The Blacksheep's Arranged Marriage

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “This way, please.” The butler walked with a slight hitch in his step to the far side of the foyer, where he opened an ornately carved wooden door to reveal a dim room decorated in a style that hadn’t been fashionable for forty years. “Mr. Peter Braddock is here for Miss Thea,” he announced, then stepped aside so that Peter could enter the parlor, which was just as dreary as the foyer, if not more so.

  Davinia Carey sat like the proverbial spider, in a web of ruffled cushions on a dark green velvet settee. Her hair was crimped and upswept into a tight knot atop her head. It was as black as a raven’s wing, which made her face look unnaturally pale in the gloomy light. “Good afternoon, Peter,” she said in a voice that made him feel he wasn’t standing quite straight enough.

  Peter wasn’t easily intimidated, but Davinia Carey always made him nervous, as if she was both judge and jury, as though she knew that beneath his GQ facade he was merely a pretender to the throne. “Hello, Mrs. Carey,” he replied in a voice that betrayed not one iota of his feelings. “It’s very nice to see you again. I hope you’re feeling well today.”

  She sniffed, a sound as eloquent as any words. “Have a seat, Peter.”

  He glanced around and chose a straight-backed Queen Anne, which was as uncomfortable as it looked, but had the advantage of being a respectable distance from the settee. For some reason, he found himself remembering the night of his first formal dance. He’d been a gawky, awkward kid, barely thirteen, and still terrified he would do something to embarrass the whole Braddock family. He’d made himself sick worrying about the dance and what he should or shouldn’t say to the pretty girl who was his date, until Grandmother Jane had taken him aside and offered her wise counsel. “Some day, Peter,” she’d said. “You’ll meet the woman who will be your wife and you’ll realize that her opinion of you truly matters. This is not that day, so stop worrying, relax and simply do your best to have a good time.”

  Well, today was not that day, either. And with the thought, he offered Davinia Carey a warm and kindly smile. “I’ve never been to your home before,” he said easily. “Grace Place is an impressive estate.”

  “It’s nothing to what it was when I was Thea’s age. This house is not as old as Braddock Hall, but my great-great-grandfather, Davis Madison Grace, spared no expense in building it.”

  Which didn’t keep it from looking like a very poor relation now, Peter thought but didn’t, of course, say aloud. “I believe Grandfather mentioned this was your childhood home.”

  The sniff again. This time expressing nostalgia, perhaps, or some old regret for days gone by. “My coming-out ball was as grand as any party ever given at The Breakers, I can assure you. Ask your grandfather. He’ll remember.” She paused, her eyes narrowing on him. “Grace Place will belong to Theadosia one day.”

  He didn’t know quite how to respond to that, but she seemed to expect a reply, so he said, “Lucky Thea.”

  “Luck has nothing whatsoever to do with it, Peter. She was born an heiress.”

  The slight stress on the word was, he felt, not only intentional but intended to remind him that he hadn’t inherited the Braddock name and its privileges at birth. He had, in fact, spent the first nine years of his life believing he was the son of another man, a poor man, and hadn’t even been acknowledged as a Braddock until he was nine. A lot of people knew that. It wasn’t exactly a secret. But no one had ever pointed it out to him in such a coldly calculating way. Davinia Grace Carey was telling him he was not good enough for her granddaughter and it was all Peter could do not to challenge her on it. As if Thea had suitors climbing the walls of this monstrous old house in the hope of winning her heart. Or at least her fortune.

  He held the old woman’s gaze and didn’t politely look away when it grew uncomfortable. “As I said before, lucky Thea.”

  She drew herself up at that and a haughty smile curved along her thin lips, making her look even more like a spider in no particular hurry to immobilize her prey. “I see that we understand each other, Peter. I’m not sure what Archer had in mind in setting up this assignation between you and Thea. Do you know?”

  Peter breathed deeply to maintain his composure. “I believe he hoped we would have a pleasant evening.”

