The Wedding Chase

by Rebecca Kelley

  Robin. Of course it came back to Robin. The thought of him in prison horrified her. She could never let it happen. Her shoulders sagged. “Finding a suitable husband may be more difficult than you realize.” She rubbed her eyes. “You may require only wealth, but I require that he neither attempt to control my life nor interfere with my work.”

  “Husband has the right to tell his wife what’s what.” His mouth curled. She felt sickened by his triumphant gloating. “Unless you can find some man-milliner who’ll be happy to let you run his life.”

  “You forget several important points.” Zel was determined to quash that victorious smirk. “I have never gone out in London’s fashionable society. I am too old for the marriage mart. I know nothing of flirtation or pleasing a man.” She fluttered her lashes, laughing harshly. “I am far from the conventional standard of beauty. I am too tall, too blunt. I value utilitarian over frivolous pursuits.” She pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I will appear as a post-horse among Thoroughbreds and will never receive a single offer.”

  “You’ve got more brains than any of them. You’ve got your mother’s looks, though you don’t make the most of them.” Papa’s smirk had not diminished. “Spend some time on your appearance. Keep your mouth shut or use it to flatter.”

  He gave her an appraising look. “You could stand with the best of them. If the young bucks are fools, you can easily catch a rich old widower who needs a mama for his children or a little comforting in his dotage. You know my sister will be happy to help. Diana has friends in the best circles.” He finally met her eyes. “You have to do it, girl. Robin’s depending on you.”

  “I am not a girl. You also seem to forget that no man will care to burden himself with in-laws running from debtors’ prison.” Zel dropped her eyes, her voice low and quiet. As much as she would like to defy her father, she would not abandon her brother, no matter how futile she believed this plan to be. Besides, she had no better ideas. “I will do what I must, for Robin.”

  “Zel, we cannot hurry this. One does not jump into a season. It must be planned … every detail made just so, just so.” Diana Marie Fleetwood Stanfield patted her gray-flecked hair as she paced from the window to the door in the bright, floral-papered drawing room. Most of Aunt Diana’s house was well worn, the furnishings long past their prime. But her aunt’s careful budgeting had preserved this room along with the dining room and small salon. “You have no clothes, your hair …” Zel squirmed on the pianoforte stool as Aunt Diana surveyed her with a critical eye. “You need vouchers for Almack’s, invitations.… Invitations will not be a problem. With so many in Paris celebrating Napoleon’s defeat, the hostesses are looking for anyone to fill their ballrooms. But we must do this right.”

  “Aunt Diana, I cannot afford to wait. The creditors are pounding at the door. Robin is truly done for this time.” Zel laid her fingers heavily on the keys, feeling as taut as the instrument’s inner strings. Remus hovered at her side.

  “Oh, Zel dear, I am so sorry.” She stopped and spread the thick drapes, looking out the window. “I know you wish to remain single. Now you face the uncertainties of marriage. If I had the money … if only I did.”

  “But you do not. Father is certain I can land a wealthy husband.” Zel went to her aunt’s side, frowning at the spring blossoms in the tiny courtyard below. “I am not so certain. And if I do get an offer, how can I be sure he will not be like my father?”

  “Or my late husband.” The old bitterness touched Aunt Diana’s voice. “Child, pick carefully … and well.”

  “How can one know? Stanfield was so charming.” Zel forced a smile. She dearly loved the older woman and knew her aunt looked on her as the child she never had, despite only ten years difference in their ages. Even with little to share—the bulk of her husband’s estate having passed to a distant cousin—she always welcomed her brother’s family into her home. “Forgive me. I know you hate to think of him.”

  “We need to think of you. I wish you would wait, but if you cannot …” Aunt Diana’s handsome face brightened. “I know just the thing. My friend Julianna, Lady Selby, you remember her … her house party. But it starts in a few days.” She tapped lightly on the windowpane. “It would be perfect for you to practice a little flirting, polish up your manners.” She turned to Zel, frowning again. “But your—your clothes.…”

  “I know my clothes are not at all the thing, but I can afford nothing better.” Zel swirled and curtsied, laughing as she nearly tripped over Remus’s inert form. “I shall be the Dandyess of Dowd.”

