The Misguided Matchmaker

by Nadine Miller

  It was late afternoon when they reached Dover. This closest of the English ports to the coast of France was shrouded in fog so thick, a ghostly pall hung over the docks. The other ships in the harbor loomed like dark shadows in the gray, swirling mist, and the dock men who caught and secured The Madelaine’s mooring lines were merely half-seen specters with strangely disembodied voices.

  Following the recommendation he’d secured from an innkeeper in Calais, Tristan searched out a moneychanger who converted the remaining francs from the sale of the horses into pound notes. The rate of exchange was ridiculous, but considering the times, no worse than he’d expected.

  Next, with Maddy in tow, he stopped at the stable where, before sailing for Calais, he’d secured a pair of matched grays and the phaeton that were all that was left of the Earl of Rand’s stable. “Have the horses fed and the rig made ready at dawn tomorrow, for we shall leave for London at first light,” he directed the ostler.

  That done, he searched out a clean but humble dockside inn and secured accommodation for the night. A tankard of ale and two plates of mutton and boiled potatoes depleted all but a few of his coins, but at least Maddy and he would go to their respective beds on the last night of their journey with full stomachs.

  “I’ll have my first kiss now, if you please,” she said as he walked her to her chamber door an hour later.

  Tristan’s head whipped around. “You’ll what?”

  “I’ll have my kiss,” she repeated. “For if there was ever a time when my spirits were in need of elevating, that time is surely tonight. I cannot stop thinking about my grandfather and my home in Lyon…and I fear I find this England of yours a trifle depressing.”

  “Depressing? How so?”

  Maddy frowned. “For one thing, the language is harsh to my Gallic ears; for another, the food is deplorable. Nom de Dieu, there was not even a hint of rosemary on the lamb, which I suspect was really mutton. Nor was there so much as a sprig of parsley on the potatoes.” She shuddered. “And Dover is so cold…and gray.”

  “It’s the fog,” Tristan said, his heart aching at the sight of her woebegone face. He watched her finger the flowers on her new bonnet as if even the artificial blossoms reminded her of the sunnier clime of her home in southern France.

  Gently, he brushed a tousled curl off her forehead. “The sun will probably shine tomorrow and everything will look brighter—and don’t judge all English food by what is served in a dockside inn. There is nothing better than plain country cooking, to my way of thinking. Though admittedly our British cooks have not the skill with herbs and spices of their continental counterparts, which is why most of the peers of the realm staff their kitchens with French chefs.”

  He was prattling inanely, he knew, but he hoped such small talk would make her forget her homesickness. For that was the malady from which she suffered. He had dealt with it often enough himself in the past six years to recognize the symptoms. She was also close to exhaustion. Even in the dim light of the single wall sconce decorating the narrow hallway, he could see her extreme pallor and the dark smudges beneath her eyes.

  She regarded him solemnly—waiting, he suspected, for him to comply with her highly improper request. As God was his witness, he had no intention of kissing her. Not now. Not ever again. He had learned his lesson on that score.

  But devil take, she looked so young, so vulnerable…so unspeakably lonely. A terrible, wrenching tenderness welled within him and he found he could no more refuse the comfort she asked than he could refuse to draw the breath of life into his lungs.

  “Ah, Maddy,” he murmured, and taking her in his arms, he kissed her with the same chaste compassion he’d often kissed away his sister Caro’s childish hurts. Raising his head, he smiled down at her, congratulating himself that for once he had managed to maintain a tight control on his emotions where this perplexing lady-hoyden was concerned.

  With a sigh, she snuggled deeper into his arms. Her eyes were closed, their amber light hidden beneath smoky lashes. “I didn’t know,” she said softly against his chest. “I am so ignorant about such things. I thought all kisses were the same. I see now they are not at all. This one was so…so different from the last. Very nice,” she hastened to add, “but quite different.”

  Her eyes fluttered open and her gaze locked with his. “And how wise you are to know exactly what kind of kiss is apropos to the moment.”

