The Golden Season

by Brockway, Connie

  Thank God, Ned’s face had been spared in naval battle. He would not be nearly so useful in solving the current unpleasantness without his breathtaking masculine beauty. A shadow caught in the cleft of a manly chin and a thicket of dark lashes obscured the clear blue-gray eyes lowered on the apple in his hand. His nose was Romanesque, his brow clear, and his physique that of a young Adonis.

  It would have been better, of course, if his Olympian beauty had been married to Olympian forcefulness, like Marcus’s. Young ladies did so like a forceful man. How affable, accommodating Ned had ever managed to captain a ship full of ruffians was a matter of open debate. Still, Beatrice had noted the attention he’d already garnered from the ladies of Cromer. Hopefully, London ladies would be equally impressed. They had to be.

  “There’s no other way to do it,” she muttered.

  Ned glanced up. “No other way to what, Bea?”

  “To restore the family fortune!” Josten roared. “What do you think we’ve been talking about? Did I not make clear that we are in dire financial circumstances? I should think the necessity of your finding a rich bride would be self-evident.”

  “Don’t mean to be so thick-witted, but . . . my last visit home the family fortunes seemed secure. What happened to them?”

  “Oh, what didn’t happen to them, Neddie?” Nadine cried, waving her lace kerchief about. Her fair ringlets bobbed around a face still as pretty as it had been when she and Marcus had wed. “The investments failed, the Corn Laws are making it impossible for the farms to profit, the children stand in dire need of things—”

  “What sorts of things?” Ned broke in, glancing with interest at his nephews. They slouched lower in their seats. They were under strict orders not to speak, which, as both of them were notably voluble, would normally have presented them a challenge. But under their uncle’s mildly inquisitive gaze, they seemed to maintain their silence without much difficulty after at all. Odd.

  “Oh, you know,” Nadine said, her gaze shifting away. “Things young people need.”

  Bright spots of color appeared on Nadine’s round, soft cheeks. Ned regarded her mildly.

  “Such as . . . ?” he prompted.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Ned,” Josten said irritably. “The essential point is that we haven’t the proverbial pot to piss in. Does it really make any difference how we came to such a pass?”

  “Well, since I’m the one whom you have asked to marry an heiress to recoup the lost fortune, I don’t mind admitting that I should like to know.”

  There was nothing accusatory in Ned’s voice, and his posture was as relaxed as ever. Nonetheless, Nadine blanched and her eyes welled with tears. “You are being horrid, Neddie.”

  “Am I?” Ned asked. “Forgive me. That wasn’t my intent. I’m simply curious as to where the pot we are all used to piss in has gone.”

  Despite the severity of the situation, Beatrice could not suppress a chuckle. Ned could not know how droll that sounded because Ned wasn’t droll. Or at least he never had been before. Lockton men were known for their beauty and forcefulness, not their bon mots. Josten shot her a reproachful glare. She stopped chuckling, reminding herself that these were serious matters.

  “You are acting in a most self-centered fashion, Ned. War has ruined you. You used to be such a sweet boy.” Nadine sniffed. “I would have thought your tenure as an officer would have invested you with a sense of duty and dedication. Your family is in dire circumstances, the earl’s heirs have seen their legacy whittled down to nothing, poor Beatrice’s Pip might be forced to give up his clubs.” She shuddered gently. “And her Mary could well end up having to marry into trade.”

  “Oh, surely things aren’t that bad!” Beatrice spoke up, unwilling to allow so grim a forecast for her daughter to go unchallenged.

  Nadine ignored her. “And you are the only person who can put it to right and yet you refuse! Oh!” She covered her face with her hands and commenced sobbing.

  “Did I refuse? I don’t recall refusing.” Ned frowned in an expression of intense concentration. At times like this Beatrice wondered if the leg wound that had resulted in his retirement had somehow left him dickered in the nob. Unless, and this thought was vastly more uncomfortable, he was simply gammoning them.

  Could Ned have grown ironical? It seemed unlikely. Where and when would he have developed such a trait? Certainly she didn’t remember him as such. He’d been a pleasant lad, so much younger than the rest of them and given to rumination. Indeed, to her memory the only impulsive thing he had ever done was hying himself off to join the navy.