  “Now, Zel, my sweet, do not fun me. We must think of something. You know clothes dress the man … are the man. Oh, whatever that saying is, you know what I mean. Clothes are important.” She resumed pacing, her tall form moving with a compelled grace. “Zel, my coming out clothes, in the attic. I saved them all these years. They are scarcely worn, as my husband kept me in the country. They would only need a few tucks to fit you to perfection.”

  “Aunt Diana, they are nearly fifteen years old. They must be moth-eaten and the style completely outdated.”

  “No, no, they are well cared for. I take them out sometimes.… I like to remember the days before I married.” She looked at Zel, excitement overtaking the sadness in her eyes. “I was nearly as slender as you, and so carefree.… The simple elegant lines would flatter you so. The thin silks and muslins cling to the natural shape of the body.”

  “Aunt Diana.” Zel stared at the older woman. “I do not wish to appear a loose woman.”

  “We will try not to offend your modesty.” Aunt Diana chuckled. “You may wear a shift and a petticoat, as I did.”

  “I will not wear a corset.” She frowned. “Nor do I like yards and yards of ribbon and lace.”

  “There is no lace and little ribbon, and they will require almost no remodeling. But the whites and pastels will be all wrong for you … as they were for me.” Aunt Diana rubbed absently at her jaw. “I know, we shall dye them. Bright jewel colors. Sapphire, emerald, aquamarine to accent your eyes. Ruby and garnet to bring color to your cheeks.”

  “But such bright colors are frowned upon for unmarried women.” Zel was not at all sure about this whole scheme.

  “Posh, you are old enough to carry them off.” She gifted Zel with a brilliant smile. “No one will blink an eye. We’ll leave just a few white or pastel for the most formal occasions.”

  “Can they be ready in two days?”

  “Two days?” Aunt Diana fluttered about the window. “It will take several dyings to get the colors right. Nothing will be ready for the house party.”

  “Then I shall wear the best of my old gowns.”

  “Oh, you should wait. But I know how you are when you have made up your mind.” She stopped abruptly. “There is a lovely, classically styled riding habit.… With a few tucks it should fit admirably. At least you would look presentable atop a horse.”

  “If I ride.”

  “You must ride. Lord Selby keeps a fine stable.”

  “I would like to ride. If I remember how.” Zel resolutely faced her aunt. “Please write Lady Selby and tell her to expect me. Will you come?”

  “I must stay here and prepare your wardrobe.” Aunt Diana patted her arm. “I will probably have more fun. The guests may be very dull.”

  “I will check on the coach times.” Zel’s voice was businesslike, with the plan now agreed upon.

  “Zel Fleetwood. You will not take the public coach. Julianna’s sister will attend. You shall ride with her.”

  “Aunt Diana, I cannot thank you enough, for all of this.” Zel put a hand on her aunt’s shoulder and kissed her cheek.

  “You may run roughshod over me on most everything, Zel, but there is one other thing on which I will stand firm.” Aunt Diana rose to her full height, ready to do battle. “That monstrous hound of yours will remain here. He would surely intimidate even the sturdiest suitor, and Julianna would never, never allow a near horse in her house.”

&nbs
p; “But Mouse will miss me. And he will obey no one but me.” Remus stirred, thumping his tail against her skirts.

  “No, dear, Smythe will learn to control him, and the dog will carry on without you, for a few days.”

  “I suppose you are right. Remus would frighten to death the type of husband I seek.” Zel laughed, but a vision of a well-favored face half-hidden by tousled black hair and a tall muscular form hoisting her brother’s body hovered in her mind. She squashed it. “After all, I am looking for the richest, oldest, most mild-mannered and most easily controlled man in England.”

  Rafael owed him for this one. How would a dull country house party further his acceptance by polite society? Unlikely to advance his political career, it was more likely to place him irretrievably in that most deadly of spots, the marriage mart. Wolfgang shuddered as the borrowed valet tied his cravat. Satan’s misbegotten! The thought of those matchmaking mamas turned his skin cold. A wife! The last thing in the world he needed or wanted.

  He’d missed dinner but hadn’t timed his arrival well enough to miss what would surely be an excruciating musical evening. He pushed aside the valet’s hands. “Stop fussing. This will do.”

