Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01]

by Desperately Seeking a Duke

  Every eye upon her, every move she might make watched by all of Society and beyond …

  So, let them stare. You’ll be a duchess.

  A rich duchess, wealthy in her own right. Immune.

  Yes, she must not forget that word.

  Immune.

  Her breathing steadied and she could feel her color rise once more. She smiled up at her cousins. “Thank you. I’m all right now.”

  Deirdre snorted as she returned to her chair. “I should hope so. You’re the luckiest woman in London and yet you faint over a little gossip. Milksop.”

  Phoebe smile wryly. Apparently Deirdre had a very shallow well of concern in her soul. Probably best not to tap it too deeply. “You’re right. Besides, who really reads these things, anyway?”

  Both cousins stared at her blankly. “Everyone,” Sophie said. Deirdre nodded, chewing.

  “Oh.” Well, no matter. It was all such a lot of nonsense. She would not be ruled either way by it.

  Soon, she would be immune.

  SOPHIE FOUND THE family parlor empty and sighed with relief. The library was not nearly as pleasant as this sunny room, especially now in early afternoon—not that the murmuring presence of the vicar would stop her if it were the only place she could be alone.

  Of course, Brook House was far superior to the previous small house in that respect. Wherever she had turned there had been a cousin or an aunt or a dratted servant wishing her to do something. She was accustomed to rattling about in an old, large manor house where servants were rarely spotted and easily avoided. Only the bell pulled from her mother’s bedside drew her away from her studies and the quiet days stretched on and on.

  Here in London, however, life moved at a much faster pace—one which Sophie enjoyed as long as she was left alone to observe it, not participate in it.

  And why should she? The competition for the Pickering fortune mattered nothing to her, for she had no chance of winning against elegant, stylish Deirdre or pretty, buxom Phoebe. The only reason she’d come was to escape Acton and her eternal servitude there.

  Seating herself at the card table, Sophie spread out her notes on the folklore collection she was translating from the original German. Such entrancing stories …

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Phoebe was hiding from Tessa, who was on a riotous tear about something—last night’s sweeping defeat at the hands of Marbrook, probably, although Tessa would never admit to it—so the wise choice seemed to be tactful retreat.

  The attractively shabby—although still very fine—family parlor was empty but for Sophie’s stories spread out on the game table. Phoebe wandered over to peer at them without disturbing them.

  Deirdre appeared in the doorway. “Oh.” She looked reluctant to enter, but then, after casting a glance over her shoulder, she joined Phoebe in the parlor and shut the doors.

  Phoebe had been hiding from people in general, but Deirdre was high on the list of “in particular.” She bit back a sigh. “So who are you hiding from, Dee?”

  Deirdre tossed her head and smiled confidently. “Why, no one! What a silly question.” Still, she flung herself down onto the settee and lounged rather more horizontally than was proper. Flinging one arm over her eyes, she let out the sigh that Phoebe hadn’t allowed herself.

  Phoebe eyed the door, although to be honest, she didn’t want to brave the tigress. Tessa didn’t actually want to see her and Phoebe didn’t actually want to cross the path of her vision, so it was for their mutual benefit that Phoebe stay put.

  She sat in one of the chairs at the card table and smoothed her skirts. She would have loved to lounge the way Deirdre was doing, but she felt the weight of “your ladyship” on her shoulders. Instead, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  The door burst open and Sophie darted into the room. She shut it behind her as if pursued by a pack of wolves, then turned to see Phoebe and Deirdre, who had uncovered her eyes, staring at her.

  “Oh.” Sophie looked as though she were contemplating returning to the wolves. “I only left for a moment … I was out of ink.”

  Phoebe couldn’t help but laugh. “Why don’t we all just sit and pretend the others aren’t here?”

  Deirdre smiled slightly and crooked her arm over her face again. Sophie looked from one to the other, then took the other chair next to Phoebe.

  Phoebe closed her eyes again, still smiling. She’d wondered if she would find anything in common with her cousins. Now she knew there was one thing the three shared. They all feared Tessa’s wrath.