  She cupped his cheek with her hand in a gesture of tender affection and instantly his heart started thudding heavily in his chest. “Maddy,” he whispered hoarsely, and before his very eyes, lips that only moments before had trembled like those of a frightened child now curved in a seductive, womanly smile that sent tongues of flame licking along his veins. With a strangled sound deep in this throat, he again drank hungrily of her soft, open mouth.

  “Oh my,” she murmured a long time later, “I can see you really do know a great deal about kissing. All kinds of kissing. If I were not already…” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “Well, I certainly would be now.”

  Hell and damnation, she’d done it again! Driven him to lose the control he’d always prided himself was inviolable. How could a complete innocent be such a temptress? He dropped his arms to his sides and stepped back, determined to make her understand once and for all the folly of this attraction between them.

  He took a deep breath. “Maddy…”

  “Good night, Tristan,” she said softly, interrupting him before he could phrase what he wanted to say. Opening the door, she quickly slipped into her chamber. “Dream sweetly, as I know I shall, for thanks to your lovely kisses, my flagging spirits have quite recovered.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, the same enigmatic smile on her face that had been his undoing just moments before. “But remember,” she said softly. “I did not ask for the second one, so it was free. You still owe me two more.”

  As he’d predicted, they rose the next morning to a cloudless sky and a dawn bright with the promise of a sunny day. Maddy was obviously in a cheerful mood, and Tristan felt loath to risk upsetting her again with the lecture on propriety he had rehearsed during his long, sleepless night. In truth, it scarcely seemed worthwhile. Once they reached London and Garth began to court her, she would forget all about those two kisses she claimed he owed her.

  With dogged determination, he ignored the pain that such a picture of the future caused him and strove to make their last few hours together as pleasant as possible.

  The grays were particularly lively after their long period of inactivity and Tristan pushed them to their limits, pausing only for the briefest of rests. For with every mile closer to London they drew, the greater his need became to end the torture of Maddy’s presence. He could see now there was nothing for it but to request Lord Castlereagh send him on an assignment as far away from London as possible.

  Dark was settling over London when they arrived—the daytime life of garrulous street peddlers and sober merchants, busy matrons and noisy children giving way to the painted prostitutes and wealthy pleasure-seekers that inhabited the ancient streets after dark.

  Tristan guided the grays along Holborn Road to the busy crossroad leading to the section of the city in which Caleb Harcourt resided. “You can’t miss Bloomsbury Square for it’s that near the British Museum,” the old man had said in the day he’d seen him off on his assignment. And indeed, he found it with an ease that he could see left Maddy thoroughly impressed with his knowledge of the vast city.

  He had no idea what to expect of a residence so far removed from the genteel environs of Mayfair, where the townhouses of the Earl of Rand and other members of the ton were located. But the minute he saw the narrow, two-story, redbrick townhouse standing at the north end of Bloomsbury Square, he decided it suited Caleb Harcourt perfectly.

  Neat, unpretentious, and unadorned by the Ionic columns and leering gargoyles that decorated the large mansions surrounding it, the small house had a symmetry and grace of line that somehow reminded him of
Harcourt’s trim flagship, The Madelaine.

  “This lovely little house is where my father lives?” Maddy asked, her eyes looking more than ever like those of a startled fawn. “Are you certain?”

  “I’m certain,” Tristan replied. “He gave me explicit directions as to where I should deliver you, including the fact that I should look for the brass door knocker in the shape of a dolphin—and unless my eyes deceive me, there it is.”

  With the promise of a shilling, he tossed his reins to one of the ragged street urchins who obviously made his living tending the horses of the visitors to Bloomsbury Square, handed Maddy down from the carriage, and led her up the shallow steps to the door of the townhouse.

  Scarcely had he raised the knocker than the door burst open, revealing an ancient fellow whose formal attired proclaimed him a butler, but whose scarred cheek and patch-covered eye more closely resembled those of a Barbary pirate.

