A Winter Wedding

by Amanda Forester

  The dowager duchess played a card with a smile, her white hair gleaming in the candlelight only adding to her beauty. She had been lauded as the most ravishing lady of her day and through the refining of the years had emerged quite elegant, with the glint of fire still burning in her eyes. She took the trump, winning the last rubber of the game. The dejected couple forfeited their prize, forcing Marchford to look away so as to maintain the illusion that he did not know the amounts (shocking indeed!) that were laid down on the dowager’s whist table.

  “Are you ready to retire for the evening?” the duke asked his grandmother in a manner most solicitous.

  “Did you remember me at last?” she asked with a malicious smile. “I wondered how far you both would go before you remembered to return for me.”

  Marchford and Penelope shared a glance. They were in for a scolding now.

  “I would have been pleased to see her home in any case,” said Lord Langley. He smiled in such a way at the dowager that Penelope almost felt inclined to blush. The pair of them were acting more like young lovers than the elderly grandparents they were. With a great-grandchild on the way for Lord Langley, Penelope felt sure he should not have given the dowager a wink. And as a woman who had buried three successive Dukes of Marchford, the dowager had no business returning it.

  Marchford cleared his throat. “Shall we leave?” he intoned, frowning with a distinctively aristocratic air.

  His grandmother, queen of the aristocratic set-downs, merely laughed in his face. “Do not take such a tone with me. You must learn to live a little.”

  “Children today.” Lord Langley shook his head.

  “La, but they would have been shocked by one day in King Louis’s court,” returned the dowager.

  The fact that King Louis XVI had lost his life in part due to the excesses of his reign was not something Penelope chose to address. Instead, she and the duke gave the dowager her precedence and followed her and Lord Langley out of the ballroom to the waiting carriage. Here, Lord Langley whispered something to the dowager that made her giggle.

  Giggle.

  Penelope was so shocked she could not find words. Marchford’s eyebrows clamped down over his eyes. They glanced at each other, their suspicions shared.

  Lord Langley on the other hand smiled broadly at them all. “Marchford, if I could have a word with you.” The two men held back a moment while the ladies entered the carriage.

  “Not now. Not now,” said Marchford, briskly ending the audience and striding away from Lord Langley as if the man were a contagion. “Come see me later. Next month, perhaps.”

  Penelope wondered at this. Marchford’s glower remained for the ride home. He was silent, but the dowager chatted freely, in a lively mood, until Penelope was inclined to ask if she was febrile, yet in truth she had never seen the dowager looking so well. Nor Marchford so ill.

  “What is wrong?” she whispered to him when they finally returned to Marchford House and the duke handed her out of the carriage.

  “My grandmother has taken utter leave of her senses.”

  Seven

  Penelope’s day began with the post—four letters from her sisters. Her married sisters. Her beautiful, blond, vivacious, married sisters. Reading the letters brought a new adjective to mind. Not only were they blond, beautiful, vivacious, and married, but they were now all in expectation of a blessed event.

  The Rose sisters had taken London by storm three years ago. After their parents died, their aunt brought them out in London. The Rose sisters soon made heads turn, all blond-haired, blue-eyed beauties…all except Penelope. She had supported her sisters, first her two elder, then her two younger, as they all found husbands, no one happier than her that they found true love. It was getting left behind that was less appealing.

  Penelope was pleased, she reminded herself firmly. Very pleased. She would be an auntie again. Her elder sisters, Amelia and Sophie, were expecting their seconds; for her younger sisters, Mariah and Julia, it would be their firsts.

  And for Penelope, there would be no babies at all.

  Pen recalled once again Marchford’s joke proposal of yesterday. It was her only proposal and it was only in jest. Even if he had been serious, she would certainly never enter into a marriage of convenience. She may be on the shelf at age twenty-six, but she still had standards.

  She pulled out her copy of Debrett’s Peerage of England and flipped through the annotated pages. She and her sisters had used the volume as a sort of shopping guide for finding titled husbands. Penelope had made meticulous notes, adding sections for the respected landed gentry, and had used the volume with great success in finding brilliant marriages for all her sisters. She continued to use the volume to make matches in her new occupation as Madame X, society’s most exclusive matchmaker.

  The only person Penelope had not been able to find a match for was herself.

  Dressed in sensible attire, her hair pulled back in a sensible knot, Penelope walked down to breakfast with every intention of having a sensible day. All aspirations toward sensibility were lost, however, when she entered the breakfast room.

  He was there.

  They were hardly alone, with the footman standing at attention on the side of the wall, but she was keenly aware of Marchford’s presence in the room. Nothing between them had changed, and yet after their experience last night, she had difficulty looking at him in the same way again.

  She had barely entered the room before the barrage began. “The Devine ball is fewer than three days away,” Marchford accused over his eggs. It was barely nine in the morning, and he was still in a foul temper from the night before.

  “Should I apologize?” Penelope selected some breakfast items for herself. She would not allow his ill temper to distract her from her meal. It would be insensible, and she was never that.