  Someone cleared their throat near her. She opened her eyes to see Sophie hovering, a crinkle of worry appearing between her eyes. Phoebe shook her head. “Don’t worry, I didn’t touch a thing. I didn’t even read it. Should I get out of your way?”

  Sophie’s mute desperation told her enough to spur her to her weary feet. “Perhaps I’ll retreat to my room,” she said unenthusiastically.

  “Don’t.” Deirdre spoke without uncovering her eyes. “You’ll never make it through alive.” Then she rolled over, propping herself up on her elbows. “Believe me when I say that. I know.”

  Phoebe sagged. “I’m sure you do.”

  Sophie pulled the other chair back to the card table. “We can share, if you like,” she said shyly. “Would—would you like to read my translations? On my journey to London I came across a true find in a bookshop.” Her eyes glowed. “It is a collection of folk tales from Germany.”

  Frankly, Phoebe would rather bang her head against the floor than read some dry text, but when the alternative was an early demise at Tessa’s spiteful hands …

  She sat and leaned forward to look at the paper nearest her. “Will it take long?”

  “Oh!” Sophie was all eagerness and enthusiasm. “You’ll simply love it, I promise!” She took up the paper Phoebe had been eyeing warily. “This is one of my favorites so far. It’s really rather romantic—” She faltered, as if waiting for Deirdre to poke fun, but Dee was listening willingly enough. Apparently any form of diversion won out over facing Tessa.

  Sophie cleared her throat and took a breath. “In times of old there lived a king and queen, and every day they said, ‘Oh, if only we had a child!’ Yet, they never had one. Then, one day, as the queen went out bathing, a frog happened to crawl ashore and say to her, ‘Your wish shall be fulfilled. Before the year is out, you shall give birth to a daughter.’”1

  Deirdre snorted. “A frog? A talking, wish-granting frog?”

  Phoebe turned sharply. “Shh! Or I’ll tell Tessa you’re lying on the sofa, wrinkling your gown.”

  Deirdre quailed. “Oh, very well.”

  Sophie sent Phoebe a grateful glance and took another breath. Her voice came out stronger this time, more sure. “The frog’s prediction came true, and the queen gave birth to a girl who was so beautiful that the king was overjoyed and decided to hold a great feast. Not only did he invite his relatives, friends, and acquaintances, but also the wise women, in the hope that they would be generous and kind to his daughter.”

  Soon Phoebe found herself entranced by the tale, read in Sophie’s breathy, light voice—which was very pretty, now that she listened carefully to it. There was a curse, which was exciting, and an evil wise woman, which was distressing, and an innocent young girl of fifteen—

  Weren’t we all?

  Phoebe swallowed back a surge of bad memory and focused on Sophie’s narrative. A girl, who—through no fault of her own—was sentenced to a magical sleep …

  Sophie stopped reading and put down the paper.

  “What?” Deirdre sat up from her sprawl on the sofa. “That’s it? That can’t be it! She spends forever shut up in her castle behind a wall of thorns?”

  Phoebe was gathering a bit of upset herself. “I can’t believe that—”

  Sophie shook her head. “Oh, no—there’s more. I simply haven’t finished translating it yet.”

  Phoebe shot up from her chair and pushed Sophie down into it. “Go. Begin. Translate
.”

  “Yes,” Deirdre added. “Translate like the wind.”

  Sophie blushed, pleased. “Do you really like it? I thought I might bind them when I’m done—”

  Deirdre raised her hand. “Less talking. More working.”

  An endless hour later, the next paragraph was done. The hapless princess was still trapped and now countless fine young would-be suitors had died, impaled upon the thorns.

  Deirdre refolded her handkerchief to find a drier spot. “All those handsome princes … such a terrible waste.”

  Phoebe sniffed. “The poor princess … locked away, punished forever …”

  Sophie dabbed frantically at her notes, trying to dry her own tears from the paper before the work was ruined. “All those people, their lives frozen still …”

  A good bawl was had by all, in fact. Phoebe felt the better for it, and even waspish Deirdre seemed softer around the edges afterward. Sophie leaned back in her chair, one hand limp on her midriff. “I can’t do any more. I’m exhausted and my eyes burn.” She took off her spectacles and glared down at them. “I hate you.”