  “Come ye in, Miss Maddy, and ye too, young feller, and glad I am to see ye. The cap’ns been storming around like a sou’wester in the rigging this week past and I’m that weary of his evil temper,” he declared with a familiarity no proper butler would presume to display.

  Remembering the old codger he’d met at Harcourt’s office, Tristan decided the eccentric cit must make a habit of surrounding himself with colorful employees.

  Stepping aside, the butler waved them through the door into a small entry hall, the walls of which were adorned by paintings of a dozen or more brigantines in full sail, all bearing the Harcourt flag and each with a brass nameplate at the base of its frame.

  Tristan was so intrigued by the paintings and by the intricate ship’s model displayed on an ebony pier table, he failed to see the old butler limp to the foot of the graceful staircase curving to the floor above. “She’s ere, Cap’n. So ye can quit yer frettin’ now,” he hollered at the top of his lungs, then promptly disappeared behind the stairwell.

  Moments later, Caleb Harcourt thundered down the stairs, sans both topcoat and waistcoat, and with his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. He stopped a few feet short of Tristan and surveyed him with a baleful eye. “So, you’ve arrived at last,” he declared in the booming voice Tristan remembered all too well. “And high time too! I’d have thought with Boney at your heels, you’d have reached London sooner than my reckoning—not a full sen’night later.”

  Tristan felt his hackles rise at the injustice of this criticism. “The circumstances did not permit setting a rigid timetable,” he said coldly. “Indeed, with all that’s transpired in France during the last month, we are lucky to have made it to London at all.”

  Harcourt looked taken aback by the vehemence of Tristan’s reply. “Aye, I give you that now that I think on it,” he conceded. “I wasn’t complaining, lad, but merely giving vent to the frustration of the past seven days.

  His gaze shifted to Maddy, traveling from the top of her head to the tips of her toes with a perusal so intense, Tristan saw the color blanch from her face. “Never say this woman grown is my daughter, Maddy,” he said gruffly. “Hell’s bells, girl, when I last saw you I could carry you on my shoulder. This day has been a long time coming. Much too long, to my way of thinking.”

  Maddy dropped into a graceful curtsy. “I am pleased to see you, too, Papa,” she said in a stilted little voice that told Tristan she’d been much more nervous about this meeting with her father than she had let on.

  Harcourt raised his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Here now, none of the bobbing up and down for me, girl. I’m a plain man and always will be. Save such folderol for the swells you’ll be meeting once we’ve had a fancy modiste make you up some pretties.”

  He chuckled at Maddy’s look of surprise. “Ay, that’s right. I’ve plans for you, young lady. Plans I’ve been laying all these long years I’ve waited for you to remember who it was that fathered you.”

  Maddy felt her knees go weak, recalling her grandfather’s surprising deathbed confession. “I believed you had forgotten me, Papa,” she said, choking back the sob rising in her throat. “Only recently did I learn otherwise.”

  Harcourt’s eyes blazed. “Forgotten you? How could you think such a thing when even with England and France at war, I managed to smuggle enough money to your grandfather each quarter to guarantee you were always well cared for?”

  He studied Maddy with narrowed eyes. “That devious old Tartar never told you! And all this time I was thinking my own flesh and blood didn’t care enough to write me a line once or twice a year.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, blew his nose, and wiped his eyes, which had grown suspiciously moist.

  “Damn and blast! I should have sent for you years ago.” He shrugged his powerful shoulders as if divesting himself of a great burden. “Well, it’s all water down the Thames now, and I’m not one to look back on yesterday when we’ve tomorrow ahead of us.” He held out his arms. “Come here, girl. Give your old papa the hug he’s not had these fifteen long years.”

  Maddy stepped into his embrace and instantly was deluged with memories of being swept up in the arms of this great bear of a man, of walking through Hyde Park, her hand safely clasped in his. And other memories of crying herself to sleep night after night in a strange bed not at all like her own little trundle bed, afraid to ask why her beloved papa had sent her away. She longed to tell him how much she had missed him. But she could see that with Tristan looking on he was already embarrassed by the emotion of their reunion, as was she, so she merely laid her head on his shoulder and gave way to her silent tears.

