne it would be of all things agreeable to spend one’s summer in the country.”

  “It is indeed pleasant, ma’am.”

  Sinjin slid a glance at Miss Motrum. The young lady sat serenely, apparently quite content to let Mrs. Cartwright manage the conversation.

  Gritting his teeth, he made himself follow through on the plan he’d devised. “I understand the weather tomorrow will be fine, and hoped you two ladies might join me for a walk about Hyde Park. You do enjoy walking?”

  “Oh, Anne is excessively fond of walking. Though our own garden is quite pleasant, ’tis ever so much more…space in the Park.”

  “I like to walk,” Miss Motrum affirmed, reassuring him she possessed faculties of speech.

  “Very good, then, I shall call for you. Would eleven be convenient? ’Tis more pleasant when it is not crowded.”

  The duenna gave him a sharp look, as if suspecting he thought himself too high in the instep to be seen with them at the fashionable promenade hour. But Sinjin had no intention of doing something designed to draw down on them the speculation of the gossips. Not until he’d determined what action he meant to take regarding Miss Motrum—if then.

  At Mr. Motrum’s nod, Mrs. Cartwright turned her frown into a smile. “Yes, ’twill be easier for us all to get better acquainted without the discomforts of a milling crowd. ’Tis settled, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mercifully, as Sinjin’s panicky brain could come up with nothing further to say—though in truth, Mrs. Cartwright appeared well able to carry on both sides of the conversation—Englemere smoothly intervened. “Ladies, we must not trespass too long upon your time.”

  “No, indeed,” Sinjin affirmed with alacrity.

  “Mr. Motrum, thank you for an informative meeting and delicious lunch. Ladies, an honor to have met you.” Englemere bowed.

  “Honored,” Hal echoed.

  “Until tomorrow,” Sinjin sai
d. And with infinite relief, he bowed and followed his friends from the room.

  “Not so bad,” Hal said, clapping him on the shoulder as they descended the entry stairs. “Pretty gel.”

  “Yes. Pleasing manners, too,” Englemere said. “A bit…quiet, perhaps, but you might consider silence an admirable trait in a wife.”

  If it comes to that, Sinjin thought. “She is lovely. Gentlemen, my thanks for…smoothing the way.”

  “You are under no obligation to proceed,” Englemere added. “Mr. Motrum understands, and has assured me he has conveyed the understanding to his daughter, that a link between you will be pursued only if both parties agree to it. You have complete freedom of action.”

  Given his financial state, that wasn’t precisely true, but still he owed Englemere a debt for negotiating the business so delicately. “I appreciate your arranging it.”

  “Enough,” Hal pronounced. “Thirsty business. Have a drink?”

  In the aftermath of the meeting, he found himself too edgy to sit bending an elbow, even in Hal’s genial company. “Not now, thank you. I…I promised to ride with Alex.”

  True enough, if not prearranged for this afternoon. He thought longingly of a hard gallop across the open Spanish plain or the sweet earth of a Hampshire pasture. The Park would have to do.

  Turning down Englemere’s offer of a lift, Sinjin bid the men goodbye at their carriage. Relieved to be at last alone with his turbulent thoughts, he set off walking.

  Despite her expensive dress, Miss Motrum appeared in other respects to be an eminently proper candidate for his bride. She was attractive, her manners pretty, and better that she be reticent than bold. Once they became better acquainted, the bad taste in his mouth and the tension in his gut would disappear. They’d made a favorable beginning, he told himself firmly.

  Not until he’d hailed a jarvey and given the driver Alex’s direction did the odd thought occur. At the touch of his lips to Miss Motrum’s hand, he’d felt…nothing.

  Well, one didn’t need to fall on one’s wife like a mongrel in heat. Given his dislike of the whole business, at this awkward early juncture he could hardly expect to drum up warmer feelings. The lady was lovely enough, and surely as he came to know his future bride better the idea of performing a husband’s duties would generate more excitement. A necessity, if he wanted heirs.

  The image of Sarah’s son suddenly recurred and something wrenched in his chest. Sons to teach to fish and shoot, daughters to dote on and tease and spoil. Yes, children would go a long way to reconciling him to a suitable but loveless match.

  Should he and Miss Motrum decide to proceed, affection would doubtless come in time. Respect and affection would be enough. It would have to be.

  Damn and blast, he was turning mawkish again. A stiff drink and hard gallop would set him to rights, and Alex was just the fellow with whom to share them.

  He reached his friend’s rooms to be met by the disquieting intelligence that Lieutenant Standish had gone out—driving. Incredulous, for Alex’s weak leg made balancing in a carriage a precarious business, Sinjin questioned him further, but the valet continued to insist his master meant to take a phaeton to the Park.

  Sinjin’s uncertain mix of emotions seethed into anxiety. Whatever possessed Alex to attempt something so bacon-brained? If that spill from his horse on Bond Street had embarrassed as well as injured him, how much more humiliating it would be to take a tumble before the entire ton, massed together at promenade hour and hawk-eyed for the latest scrap of gossip?

  Damn Lady Barbara and women in general, he swore, memory of a certain red-haired termagant adding vehemence to his oath.

  But as he awaited a hackney, he realized the idea of Alex driving Lady Barbara made no sense. For one, he doubted the countess would entrust her precious daughter to his “damaged” lieutenant. Second, as far as he knew Alex had no carriage in London, and wouldn’t be able to impress a gnat with the well-worn vehicles obtainable for hire.