  “Be that as it may, Thea has been brought up as a lady and I do expect you to treat her as such. You will have her home at a reasonable hour. Not a moment past midnight, and in the same virtuous condition as when she walks out the door with you.”

  It was becoming very clear why Theadosia Berenson attended social functions alone or accompanied by this harridan of a chaperone. Peter resolved then and there that tonight he would keep Thea out at least five moments past midnight, even if he was so bored by that time the seconds dripped like molasses. “I assure you, Mrs. Carey, my grandmother taught me to be a gentleman at all times, even under the most tempting of circumstances. Believe me, there’s no need for you to worry. Thea will be perfectly safe with me.”

  Davinia frowned at him, obviously unconvinced of his sincerity, but then her gaze went past him to the doorway. “Theadosia,” she said. “Come in. How many times do I have to remind you it’s not polite for a lady to hover in a doorway? Come in, come in.” She extended a veiny hand. “You look lovely, dear. Doesn’t she, Peter?”

  Lovely wasn’t the word for it. Thea looked bedraggled and miserably self-conscious. Her dress fit badly, at best, and covered her from high neck to midcalf in a dreary beige. Her hair was its normal mousey-brown, and looped haphazardly into a frazzled topknot that already showed signs of slip-sliding toward her left ear. The double strand of pearls she wore was too long to be stylish and too big to be simply a nice touch. Matching pearl earrings, too large for her pointy little face, studded her earlobes and were all but lost behind the black-frame glasses that sat halfway down her nose, which obscured her thick-lashed and luminous eyes. Neither jewelry nor glasses did anything to enhance her overall appearance. But if lying to a lady wasn’t in any Gentleman’s Handbook, diplomacy certainly was.

  Peter rose instantly to his feet and offered her a warmly approving smile. “Hello, Thea,” he said. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. I’ve been looking forward to this evening for days.”

  She ducked her head and said, “Hello, Peter,” in a voice so soft it practically evaporated on contact with the air.

  “Stand up straight,” Davinia commanded and Thea straightened like a marionette. “Remember who you are, tonight, Theadosia. Peter has assured me he will take very good care of you.”

  For a second, Peter caught a glimpse of life in the eyes behind the heavy-rimmed glasses, a flicker of amusement as out of place in Thea’s brown eyes as the ray of sunlight tentatively creeping in through a crack in the draperies. “Okay,” Thea said in her meek and whispery voice and he decided all he’d seen was a reflection in the lens of her glasses.

  “Shall we go?” He was suddenly anxious to get her outside, away from the gloom and suffocating presence of her grandmother, away from the weight of expectations that seemed to press down about them from all directions. “I put the top up on the car so your hair won’t get blown all out of…place.” He paused, wishing he’d left the top down. She might like to have the wind blowing through her hair for a change, and it wasn’t as if her hairstyle relied much on staying in place as it was. “But if you’d prefer, I can put it down again.”

  “Certainly not,” Davinia said firmly. “I’ve never understood why anyone would have one of those convertibles in the first place. They’re dangerous and I can assure you, Peter, that Thea does not wish to arrive anywhere, particularly at a formal affair, looking as if she’s had her head in a wind tunnel.”

  Peter thought she might prefer that to looking as if she’d combed her hair with an egg beater, but since Thea didn’t contradict her grandmother, he didn’t think it was his place to step in and do it. Gentlemen, as a general rule, minded their own business.

  He started to take Thea’s elbow, but thought that if she didn’t fa
int from nervousness at his touch, her grandmother might slap his hand with a ruler and remind him that a gentleman never touched a lady without permission. He hedged his bets by moving to the doorway and sort of urging Thea along by example. “Good evening, Mrs. Carey,” he said.

  “I do hope you have an enjoyable evening,” the old woman called after them.

  But Peter was almost positive she didn’t mean a word of it.

  Chapter Two

  “Would you like something else to drink?” Peter asked as considerately as if it were the first time he’d posed a similar question instead of the eleventh or twelfth. “More punch, maybe? Or a soda?”