  “But here now,” he growled a moment later, “what are we doing standing around in this drafty entry hall like a bunch of gapeseeds fresh from the country?” He lifted her chin with his large, callused finger. “And you with circles as black as the soot from a London chimney beneath your pretty eyes.”

  His rugged face softened in a smile. “I think I should have old Griggins show you to your chamber so’s you can have a lie-down while I trade a few words with the earl’s brother here. Then we’ll have a bite to eat and a nice, long gabble.”

  He’d called her a woman grown one minute, and was sending her to her chamber for a nap as if she were still a five-year-old, the next. She could see she would have to make him understand who and what she was. But not now. Not when every inch of her body ached from exhaustion.

  She slipped out of his arms and as she watched, he reared back his head like a great bull elephant and bellowed, “Griggins, you blasted old swabber, where’d you get to now?”

  “Hold your water, Cap’n. I just be finishing my supper.” The voice came from behind the stairwell, and Maddy stifled the urge to chuckle as the old fellow emerged, evidently from the kitchen as he had a muffin in his hand and crumbs on his lip.

  It was obvious her father was accustomed to his servant’s lack of respect, for he made no comment about the fellow’s cheeky reply, but merely ordered, “Take Miss Maddy up to her chamber while her legs’ll still carry her.”

  Maddy turned to Tristan, and for one brief instant his eyes caressed her with tender concern. Then, as if he realized they had an audience, he donned his usual mask of cool indifference. Her gaze traveled to his strong, expressive mouth and she felt a sudden overwhelming desire to collect another of the kisses owed her.

  Nom de Dieu, she must have the instincts of a trollop to be constantly bedeviled by such unladylike thoughts. She only hoped Tristan made her an offer soon, before her feelings for him drove her to commit a serious impropriety.

  Determinedly she pulled her wits together. “Thank you, Tristan,” she said in the most proper of ladylike voices. “Ours was a great adventure and I shall treasure the memory forever. But Papa is right. Now that it is over, I find I am very tired. A nap sounds most welcome.”

  She followed Griggins to the foot of the stairs, where she hesitated, a wry smile on her face. “But I shall plan on seeing you later, Tristan.”

  “Not tonight, Maddy. My stepmother was not well when I left, and I am anxious
to get home.”

  “Very well, tomorrow then.” She held his gaze with her own, her lips curling in a mischievous smile. “Do not forget we have some unfinished business.”

  Caleb Harcourt poured two brandies, handed one to Tristan, and took a seat behind the Sheraton desk in his bookroom, where they’d adjourned after Maddy left them. With a wave of his hand, he indicated Tristan should occupy the chair facing him.

  Like the entryway, this walnut-paneled room also had a nautical ambience. A ship’s compass adorned the top of a small table, which on closer inspection appeared to be constructed of a brass hatch cover, and to the left of the desk stood a cluttered chart table.

  Every wall was lined with books, and Tristan found himself wondering if Caleb Harcourt was actually an avid reader or if the hundreds of rich bound volumes were used merely to create the effect that this “plain man,” as he termed himself, was really a learned scholar.

  “Maddy favors her mother in looks, and that’s a fact,” Harcourt said, opening the conversation. “Except for her height, of course. Clarisse was a head shorter—prettiest little creature God ever created. I took one look at her and lost my head completely. It wasn’t until after Maddy was born that I realized I’d married a woman who’d never had a sensible thought in her life. I’m trusting Maddy’s inherited some of what’s between her ears from me.”

  Tristan smiled, remembering how often she had outwitted him. “You need have no worry on that score, sir. She is highly intelligent and I’d stack her up against any man when it came to courage. We had some rather harrowing experiences on our trip across France, and she survived them all without a whimper.”

  “Got bottom, has she? Good. I’d expect nothing less of my daughter.” Harcourt’s shrewd old eyes studied Tristan closely. “What did Maddy mean when she said you had unfinished business?”