  As he descended the stairs two at a time, the first lambent strains tickled his ears. The music swelled as he strode down the long hall. This was not the fumbling amateur recital typical of a country retreat. Lady Selby must have hired a professional musician.

  Slipping into the crowded music room, he leaned against a silk-hung wall, absorbing the ebb and flow of the melodious tide of notes. Too soon the music stopped, applause forcing him to reluctantly bring his attention back to the gaudy room. A husky female voice informed the audience they had heard a selection of Bach’s preludes and fugues. Next she would play Beethoven’s Sonata in C-sharp minor, recently named the Moonlight Sonata.

  Beethoven, he sighed, ready for the music to consume him, but first to discover the maker of the astonishing sounds. Wolfgang edged along the wall toward the pianoforte, watching the pianist’s slim shoulders sway, as if buffeted by the very tones she produced. Moving until he stood nearly beside her at the piano bench, he leaned against the pier table, observing her delicate profile. Her face was flushed, her full lips parted, her large, ever-so-slightly slanted eyes glazed in sightless concentration. Strands of errant sable hair dusted her smooth brow.

  Her breathing came fast and shallow, her hands alternately caressing, coaxing, and compelling the pianoforte until it became an animate object, quickened to do her bidding, alive at the touch of her long, slender fingers. A grimace passed over his face as he found himself blessing his mother. She gave him precious little in his life, but she had given him this reverence for music. Nothing else stirred him so, yet gave him such peace.

  The last note resounded throughout the room. The musical sorceress sat motionless, waiting while the applause played out. The crowd silently followed the hostess, Lady Selby, through the carved door, bursting into chatter upon reaching the hall.

  Wolfgang found his progress arrested by a hand on his arm. “Gadth, man, odd to thee you here,” Jeremy Crawley, Lord Melbourne, drawled, his irritating childhood lisp increasingly exaggerated as the man advanced further into adulthood. “I’d have thought you’d be in Parith thelebrating Napoleon’th defeat.”

  “I have no desire to join the revelers. My tour in the army showed me all I wish to see of the Continent for years to come.”

  He glanced over the shorter man’s shoulder. The pianoforte’s bench lay empty. Devil it! He scanned the room. Was she the brunette passing through the door? The woman’s face was averted, but she was too short.

  Wolfgang walked beside Melbourne, his usual pace hampered by the deliberate cadence of the crowd. “The entertainment tonight was a cut above average.” Wolfgang’s voice projected the proper hint of boredom. “Did Lady Selby judge the talents of the company so meager as to require importing a musician?”

  “Oh, that’th Mith Fleetwood.” Melbourne’s padded yellow shoulders shrugged. “Her aunt’th a friend to Lady Thelby.”

  Fleetwood? He’d heard that name, and recently—the young fool several days ago at Maven’s. Stepping into the drawing room with Melbourne at his heels, Wolfgang again surveyed the crowd. Did the lovely body and seductive flow of hair of his apparition belong with the passionate face and manner of the pianist? This dull house party got better by the minute.

  “I’d like an introduction,” Wolfgang announced, twisting to view the rest of the room.

  “Introduction? Oh, to her. Why the devil would you want to meet her?” Melbourne eyed him with suspicion. “A bluethtocking. A dyed-in-the-wool thpinthter. And too bold at the pianoforte to be much of a lady.”

  “Exactly.”

  Melbourne grinned stupidly and gestured across the room. “That’th her thanding bethide Lady Thelby, over there.”

  Wolfgang nodded his thanks and slipped over to stand beside Lady Selby and the woman Melbourne had indicated. Was this the impassioned pianist with whom he had shared a paean to the gods only moments earlier? She was brunette and very tall, with a delicate, pointed bone structure and a mouth too large for the accepted standards of beauty. He would be tempted to call her looks feline or even elfish except for her height and quiet dignity. But where was the spirit, the fire? And those spectacles and that shapeless mud-brown gown, where in Lucifer’s flaming realm did they come from?

  Turning with exaggerated politeness to where Lady Selby spread herself on a brocaded sofa, Wolfgang lightly grasped the proffered hand. He brushed the woman’s fingers, plump sausages encased in kid gloves and golden rings, with his lips.