  Thea tried to think of a witty reply, some way of refusing his offer that wouldn’t be completely flat and uninteresting. Peter had been so nice, had tried so hard, right from the minute he’d opened the door of his car for her and offered for the second time to put down the convertible’s top. She’d wanted to flash a saucy smile and say, “Yes, please, I love the feel of the wind in my hair. I’ve always thought I’d enjoy driving a convertible. What about letting me test-drive this one? I promise I’ll pay for the speeding ticket, if we get caught.”

  But she hadn’t said that. Not even close. She’d mumbled a simple, “No, thank you,” which had pretty much been the extent of her contribution to the conversation throughout the evening, with the occasional “Yes, thank you,” thrown in for variety.

  “Would you like to sit here?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Shall I ask the waiter to get you another piece of wedding cake?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Are you cold? Would you like to borrow my jacket?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Do you want to dance?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “No, thank you,” she said now because as much as she wanted to say something else, anything else, she simply couldn’t seem to get both brain and tongue working in sync. And, too, she couldn’t bring herself to swallow another mouthful of punch. She was practically swimming in it already. The virgin punch, of course, the one made of sweet fruit juices and some fizzy water, served to the younger guests in lieu of champagne. Peter hadn’t even asked her preference on that count, just indicated to their waiter that they’d both have the punch. Which meant either her grandmother had given him a stern warning about the dangers of drinking and dating, or he’d just assumed she didn’t touch anything stronger than root beer and since she didn’t, he wouldn’t, either.

  Or he might simply be afraid of what would happen if she got a little alcohol in her. She’d overheard her grandmother’s embarrassing instruction to him to return her to Grace Place “in the same virtuous condition as when she’d walked out the door.” With a soft sigh, Thea acknowledged there wasn’t a chance in ten million the evening could end any other way. Alcohol or no.

  “Dinner was good,” she said, because the Peking duck had been cooked to perfection, and because she was determined to make at least one remark without being prompted.

  He smiled, seemingly pleased she’d made even that small effort. “Yes, it was,” he agreed. “I heard they brought in a hot new chef from the West Coast just for the occasion.”

  Thea thought “bringing in a chef” smacked of flaunting one’s wealth, something no descendent of Davis Madison Grace would ever consider to be in good taste. “Imagine how far they had to go to find the duck,” she said.

  Peter blinked. And then he laughed, startling Thea with the pure sensual pleasure contained in that one throaty sound. She felt the heat of a blush rise in her cheeks, wondered if she’d actually said something amusing or if he was just being polite. Either possibility seemed equally disturbing and produced the exact same effect…freezing her ability to speak all over again.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if they flew them in special delivery from Beijing,” Peter said with a grin. “Her dad once told me he would spare no expense when it came to Angela’s wedding.”

  Thea knew Peter and Angela had once been an item in the society columns, and it was no secret that the Merchants had hoped for a match between their family and the Braddocks. There had even been rumors late last year that Peter and Angela were unofficially engaged. Of course, there had been rumors before. About all of the Braddocks. But Thea had mainly only paid attention to the ones about Peter. He was closer to her age, twenty-seven to her twenty-five, and of the three brothers, she liked him the best.

  Not that he would know this.

  She took a deep breath and decided that as this was likely to be her only date ever with Peter Braddock, she ought to make a legitimate attempt to talk to him. No matter how difficult it was to open her mouth and say the words.

  She did know how to talk and she never lacked for conversation when it was just her and her menagerie of pets. She’d been on dates before, too. Not many, true. Fewer, in fact, than she could count on both hands, but enough to know the rudiments of dialogue with a man. If she asked the right question, he’d start talking, then she’d mostly just have to nod and listen from there on in. She was good at listening. It was just getting the conversation started that caused her all the problems.

  She wished she had said, yes, and let him walk to the bar and fetch her a soda. At least, then, she’d have had a few minutes to think about what she could say when he got back. But she didn’t drink sodas. Bad for her teeth, her grandmother said. Bad for her skin. And no matter what she thought of to say when he returned with the soda, she’d be preoccupied in trying to hide the fact that she wasn’t drinking the soda she’d requested he get for her.