  Perhaps she didn’t remember him all that well? She’d been married by the time he’d made his unexpected arrival in the world. Still, there had been years when they’d all lived together after their father’s death had left Marcus the earl and her own husband’s demise had left her an impecunious widow with two children. Marcus had insisted she and her children return to Josten Hall.

  She vaguely recalled Ned as a sweet, self-contained boy—something of a changeling in a family notable for their passionate excesses. She also recalled that as a youngster it had often—perhaps always—been Ned one counted on to remain calm during innumerable family dramas. Calm but not ironical. One would think one would remember if one’s brother had an ironical bent.

  “You’ll do it, then?” Nadine was asking, peeking at Ned through her fingers. Her eyes, Beatrice noticed, were dry. “Find a rich bride?”

  “Well, there is still the matter of why it’s necessary for me to do so. Not that I won’t,” he added hurriedly as Nadine’s now fully revealed lower lip began to tremble, “but I cannot help but be overcome with curiosity.”

  He finished and then waited, smiling expectantly first at Nadine, then Beatrice, and finally Marcus. None of them could hold that guileless gaze for long.

  “Gaming!” Josten finally burst out. “If you must know. It was lost gaming.”

  “Ah.” Ned nodded. “I’m sorry, Marcus—”

  “It weren’t me,” Josten denied hotly. “Not much, anyway. It was Bea’s eldest, Pip, and—”

  “And your Harry,” Beatrice said, leaping to her son’s defense.

  “Good Lord,” Ned murmured. “I hadn’t realized gaming was a team effort.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Josten said, his face red with ire and, though he would die rather than admit it, embarrassment. “They weren’t playin’ together. Mostly. And it weren’t as though they ran us into dun territory in a night or even a fortnight without any help from other corners. It took them a good year to ruin us.”

  “Ah. How gratifying that the next generation has shown such self-restraint,” Ned said, once more turning his attention to his nephews.

  Pip, his face nearly as red as his hair, was picking at his nail while Harry flipped determinedly the pages of La Belle Assemblée.

  “And a good thing, too,” Marcus said. “Because it will allow you time to court some rich girl before the rest of Society realizes we haven’t sixpence to scratch. Harry assures me no one’s added up parts to tally the whole yet or he would have been, er . . .”

  “Shown the door?” Ned suggested.

  “They wouldn’t dare!” Josten thundered.

  “And all these debts just crept up, did they?”

  “Well, yes, Neddie,” Nadine said. “This will be darling Mary’s fourth Season and so it was essential that she have a new wardrobe to keep the shine on the bloom a mite longer.”

  Nadine spoke without a trace of reproach, but still Beatrice blushed for her daughter. They all agreed Mary should have accepted their neighbor Lord Borton’s proposal, her one and only offer to date. But the strong-willed chit had refused on the grounds that she would not share a household with Borton’s spinster sister. Beatrice, who had lived with her sister-in-law in complete harmony for fifteen years, could not imagine why.

  Not that Mary’s wedding Borton could have saved the current situation. He had money enough to support Mary and any brood they might
have, but not enough to keep Josten Hall—and its occupants—afloat. At least it would have been one less Lockton to worry over.

  “And young men looking to make their mark in the world must look the part,” Nadine added instructively. “You wouldn’t want anyone thinking Josten is cheese-paring or that Harry and Phillip are chawbacons.”

  “Good Lord, no,” Ned agreed mildly.

  “Besides, Harry and my Pip are not the only ones to be victimized by Captain Sharp and ill luck,” Beatrice put in. “Why, it is being bandied about that soon even Brummell will have to flee the country.”

  “Who gives a damn about Brummell?” Josten said. “Our concern is the Lockton name.”

  “Of course,” Ned said and then, his gaze lighting on his nephews, “And speaking of which, since they are the authors of the current predicament and all, perhaps either Harry or Pip ought to be the ones flinging themselves on the matrimonial pyre?”

  The room fell into stunned silence. Nadine blanched, Josten turned red, Harry’s blue eyes popped from his head, and Pip clutched at his cravat as though it were suddenly choking him. Only Ned looked perfectly tranquil. As always.