  “Ah, Northcliffe, you decided to grace us with your presence.” Her jowled, turbanned head bobbed a greeting. “Never tell me you are here to peruse the latest batch of debutantes?”

  “My lady, would I tell you such a tale? I am interested in establishing political, not family, ties.” He released her hand, lying effortlessly. “Forgive me for coming late but I had business in town.” He glanced at her silent companion. “If the rest of the week is equal to tonight, I shall breathlessly await your every entertainment.”

  “My dear sir, if compliments are due, they are surely owing to the musical interpretations of Miss Fleetwood.” Her generous bosom quivering, she turned to the young woman standing at her side. “Zel, dear, have you met the earl?”

  He regarded the object of Lady Selby’s inquiry. A faint coloring washed over her cheeks as her eyes darted away from his close scrutiny. A touch of feminine modesty as she remembered their first meeting?

  “No, my lady,” she murmured, the low pitch rumbling gently as a cat’s purr.

  “Miss Fleetwood, may I present Wolfgang Hardwicke, earl of Northcliffe.” Lady Selby shot him a look of warning. “Northcliffe, may I present Miss Grizelda Fleetwood.”

  As he raised her gloved hand to his mouth her eyes lifted, her gaze dancing across his face. A faint scent of spice hovered about her. Now he could see beneath the thin lenses of her spectacles. A spark, a flash of golden fire illuminated her large sea-blue almond-shaped eyes.

  “Charmed, Miss Fleetwood.” He held on to her long, slender fingers, his eyes capturing hers. “Your playing tonight was superb, and how brave to play the daring Herr Beethoven.”

  “Brave, my lord?”

  He focused his gaze on the laughter barely contained by her full lips. Did she think him a prude, offended by her ardent rendition of Beethoven? No, her embarrassment had fled at the mention of Wolfgang’s name—turning to amusement. But what right had she to laugh with a name like Grizelda?

  “Miss Fleetwood, you need not stifle that giggle.” He lowered his thick eyebrows in his best fierce look. “My name has always been sorely abused. I hoped that one of your musical nature would have more compassion.”

  “My lord, please excuse my rudeness.” The glint in her eyes held no contrition. “But you see, I suffer also from the curse of Mozart. My second name is Amadea.”

  His mouth tw
itched and spread open in a wide grin he knew exposed that annoying boyish dimple. He clasped her hand again. The covering of smooth, cool kid thwarted direct contact, but he was rewarded by the return of that touch of color to her pale high cheek bones.

  “We are destined to become the best of friends.” As his thumb grazed over her palm, her color deepened. “We are blessed with the love of music and cursed with a name made for jest.”

  Lady Selby took Zel’s arm, pinning Wolfgang with a protective glare. “You must reprimand Northcliffe severely when he becomes too familiar. He is a most incorrigible, ah, flirt, you know.” She pulled more forcefully on Zel’s arm. “Come along, dear, we must introduce you to the other guests.”

  Wolfgang flashed a ghost of a bow. “Miss Fleetwood, we will speak again.”

  Lady Selby steered her away from him as if she were a green debutante. Certainly she was well into her twenties, too old to be considered an innocent needing to be spared a little flirtation, even from such a known rakehell as he.

  His eyes moved lazily over her departing figure. Her ill-fitting, hideous gown made a nearly effective disguise, but after the view of her in her night rail, his practiced eye could see the very appropriately placed curves and infinitely long limbs that moved with feline grace. Her scraggly chignon, pale complexion, and wire-rimmed spectacles made it equally difficult to ascertain the charms of her countenance. But he had seen her glow as she played Beethoven, and he had seen the flash in her eyes when she concealed her laughter.

  There was a mystery here. Why would an unmarried woman fail to capitalize on her beauty? Unless she had no interest in dangling after a husband. Perhaps the intriguing Miss Fleetwood remained a miss because she had no more interest in marriage than he. This house party could certainly be enlivened by a little flirtation. Or more than a flirtation if the impassioned pianoforte recital correctly reflected her other inclinations.

  Zel took a steadying breath as Lady Selby drew her across the room. She was unused to the company of men, except for her family, and Lord Northcliffe’s presence overpowered her, to say the least. It was not just his size, although that was considerable, nor his piercing silver eyes, nor his long sensual face. He had an air about him … something uncompromising and untamed.