The Bargain Bride (33 page)

“That scamp? He's young, at least. Maybe he can change if he wants to. If he is interested, send him to me. I'll find a position for him, see if he can amount to anything. Is he good with numbers?”

He was terrible at cards, but Penny did not know if that counted. “I'll ask. But what about Nigel? I cannot be comfortable around him.”

“I'll make certain he doesn't bother you anymore. Maybe convince him to go traveling again, for his health, no matter that his mother will miss him.” He stood to go. “Deuced sorry about that, poppet. I want you to be happy. I know it doesn't always look that way, but I do.”

“Thank you, Father.”

 

Mr. Littleton was next. No matter that she was busy with last-minute preparations for the ball, she always had time for her beloved grandfather. His news was not surprising but disturbing, especially for reaching his ears so quickly, and for upsetting him enough that he wished to leave Town. He looked older, more fragile. She hoped that perhaps that was just the unwholesome London air.

“You must not listen to gossip, Grandpapa. I swear, the London rumor mill grinds at an exceedingly high rate.”

“But the talk might ruin your party that you've been planning for so long. I know how much its success means to you.”

“None of the gossip is true.”

“I am afraid it is.”

“What, you do not trust me? I never kissed that mongrel.”

He looked around, trying to see if his dog was in the room. “George?”

“Nigel.”

“I should hope not. You are a respectable married woman, my dear. You cannot go around kissing other men.”

“Oh, I thought that was the rumor you'd heard.” She gave him an abbreviated version of the by-now-familiar tale.

“That poltroon! Now I shall have to stay, to protect you. I ought to take my cane to that henwit of a husband of yours, going off and leaving you defenseless.”

She told him about Nigel's black eye.“So I am not precisely defenseless, and West will be back. He promised.”

“Then I shall stay in London until I see him, and no matter what anyone says.”

“That's the ticket, Grandpapa. Um, if not about Nigel and me, just what was the tittle-tattle?”

“Never you mind. If no one else comes to your ball, you and I shall dance.”

 

Fine, now she had three partners for her ball: a battered boy, a banker, and a blind man.

—By Arrangement,
a chronicle of arranged marriages, by G. E. Felber

 

 

 

A
strange footman would not let him pass. He eyed the bundle in West's arms. “ 'Ere, now, you gots to use the service entrance.”

“I am not making a delivery.”

“Well, you ain't going in through the front door without I sees an invite to the ball, and Viscount Westfield ain't about to be asking your kind.”

Granted, his kind was wet and dirty, windblown and unshaven, mounted on a horse not worthy of West's saddle. He was the viscount, nevertheless, and he did not need an engraved invitation to his own party. No one, certainly not some lobcock in livery, was going to keep him from his front door, and from his wife. Before he and the footman came to blows, his own butler came to the door. “Milord, is that you?”

“Yes, Parker, and wherever this cretin came from, send him back. I will not have such ill-mannered servants on my staff.”

“Sir Gaspar lent us extra help, milord, for the party. We shan't be needing him, it appears.”

The man was already leading West's horse off, as fast as either of them could go.

West bounded up the stairs. He was early. Well, he was days late, but the ball had obviously not yet begun. No crested carriages were lined up in the drive; no elegantly dressed guests were milling outside, waiting their turn to be announced. He burst through the door.

All his efforts were worthwhile, the saddle sores and the three-day beard, the bad food, and the beds in hay-ricks. He'd do it all again, West told himself, only faster, because there she was, his bright and shiny Penny, his lucky Penny, his golden bride. No, he swore, he'd never leave her again.

The breath caught in his throat, just to see her. Zeus, she was more beautiful than he remembered. Her gown was all shimmery, a rainbow of colors that framed her perfect body, and her hair was sunshine, piled atop her head in glorious gold curls. She was exquisite. She was his. Maybe he could breathe enough to get out the words that had been echoing in his mind for the entire race back to London.