  “As well you should,” Deirdre agreed. “Spectacles are guaranteed man-repellent. Which is odd, when one considers it. I mean, most men aren’t really interested in one’s eyes, are they?”

  Sophie turned to her, squinting. “What do you mean?”

  “Teats and arse,” Dee said flippantly.

  Sophie gasped, but Phoebe only burst into horrified giggles. “She’s right.”

  Sophie fixed her spectacles back over her ears and gazed from one to the other. “Really?”

  They nodded as one. Sophie shook her head. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not on a husband hunt, for I’m sorely short on bait.”

  “You’ve enough to catch a very short, very poor sort of banker person,” Deirdre consoled her. “Perhaps someone bookish.”

  Sophie blinked. “Bookish would be all right, I suppose …” Then she shook her head, covering her face with her hands. “But I’m such a clumsy ninny whenever I—” She raised her face and gazed at them hopelessly. “I can’t even talk to a man without—you simply don’t know!”

  Phoebe tilted her head. “You talk to men all the time. There are several male servants in the house.”

  Sophie drew back and shook her head. “I don’t speak to them.”

  Deirdre leaned forward, rather as if she were repelled and fascinated at once. “Never?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Phoebe said. “You must speak to the menservants at Acton—”

  Sophie shook her head again. “We haven’t any. Mama says that deep voices hurt her head.”

  “But your vicar—?”

  “We’ve only a sexton, but no. He visits Mama, but he likely thinks I can’t speak.”

  Phoebe threw up her hands. “But the—the butcher? The blacksmith? Little boys playing in your way on the village street?”

  Sophie shrugged. “The cook negotiates with the butcher and we’ve no horses and little boys usually run when they see me coming.”

  “A world without men,” Deirdre breathed. “I don’t know whether to be horrified or envious.”

  Phoebe made a face. “I’m a little of both, I think.” What would her life be like without the vicar’s harsh disapproval shadowing her all day—

  But those days were over, weren’t they? She was her father’s “dear” once again. Bolstered by that thought, she dusted her hands in a businesslike way. “Deirdre, stand up. Sophie, fetch that book on the table.”

  Soon she had Deirdre pacing sedately about the room, demonstrating the classic feat of ladylike grace, although why in the world one needed to know how to carry a book on their head was apparently beyond Sophie.

  “That looks ridiculous.”

  Phoebe put her hands on her hips. “Well, it was the only thing I learned from my brief and bitter bout with a governess. If you can do it, you’ll never have to worry about being clumsy in front of a man again. Just try it.”

  Deirdre paced back and forth, the picture of elegance. She sat, stood, curtsied, and even danced while the book remained as if nailed to her crown. Phoebe was moved to applause. Deirdre ducked out from under the book, caught it with one hand, and bowed theatrically, the book acting as a sweeping feathered cap. “Tessa, if nothing else, is a persistent teacher,” she said with a grimace.

  Sophie’s evident doubt only grew. “I’ll never be able to do that. Just thinking about having to speak … converse … heavens, you don’t mean to make me dance—” She swept her arms wide in her distress.

  A cut-crystal vase crashed to the floor as Sophie stood like a simpleton, watching it fall.

  Phoebe looked at her strangely. Deirdre tossed the book onto a side table and plunked her fists on her hips. “Honestly, Sophie, how do you ever expect to marry a man if you can’t even think about one without spontaneously shattering valuables?”

  Sophie paled, then flushed. The shards of vase lay winking derisively on the carpet. The door burst open and Tessa came striding in, her skirts hiked in one hand.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake! What happened to the crystal?” Her tone so matched Deirdre’s that for a moment Phoebe thought it was her cousin speaking again.

  Then Deirdre stepped forward. “So sorry, Lady Tessa. I was showing Sophie how you taught me to walk balancing something on my head.”

  Tessa smoothed her skirts and rolled her eyes. “Well, next time use something unimportant, like a book! Not that it will do Sophie any good. If you don’t learn that sort of thing by the time you leave the schoolroom, Sophie, it will never look natural.”