  “No!” Pip managed to gasp.

  “No!” Harry squeaked a second later.

  “They’re too young!” Nadine breathed.

  “Just babies!” Beatrice added her voice.

  “No family in their right mind would allow them near their daughters,” Josten said.

  Only Josten’s statement brokered any interest from Ned. He raised a brow inquiringly.

  “Truth is both the lads were sent down from Eton and everyone knows it. They’ve managed to garner themselves reputations as regular Bear Garden scapegraces and their antics have seen them excluded from the polite world. Couldn’t get them vouchers to Almack’s for all the tea in China. Not that I was any better as a lad.”

  In fact, Beatrice knew he had been quite a bit better, but she wasn’t about to say so.

  “And I have no doubt they’ll be able to repair their reputations and make brilliant alliances. In time. But time is what we do not have. Besides, our troubles weren’t all the lads’ doing,” Josten went on gruffly. “The crops failed and, well, who knows where the bloody money went!”

  Poor Marcus. He was not much of an economist. It hurt his head to ponder the chicken scratches submitted by the dunners, so he didn’t.

  Happily, Ned did not argue with Josten’s estimation of the boys’ chances of procuring a good match. All he did was nod.

  Josten hurried on, deciding to take the nod as Ned’s agreement. “The Season starts in a few weeks, Ned. You’ll want to go to town early, have some new coats made, boots, trousers—yes, I know they aren’t allowed at Almack’s, but Wellington has worn them and now Harry tells me we all must. And you’ll need some cattle, too. Something with dash. Can you still ride with that leg? Well enough to look half-comfortable atop a hot-blooded steed? Young ladies love the look of a man on horseback, don’t they, Nadine?”

  “Indeed, yes.”

  “I daresay I can manage to make it down Rotten Row once or twice without toppling off,” Ned answered.

  “Damn it, Ned. It ain’t about whether you can stay astride,” Josten said, pacing back and forth.

  Beatrice watched him with some misgiving. Whenever Josten was worried, he retreated to a fallback position of autocratic anger. It was most impressive. But in this case he was overdoing it a mite. Ned wasn’t arguing.

  “It’s about how you look staying astride,” Josten enlightened him. “It’s all about looks. Society is all about looks.”

  “Hear, hear” murmured Harry appreciatively.

  “Shut up, Harry,” snapped Josten. He clasped his hands behind his back, rocking back and forth on his heels. “You go to London, Ned. Stay in the town house with the lads.”

  “No!” Harry and Phillip and Ned all said at once.

  “No,” Ned repeated. “I am too used to my own quarters.”

  “Fine. Rent a place. Nadine and Beatrice will doubtless be in town on occasion to squire Mary about, though the girl has stated a preference for being in Brighton most of the Season. I suppose I shall be obliged to make an appearance, too.” He said this last without any enthusiasm.

  For a man who had once been an Incomparable, Josten had become an inveterate homebody. Not that Nadine minded. She seemed quite content to spend her time in the country. As did Beatrice. Though they all did wish Josten Hall had better heating.

  “In the meantime, join my club, be seen in all the most fashionable places, get invited to all those places where susceptible, marriage-minded young ladies might see you, and get one of ’em to fall in love with ya!”

  “And for this I need a new coat?”

  Again, a disconcerting flicker appeared in Ned’s mild gaze but then was gone. If only he had more fire to him, Beatrice thought morosely. He would be quite something.

  “Of course! No woman in her right mind is going to allow her daughter near a shabby ex-captain. In order to be introduced to the sort of girl we need you to marry, you must look the part of a desirable mate. Like a returned war hero.” Marcus’s bluster lost its wind, leaving behind exasperation.

  “Good God, Neddie, do you not already know this? I shouldn’t have let you join the navy. I should have insisted you acquire some town bronze, instead. Society is ruthless, my boy. Filled with machinations and manipulations, where nothing said is meant and everything meant is left to interpretation.” His troubled gaze cleared. “It’s exhausting.”

  Josten’s concern brought a strange expression to Ned’s face. “Don’t worry on my behalf, Marcus. I shall fare well enough. But doesn’t it all seem very akin to what you were just now denouncing? I mean, does it not seem rather devious? Pretending to be something I am not?”