“I lo—,” he began, until he noticed her delectable mouth hanging open. And heard a gasp from beside her, a giggle from behind her. While he'd had eyes only for Penny at first, now he noticed that most of her family was in the hall along with his brother, Lady Bainbridge, and Cottsworth, ready to receive the guests. Several servants stood waiting to accept hats and capes. They were all staring at him, at the filthy vagabond who'd stormed into the house. “I look dreadful, I know,” he said to Penny, giving the others a curt nod of greeting. “I'll hurry and change. And bathe. And shave.”

Penny shut her mouth so she could speak. “You came back.”

“Of course I did. I promised, didn't I?” He thrust the bundle in his arms at her, a huge bouquet of yellow roses. “I know I should not have taken the time to find a flower seller, but I wanted to bring them to you.”

“Beautiful.” But she never glanced at the roses, only at him, through blue eyes that glistened with tears.

Of joy, West hoped. “Do not weep, sweetings. You won't want to greet your guests with swollen eyes or blotchy skin.”

Her lip trembled. Damn. West wished her family to perdition. He wished the ball were tomorrow. He wished he were not so filthy, afraid to touch her or the rainbow gown.

He cleared his throat. “There are thirteen roses, you see.”

“One for each year of our betrothal?”

“One for each day I was away. You must admit I am getting better.”

She smiled then, her sweet, soft, hungry expression telling him that he was good enough, as good as she needed. West did not care who saw. He kissed her anyway.

“Go, my lord, company is coming,” Penny whispered, then added as he raced for the stairs, “Or not.”

 

“What did my wife mean, ‘or not'? Aren't we expecting the hordes tonight?” West asked his valet as the man scurried around the room, trying to get everything ready while West scrubbed himself in the hastily filled tub. The man knew he'd never find another position in the city, not if he let his employer face the
ton
in such a state of disrepair. He also knew he'd be out of a job if he repeated rumors Lord Westfield was not going to want to hear.

The valet stropped West's razor. “Ahem.”

“Get on with it, man. I am in a hurry.”

The valet stropped faster. “There has been a bit of talk. The fear in the servants' hall is that no one will attend Lady Westfield's affair. That is, her function. Not that anyone here believes such calumny, my lord. We are all quite fond of her ladyship, I assure you. Everyone has been working diligently to prepare for her ladyship's gathering.”

West was out of the tub. “What kind of talk?”

“I would prefer not to say, my lord. Idle gossip, don't you know.”

West took the razor out of the valet's shaking hand and held it close to the man's chin. “Tell me.”

A naked man with a sharp blade could usually win any argument. The valet did not try. His hurried account was understandably garbled, secondhand, full of denials and disbelief, with frequent swearing that most of the talk was speculation traced to jealous females, and a bit of praying that the viscount did not blame the bearer of such ill tidings.

West started to shave himself while the relieved valet laid out his formal wear.

Penny and Nigel? Impossible.

Nicky and an orgy of excess? Entirely possible.

Mr. Littleton and Marcel? Probable.

Sir Gaspar's bank failing? A faradiddle.

Miss Mavis Entwhistle joining the muslin company? Now,
that
West could believe. And that Maeve Greenlea tried to stir up a hornet's nest. He scrambled into his clothes, shouting at his poor valet when the nervous man ruined the first neckcloth. “Here, I'll do it myself. You get to whichever pub the upper servants frequent. You tell everyone you know to spread the word to their employers that I am back, that any insult to my wife or my family is an insult to me. Do you understand?”

The man gulped and fled.

He need not have bothered. As soon as news of West's return reached eager ears—thanks to the flower seller, that footman who'd taken his horse, the caterer, and two neighbors who had been keeping watch before deciding to come or not—the
ton
flocked to Westmoreland House like migrating starlings, eager to scratch in the dirt for a morsel of gossip. Everyone wanted to see how his lordship dealt with his errant wife and his outré in-laws. Why, Lord and Lady Westfield were already providing some of the tastiest
on-dits
of the Season, and they'd been married barely a month.