  She waved vaguely at the mess. “Do have someone sweep that up, Deirdre.”

  Sophie tilted her head to whisper to Deirdre with some surprise. “Why did you lie?”

  Deirdre smiled slightly. “What a thing to say! I never lie.”

  Sophie looked at Phoebe, who only laughed helplessly and spread her hands. “She didn’t actually lie, you realize,” she whispered. “She was showing you the walk.”

  Instead of her former pout, Tessa now had a sly look of satisfaction on her lovely face.

  “Thanks to Brookhaven’s status in Society,” she announced, “the guest list for the wedding ceremony contains the very finest of Society. The splendor of this event will reflect directly upon me, so I will have everything just so. I have left the tedious details to the staff, of course. Phoebe, you will assist me. Deirdre, you will see to your wardrobe, for you will never have another chance like this one to meet the most eligible men in London. Sophie …” Tessa grimaced. “Just … do something with your hair and try not to fall on your face during the ceremony.”

  Sophie’s attention was on her table full of notes. “Mm. Yes, Aunt.”

  “Phoebe, come along now. We have much to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Wedding plans would have to wait for a while, unfortunately. That afternoon, the parlor of Brook House was filled to the brim with callers. Phoebe’s engagement had rocketed her into an entirely different social stratum and apparently no one wanted to miss out on their chance to ride along.

  For hours there was a constantly shifting parade of anyone who had ever been introduced—or wanted to believe they had been introduced—to the cousins in the brief week they’d been in town.

  Sophie wasn’t taking it well, it being her own personal version of hell. Phoebe was coping fairly well, until she began to notice an annoying trend of clumpy, off-center buns on the young ladies who came by.

  Deirdre only rolled her eyes when Phoebe mentioned it to her. “You should be flattered. They’re all trying to figure out how you did it, so they can do it, too.”

  “It” translating as “bagging a marquis in seven days or less.”

  Phoebe frowned. “My hair doesn’t look that bad from the back, does it?”

  Deirdre smiled. “Keep telling yourself that,” she said, then turned back to her gaggle of ganders, led by a particularly ardent young poet by the name of Bas
kin, who was inclined to spiel long-winded verses about Deirdre’s eyes and hair—all very “moon” and “June.” The afternoon seemed to stretch on forever, while Phoebe began thinking longingly of the wedding planning still to do. Apparently, Deirdre could hold court for hours, although her disappointment in the rank of those involved found itself revealed in small, smiling barbs that were greeted as wit by all who were not targeted.

  Sophie did her duty, remaining seated in the farthest corner, evidently engrossed in a book. Phoebe did her best to seem interested and polite, but her thoughts revolved around only one man.

  “Lord Raphael Marbrook!”

  Rafe. Phoebe’s eyes flew open, her spirits instantly rising, filling like a sail in the wind.

  He stood in the doorway, tall, dark, broad-shouldered … and beautiful. The room became smaller and emptier at once, as if the other gentlemen were nothing but shimmers on water beside the solid masculinity he exuded.

  He was clad in dark colors—almost mourning-black—and his face was absolutely expressionless, as if he’d rather be anywhere else in the world but in his own parlor.

  His brother’s parlor, actually. Phoebe knew that bothered him, though he’d told her no such thing. How could she know that? How could she know that he’d had to force himself to come in here, that he intended to leave as soon as humanly possible, and that, in spite of all that, he’d been unable to stay away?

  Because that was precisely how she felt. The only reason she was truly here and not hiding in her solitary guest room was that somewhere deep within her, she’d been hoping to catch a glimpse of him today.

  He looked away and the connection broke, leaving Phoebe feeling odd and a bit foolish. What a world of fantasy she was building concerning Lord Marbrook!

  By the mooning expressions of the other young ladies in the room—with the exception of Sophie, who was staring out the window, and Deirdre, who was far too pragmatic to moon—Lord Marbrook affected all women that way, including several of the nongeriatric chaperones … although a few of those were giving him the eye as well.