  “Yes. Quite. I am obliged to go,” said Marchford glumly. “I cannot insult Lord Admiral Devine by not attending his wife’s Christmas gala.”

  “Dreadful. I can clearly see why you blame me.” Penelope took a long sip of hot chocolate to avoid Marchford’s cold stare.

  “I do not blame you for the invitation,” he began.

  “Am I responsible for the Christmas holiday, then? All that merrymaking and jolly times—what rot. How astute of you to lay the blame at my doorstep.”

  “That will be all, Charles,” said Marchford, dismissing the footman who had begun to snicker. “The Devine Christmas gala is something of a tradition. She is German aristocracy, you know, which somehow requires a tree to be carted inside and set ablaze.”

  Penelope put down her fork in surprise. “They set a whole tree on fire inside the house?”

  “Not intentionally—except for the Christmas of 1804, though I rather think that was a mistake. The point is to attach candles all over the limbs ofan evergreen.”

  Pen frowned. “What has burning a tree to do with Christmas?”

  “How the blast do I know?” Marchford gave her an irritated scowl. He was certainly in an ill temper. “The point is I must attend, and now with the early start of the season, the gala will be a crush. Everyone is in a frolicking, blasted good mood.”

  “Appalling.”

  “The truly appalling thing is that I remain unwed, unengaged, and utterly unattached.” He spoke each word as a crisp indictment against her.

  “Utterly insupportable,” agreed Penelope.

  Marchford’s frown deepened. “Truth is I need to find a wife in order to avoid the machinations of marriage-minded females and their utterly vicious mamas. All this holiday joviality and matchmaking nonsense—it’s plain gone to her head. It can be the only explanation.”

  “Explanation for what?” Penelope was confused.

  “Nothing, nothing at all. I can only hope it comes to nothing,” he added in a mutter. “But more to the point, you cannot possibly throw me to the wol
ves without feeling the slightest bit of remorse.”

  “Of course not.” Penelope revealed a packet of papers she had prepared for him. She should, perhaps, have shown him earlier but had been nettled by his accusatory tone. “Allow me to present six potential brides, all of the highest character and from some of the most established families.”

  “Oh. Well then.” Marchford accepted the papers with a look Pen found unreadable. If he was not pleased by her efforts, she could do nothing more for him. She had stayed up late the night before, the excitement of the events at the ball making sleep impossible. Instead, she reviewed her annotated copy of Debrett’s and created profiles of potential brides for Marchford. She had found the work calming after the unsettling events of the evening. She made practical checklists, rated numerous young ladies on essential qualities, and prepared a report of her top candidates.

  She enjoyed bringing something as messy and confusing as falling in love into rational control. Turning the affairs of the heart into something tangible and quantifiable was comforting. Though when it came to making selections for Marchford, none seemed to quite fit. Beyond checklists and calculated evaluation, she had difficulty with the notion that any of these ladies would find themselves the wife of the scowling man before her.

  “No. None of these are suitable.” Marchford tossed the papers down on the table after only the briefest examination.

  “What?” asked Penelope, her eggs wiggling on her fork halfway to her mouth. She had expected at least to be able to finish her breakfast while he selected a bride—and yet she could not deny a wave of relief.

  “They are simply not suitable.” He picked up her papers and began to thumb through them, tossing them down once more with each rejection. “Too young, too old, too empty-headed, too many freckles, too well dowered, and too, too…oh I don’t know, but this one has too much of it at any rate.”

  “Too many freckles? Too well dowered?” Penelope had never heard of such a thing.

  “I have no need for a well-dowered bride, should leave her to my friends who do. As for spots, I believe that speaks for itself.”

  “Well!” Penelope paused to collect her speech into something more refined than telling the duke to go to perdition. “I regret to tell you that you have rejected the most eligible ladies in London.” And she was mighty pleased he had.

  “Then perhaps you need to start looking at those ineligible, for none of these will do. In the meantime, I am still stuck attending the gala as a marked man. I have a most pressing need for a wife, and you have failed to provide a suitable candidate.” His gray-green eyes pierced into hers. He wanted something from her, but what, she could not name.

  “Your idea of suitable is rather elusive,” defended Penelope, though in truth she only felt relief that he had not selected any of the potential brides. He was correct that none of them would do, though she would never admit to it.

  “I am the Duke of Marchford,” he said in a grave tone, accepting from the butler the newspaper that had just been ironed to prevent the ink from staining his precious hands.

  “Yes, yes, quite.” Penelope took another sip of cocoa. She returned to the comforting feeling of finding him odious to think so highly of himself. Of course half of London—particularly the female half—all seemed to agree with his self-aggrandizing assessment. The man was literally being stalked by eligible females, but Penelope had not the least amount of sympathy for him.

  “For the price you are charging me for your dubious services, I expect nothing less than a suitable bride.” Marchford unfolded his newspaper.

  “I just presented you with six choices, and you refused them all. And one without even giving me a hint of why she was unacceptable.”

  “That last one snorts when she laughs.”

  “Does she really? Had I but known, I would have never have suggested her.” Though her words dripped with sarcasm, it seemed to pass by Marchford unnoticed.