By the time West joined the others at the entrance to the ballroom, a line had formed, the cream of London society waiting to be introduced to what they thought of as the curds. West stood at Penny's side, daring anyone to find fault with his elegant wife. She was gracious, she was charming, she was stunning in her silk and jewels, and she was as twitchy as a cat in a dog kennel.

West maintained his own smile, exchanging quips and ignoring queries. He'd get to the bottom of this mess later. Now he had to be the perfect host, urbane, unruffled, and above the untruths. When the receiving line thinned, he took a better look at his surroundings. The ballroom was transformed into a garden, with half the blooms in London, it seemed, bedecking every surface. No wonder he'd had such a hard time finding yellow roses to buy.

Lady Bainbridge and Michael Cottsworth were standing nearby—and nearer to each other than convention dictated—helping to make introductions, since between them they knew almost every member of the beau monde.

Sir Gaspar and his wife hovered just to the left of the door to the ballroom, greeting their own friends and associates, while inspecting the gentlemen for prospective sons-in-law. The guests inspected them, in turn. The health of the bank was no longer in question, only the weight of the gold and diamonds dripping off both the financier knight and his overdressed wife. It was a wonder to West that Sir Gaspar could raise his hand; he wore so many rings.

The Entwhistle daughters, at least, were finally dressed as befitted debutantes, not courtesans, West was relieved to see. They wore pale colors with demure styles, and simple strands of pearls at their necks. Penny and Lady Bainbridge must have worked as hard as he had, rebuilding his barn, to effect such a change, maybe harder because he'd had to confront only a felon, not convince Lady Goldwaite.

Nicky and his friends seemed to be circling the older sister like sheepdogs protecting a lamb, fending off wolves like Lord Jessup, who preyed on tender maidens. West noticed Nicky's black eye and whispered to Penny between introductions, “Did you punch him, or was that one of Mavis's beaux?”

She smiled.“I wish I had been the one. But your brother is redeeming himself tonight. Mr. Culpepper has arrived.”

“Good Lord, he is not going to recite any of his dreadful poetry, is he?”

“Only for Amelia, I hope. See? They are over in the corner, conversing.”

To hell with meter and rhyme, West thought the young man must be a magician, for Amelia was talking and laughing and actually sparkling. “Is that the same stepsister I met at your father's house?”

“Lovely, isn't it? I have great hopes in that direction.” But she was looking anxiously in a different direction, to where her grandfather sat in another corner with a gathering of his cronies, all waving canes and ear trumpets.

Then Nigel entered the room. The nearby guests hushed their conversations, and Penny went stiff. Without knowing the full story, West wished he still had a pistol tucked into his waistband. He stepped closer to her side.

Nigel bowed. Penny did not offer her hand, but he took it anyway and brought it to his lips.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered harshly, her face gone white.

“Why, I have come to apologize,” he said in a tone loud enough to satisfy the gossips—and his stepfather.

Penny tried to get her hand back without being obvious, but Nigel held it tightly. And squeezed it tighter, painfully.

“I did not appreciate your little trick, my dear.”

West did not hear his words, but he saw Penny's distress. He would have stepped in, but Nigel dropped Penny's hand, bowed again, and went to join his mother.

“I see he has a bruised eye, too,” was all West said.

Penny had already pasted her smile back on for a dowager duchess who was next on line. Before sinking into a deep curtsy that would have made Lady Bainbridge proud, Penny whispered for West's ears, “Now,
that
I did do, and would do again.”

Before West could congratulate her, or ask questions, Her Grace harrumphed, looked at West, who had not given his valet enough time to powder his own vividly colored eye, looked over at Nicky, and at Nigel's departing back, then harrumphed again. “I suppose all the young bucks will be sporting black eyes in the morning. Odd fashion you are setting, Westfield, quite odd.”