  Puzzlement and worry intensified during the interminable drive to the Park. As soon as practical, he sprang down, tossing the fare in the driver’s general direction as his eyes scanned the crowd for coats of the Tenth’s distinctive blue hue. His temper shortening with every pace, he forced his way along a path thronged with vehicles and horsemen, wishing he’d thought to return to his lodgings for Valiant.

  When he finally spotted the back of Alex’s dark head over a familiar, silver-laced blue coat, his heart nearly stopped. Not only was the gudgeon fool enough to drive the lady in green beside him, they sat some six feet off the ground in a high-perch phaeton, a dangerously unstable vehicle under the best of circumstances.

  Eyeing the green-clad damsel with murder on his mind, Sinjin fought his way toward the vehicle. He hadn’t ridden miles over a bloody battlefield, his unconscious lieutenant’s shattered body draped across his saddle, to let the cloth-headed fool pitch himself out of that accident waiting to happen and ruin the field surgeon’s hard and painful work.

  He’d come up with some excuse to force Alex down, then drive the blasted chit home himself. Mercifully, since the press of the crowd slowed Sinjin’s progress to a crawl, Alex’s carriage had stopped while the lady conversed with some friends on horseback.

  Panting slightly, he rounded the front of the equippage and prepared to offer a greeting. But instead of Lady Barbara’s heart-shaped face and cornflower eyes, he glanced up at an all-too-familiar profile. His words of welcome caught in his throat.

  It couldn’t be Miss Beaumont! As far as he knew, the lieutenant wasn’t even acquainted with her. And whatever was she doing, laughing up at Alex so coyly, one gloved hand clasped cozily over his, her other holding the reins?

  Before he could dredge up coherent speech, Alex spotted him. “Hallo, Colonel! Lovely day for a drive, is it not? You are acquainted with Miss Beaumont?”

  Sinjin bowed, trying to reshape his grimace into a smile. “Ma’am.”

  “Colonel.” She accorded him a cool nod.

  “Miss Beaumont wished me to evaluate the action of this fine new pair she just purchased. ’Twas an even greater privilege, though, to witness how skillfully she handles them. I must say, when I first saw the carriage I had my doubts a lady could control it, but you’re quite a whipster, ma’am. Bore me here as gently as if I’d been rocking in a cradle.”

  Fortunately the lieutenant’s words were addressed to the lady, since Sinjin was still too flabbergasted to speak.

  A cradle indeed, he thought, fuming. Of course this highly unstable, highly unsuitable carriage would be hers—and of course she would confound modesty and tradition by driving it herself. ’Twas all of a piece with her earlier actions—reckless, thoughtless, impulsive. Well, she may have dazzled poor heartsick Alex, who was evidently too confused and vulnerable now to be thinking clearly, into believing this conveyance safe—with a female at the reins, no less!—but Sinjin knew better.

  “Should you like to take a turn, Colonel, if Miss Beaumont permits?” Alex turned to the lady. “The colonel’s a fine judge of horseflesh, ma’am. I think the beasts a superior pair, but if he agrees, you can rest assured you have the very best.”

  “I’m sure I can rely on your opinion, Lieutenant,” Miss Beaumont said, ignoring Sinjin.

  Of course the last thing he wished was to put himself back into proximity of the unmanageable redhead’s acid tongue—but having been offered a perfect avenue to detach Alex from his perilous perch, Sinjin nobly put aside personal inclination. “I should like that very much, Miss Beaumont. I’ve never been driven by a lady.”

  Skeptical green eyes fixed on his. “I’m quite sure you haven’t.” Then, after a pause so long Sinjin felt heat rise to his face, she finally shrugged. “Since you think it amusing, Colonel, by all means join me for a circuit.”

  While Sinjin held his breath, Alex managed to lower himself to the ground without incident, even clapping Sinjin on the shoulder and abjuring him to enjoy his ride.

  Perversely ann
oyed by the lieutenant’s cheerfulness, Sinjin hauled himself up to the ridiculously high seat and tried not to glower at its driver.

  “You’ll wait for us?” he asked Alex. “I’ve a matter of some urgency to discuss. If you are ready, Miss Beaumont?”

  With a flick of the reins, she set the carriage in motion. Sinjin braced himself beside her, trying to withdraw from his murderous thoughts snippets polite enough for conversation.

  Her proximity wasn’t helping. He had trouble arranging coherent sentences with her insidiously seductive body a mere handspan away.

  Damn and blast! What sort of rig was she running with Alex, driving him in the Park in full view of the assembled ton? With his bruised heart and damaged ego, he was much too vulnerable to one of her dangerous attraction. Given a little encouragement, the poor sot might well imagine himself in love with her—or at least in lust, no more comfortable a condition, as he knew all too well.

  With the crowd of suitors already hanging about her, she had no need to feed her vanity by adding his lieutenant to the number. And so he’d tell her.

  “Well, Colonel? Are you satisfied yet that I won’t overturn us? Or is terror still tying your tongue?”

  The despicable chit was laughing at him. Again. Stifling an urge to snap at her, he said through gritted teeth, “I must admit you drive rather well. For a woman.”

  She laughed then in truth. “Almost a handsome admission. Come, Colonel, you look as if you’d lunched upon cannonballs. What have I done now to incur your displeasure?”

  He wouldn’t pass up such an opening. “You’ve been driving my lieutenant in this infernal contraption. Da—Good Heavens, Miss Beaumont, can you not tell how weak his left leg is? Should the carriage jolt in that direction, with his bad hand he cannot even grip the rail to brace himself. One sharp curve, and he’d be out on the pavement, lucky if humiliation were the only harm he suffered!”