  “Devious? Don’t be impertinent. It’s not the same thing at all,” Josten said, clearly offended. “There is nothing devious in maneuvering yourself into a situation where some rich heiress can find you and fall in love with you. Which will be very hard to do if you can’t even get introduced to her.”

  A slight smile touched Ned’s lips. “Assuming I should succeed in finding this lady, why ever should she agree to marry me once she realizes we are, er, potless? How does she profit?”

  It was an amazed Nadine who answered. “Why, she’ll be marrying a Lockton of Josten Hall. Her brother-in-law will be an earl. I recall how thrilled I was when Josten noticed me.”

  And so she should have been, Beatrice thought. Nadine had come with an enormous dowry but no aristocratic antecedents. In truth, she loved Nadine very well. But her people, though gentry, were hardly of the same caliber as the Locktons of Josten Hall. Happily, Nadine had never forgotten her good fortune so no one needed to remind her of it. And Marcus . . . Well, he loved her deeply and truly, much as her own dear Paul had loved her.

  “An heiress may as well spend her money on us as on anyone else. That’s why girls have money, Neddie,” Nadine went on as Josten regarded her fondly. “To bring it to their spouses. Why, I brought twenty thousand pounds to the marriage when I wed Josten.”

  “Exactly,” Josten said, nodding. “There are probably scores of wealthy girls who never dreamed of aspiring so high. Still”—he lowered his voice confidingly—“should the choice present itself, I’d prefer a lisping sister- in-law to one who’s a cit. But no one walleyed.” He paused. “At least not so walleyed you’d notice across a room.”

  Rather than answering, Ned took a quick bite of apple and chewed vigorously. What had gotten into the boy?

  “Now, you do understand what’s required of you? You need only to find some girl, woo her, wed her, bed her, and bring her back here.”

  “Along with her money,” Ned said.

  “Where else would it go?” Beatrice asked. “You are so strange, Ned. Do you not love us?”

  “I do,” Ned murmured, looking amazed. “God bless me, I do.”

  Josten pounced on the admission. “Of course you do. An
d therefore it is your duty to go to London, buy some new coats, and be a bloody war hero. You’ll see, Ned. You’ll have your pick of any number of girls.”

  Chapter Three

  Lydia took a sip of wine, gratified that the surface of the red liquid did not shiver with the telltale trembling of her hand. “So the only viable courses open to me are to either marry the wealthiest man I can inveigle into making an offer for me or to continue enjoying my freedom in reduced circumstances. Greatly reduced.”

  There. She’d managed to sound nonchalant. She didn’t feel nonchalant. Her stomach twisted in a knot and her breath seemed to come from somewhere high and shallow in her chest. For the first time since Eleanor had delivered her from the limbo of Sussex back into the brilliant milieu in which she’d been raised, she was uncertain and, yes, afraid. Her world had been built and fueled by seemingly infinite wealth. Except it had been finite. Was, in fact, fin.

  She’d fled straight from Terwilliger’s office—though anyone watching her would have said “strolled”—to her town house, where she was expecting to dine with her friends while dissecting the latest on dit. Little had she known she would present herself as the main course.

  She gazed about the lovely drawing room while she waited for her friends to digest the information she’d presented. This was her favorite room: light, elegant, and filled with exotic touches. She had selected the tea-colored brocade draperies, the pale, eggshell blue hue on the walls, and the rich Persian carpet underfoot. She and Eleanor had bought the landscape hanging above the mantel at the Academy Showing two years before. Together, too, they had found the porcelain figurine gracing a side table at a street market in Venice when they’d traveled there the winter after her debut. She’d identified it as a Carracci at once.

  Her guardian’s home had been filled with such artifacts from his travels as a young man. She’d made a habit of studying his collection, honing her eye and discernment during the two years she’d lived in his house in Sussex. There hadn’t been much else to do during her exile. And that is how she saw her fourteenth and fifteenth years, as ones of exile. It was a time when, heartbroken with unspeakable grief at her vibrant, loving parents’ deaths, she had lost everything and everyone she had ever known.