  “The point is, I cannot attend the Devine gala unmarried still.”

  “If you wish to be married within three days, you may have to settle for the chit who snorts.”

  “I do not believe you are treating this situation with the gravity it deserves.” He looked over his paper at her.

  “I would never contradict you,” Penelope said sweetly. She was quite enjoying herself.

  Marchford folded his paper with a great rustle. “This is not simply a matter of my own personal interest. I cannot conduct the investigations necessary in the service to my king if I am constantly being hounded by females wishing to become the next Duchess of Marchford.”

  Penelope was forced to concede he had a point. “I shall redouble my efforts, though it might help if you could…”

  “Lower my standards? Marry the next female who walks into the room?”

  “It would make my job easier.”

  The Dowager Duchess of Marchford glided into the room with a radiant smile.

  Penelope and Marchford exchanged a glance and a smile. “On second thought, perhaps not,” murmured Penelope.

  If the dowager heard her, she gave no hint of it and instead sat down to her coffee and crumpet with clotted cream, with a gleam in her blue eyes that signaled she was up to mischief. “Good morning, children. Lovely day, is it not?”

  Marchford’s eyes narrowed and he disappeared behind his newspaper again. Penelope was suspicious. In all the time she had lived with the dowager, she had always taken breakfast in her room. The dowager’s presence here in the breakfast room was greatly suspect. Adding to her alarm, Penelope had never seen the dowager in such a fine mood without it heralding some discomfort for either her or Marchford.

  “Yes. Lovely day,” came Marchford’s detached voice from behind the paper. “Anything in particular that makes it admirable to you, Grandmother? Perhaps the cold or the damp or maybe even the ice?”

  The dowager’s good humor never faded. “Yes, and the snow. Do not forget it looks like snow.”

  “You despise snow,” reminded Marchford.

  “Me despise snow? Whatever gave you such a notion?” Antonia stirred her coffee and attempted to look innocent.

  “Because you have told me so every winter that I have been alive.” Marchford glanced over his paper.

  The dowager waved an elegant hand at him like she was batting a fly. “Bah! What do you know of it? I used to race sleighs down country lanes before your father was even a twinkle in my eye. Ah, the times we had.” She smiled and savored her crumpet as if she were eating ambrosia.

  Penelope was truly concerned. Anything that had the dowager this pleased could only spell trouble. Marchford refused to look beyond his paper, and she suspected his bad humor was directly related to the dowager’s good one. Whatever had Antonia so pleased was clearly putting the duke in an ill temper.

  “Anything new happen to put you in a good mood this morning?” asked Penelope.

  Antonia smiled radiantly. “Yes, I suppose you could say so.”

  “Please do not hold me in suspense,” said Penelope. “Will you not share your good news?”

  “I was going to wait, but if you must know…” Antonia gave them both a wide, gracious smile and waited for Marchford to slowly lower his paper. “I am going to be married!”

  “Married?” Penelope set her cocoa down with a clank, almost spilling it on her lap. Married? Of all the things she thought she might hear from the dowager’s lips, marriage was not one of them.

  Marchford was silent. His features hardened into stone, but it was evident he was not entirely caught unawares. No wonder he had been so irritable this morning.

  “Forgive me,” said Penelope, “but who is to be the groom?”

  The dowager looked at Pen as if she were daft. “Why, Lord Langley of course.”

  “But you and he are always fighting,” observed Penelope.

  “So true. You se
e we are already acting like a married couple.”

  “Marriage, Grandmother? Why marriage?” Marchford’s voice was strained.

  “The thing to do,” said Antonia lightly.

  “At your age, I think it would be the thing not to do,” accused Marchford.

  Antonia’s eyes flashed. “Are you insinuating you think me old?”

  “No, not at all.” He wisely disappeared behind his newspaper with an irritated shuffle.

  “So you are going to marry the Earl of Langley?” Penelope was still struggling to make herself clear on the facts. “The same Lord Langley who broke your engagement so many years ago?”

  Antonia looked down her regal nose. The remembrance was not appreciated. “Yes, indeed. He may be unworthy of me, but I will have him just the same.” There was something definitely malicious twinkling in her eye. “Now I must dash. Langley will be coming by to take me riding in Hyde Park.”

  “Riding in this weather?” asked Penelope.

  “Oh yes, for I have it on good authority that the Comtesse de Marseille does a morning constitutional in the park in her curricle.” She glanced down at a rather large emerald surrounded with smaller diamonds on her finger. “A shame I cannot wear this outside my glove. Ah, well, can’t be helped. No need to come with me Penelope.” She paused as if seeing Pen for the first time. “What are you wearing?”

  Eight

  Penelope decided to pay an early call on her friend Genie Grant. She wished to know how her friend had survived the shock of the night before. Genie had been married to the affable Mr. Grant for less than a year, and this had been her first great soiree, supposedly establishing herself as an accomplished hostess. Instead, her home was the scene of a murder.

  Besides, Penelope needed an escape from Marchford House. The atmosphere between the dowager and Marchford had grown so chilly, going outside in the sleet was a welcome relief.