  Thea shifted in her chair and smoothed her beige silk skirt over her knees. She knew she looked lifeless and drab in the dress, knew it was hardly the height of contemporary fashion, knew even if she were wearing the gorgeous dress Miranda Danville had on at this very moment, she’d still look like the misfit she was. Peter must be wishing he could be anywhere else, with anyone else, doing anything other than sitting with her in this ungainly silence. He had to be counting the minutes until he could take her home.

  But none of that bothered her as much as knowing that if she didn’t say something soon, the evening would be over and he’d never know she actually had something to say.

  “Wait just a minute,” Peter said, interrupting her fierce struggle to conquer her inept silence. He leaned close and her senses were suddenly filled with him. His scent was a breezy blend of good soap and men’s cologne; his roughly handsome face was near enough for her to see the sensual green of his eyes and the slight scar on the bridge of his otherwise perfect nose; his breath on her skin was warm against her cheek and as soft as a caress; his hand was firm and persuasive as he stood and urged her up out of her chair; his smile was as seductive as a kiss. “You have to dance with me now, Thea. Listen to that. They’re playing our song.”

  She cocked her head to listen, sure he was teasing her, wishing he would either go off and dance with someone else or be content to sit out the dances, wondering why he’d agreed to spend this intolerable evening with her in the first place. She’d noticed the covert glances of other wedding guests, knew most of them were looking at Peter with sympathy and admiring him for being too much of a gentleman to ditch his sad sack of a date and enjoy himself.

  Thea wanted to tell him she’d honestly tried to override her grandmother’s insistence that she accept his invitation. She wanted to say that just because his grandfather had coerced him into escorting her, didn’t mean she expected him to entertain her. But then, slipping in between her melancholy thoughts, finding a foothold in her memory, the melody and lyrics of the song registered as familiar and coaxed a slow smile across her lips.

  “You say it best,” the lead singer crooned, “when you say nothing at all.”

  She glanced up at his face, hoping he wasn’t making a joke at her expense. It had happened before. Not with Peter, but…Nothing in his expression suggested anything other than a kind attempt to let her know it was okay, that sh
e didn’t have to say anything at all. His smile—the one that was tucked in at the corners of his mouth and reflected in the true green of his eyes, was merely approving and, perhaps, just a little bit hopeful.

  And without a second’s warning, she was locked with Peter in a moment that meant something only to the two of them. He was teasing her and, for the first time in her life, Thea felt she was in on a joke. An amazing sense of belonging flooded through her, her throat lost its strangling tightness, and she laughed aloud. Softly, uncertainly…yes. Under her breath for the most part, but still a laugh that came right from the very heart of her.

  Peter laughed, too, and looked…well, satisfied. “So, Theadosia,” he said. “May I please have this dance?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she replied, feeling that somehow those three words were really all she needed to say.

  IT WASN’T THE BEST TIME Peter had ever had at a wedding. That would have been Bryce’s and Lara’s wedding last month, with Adam’s and Katie’s wedding three months before that, running a close second. But tonight wasn’t the worst time he’d ever had watching someone else get married, either. That would have been Christina Ephraim’s wedding when he was fifteen and so hopelessly infatuated with the bride—his English tutor and drama coach and a sophisticated, beautiful older woman, besides—he’d very nearly embarrassed himself along with the whole Braddock family by sobbing out his heartache during the ceremony.

  Luckily, his grandmother had sensed his distress and developed a dizzy spell that required him to step outside with her until her equilibrium—and his composure—returned. He’d always loved Grandmother Jane for that, and because she’d never said a word about it afterward, even though he knew she didn’t have dizzy spells. Ever.

  Yes, that was definitely the worst wedding he’d ever attended. Tonight, with Thea? Not even close. In fact, if he could just get her to relax a little, they might both actually start to enjoy the evening.