The Bargain Bride (34 page)

Which did not begin to describe the next guest. “Monsieur le comte du Chambertin,” the butler announced.

They were both astounded as a large, broad-shouldered Frenchman, his hair in a queue, his clothes a brighter rainbow than Penny's gown, his fingers sporting more rings than Sir Gaspar's, strolled into the room. He made an extravagant bow, tapping his diamond-studded high heels together and flourishing a lace handkerchief. He kissed Penny on both cheeks, and would have done the same to West if the English viscount had not stepped back a pace. Then Marcel winked at them and minced his way into the ballroom.

“Marcel, a count?” Penny murmured.

“Marcel, a guest?” West muttered. “Good grief.”

Instead of going toward Mr. Littleton, however, Marcel headed directly toward Nigel Entwhistle and kissed him on both cheeks before Nigel could move. Nigel turned bright red; then he turned as white as his neckcloth when Marcel patted his arm and whispered something in his ear.

Whatever Marcel said to the dastard, it worked. Nigel left, without bidding his hosts farewell, without so much as taking leave of his mother.

“Good man,” West said, watching half the guests watching Nigel depart.

“Nigel?”

“Marcel.”

They dissolved the receiving line shortly afterward and opened the dancing with a waltz, just the two of them. For a minute they both forgot all the eyes, all the slander, all the scandal. Only the two of them existed, flowing together, her skirts swirling around his legs, his thighs brushing against hers, their eyes fastened on each other's face, as if memorizing their features all over again.

“Welcome home, my lord.”

“I am glad to be here, my lady.”

To West's sorrow, that was the last dance they could have, as every man in the room wanted a set with the most beautiful woman in London. Every female wanted to speak with Penny, find out her modiste, her florist, her feelings for Nigel Entwhistle.

West raised an eyebrow at anyone impertinent enough to ask him any awkward questions, and then he tried to corner Nicky, to get some answers. His brother dashed off instead.

“My dance with Mavis, don't you know. Wouldn't want her taking the floor with one of the old roués her mother keeps pushing her way. Foolish chit is liable to let some rakehell lead her out to the gardens.”

And Nicky was going to provide propriety? That was Lady Bainbridge's job, wherever she was.

West strolled out the open doors to gather his wits after a night of surprises, and cool his temper after watching Penny and her current partner. The handsome devil was one of West's best friends, which made him a womanizer and a rogue. Darkened daylights might be a new fashion, but if Hazlitt did not loosen his hold on Penny's waist, he would be holding his own privates in his hand next. Ensuring that gentlemen kept their proper distance was Lady Bainbridge's job, too. Where the devil was the companion?

A few steps onto the terrace and West found out. The chaperone, the expert in polite behavior, the respectable widow, was out in the shadowed garden with Cottsworth, who could not dance but could obviously canoodle.

Good grief, West thought again. Good grief.

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

 

 

 

W
est peeled Lady Bainbridge out of Cottsworth's arms. If he could not hold the woman of his choice, why should his friend have the pleasure?

In turn, Lady Bainbridge tried to drag Miss Amelia away from her poet, insisting they had to dance with other partners. Only spouses—and those seldom did so—or betrothed couples could sit in each other's pockets all night without causing talk.

“Very well,” Mr. Culpepper said, falling to his knees right there on the ballroom floor. “Will you marry me, my dearest Amelia, my muse, my inspiration, my beloved, so we never have to be parted?”

Amelia said yes, of course, through her tears and stammers.

Her outraged mother started to say no, of course. Lady Bainbridge hastily whispered that the young gentleman was second in line for a marquisate, and wealthy in his own right. How else could he get his poetry published?

So the dancing was interrupted for a happy announcement and a champagne toast, with more people congratulating Penny than the newly engaged pair. She gave the credit for her coup to Nicky, of all people. Sir Gaspar shook Nicky's hand, clasped him in an embrace, and walked off with West's brother in serious conversation. Mavis trailed behind, listening to every word.

West started toward his wife and his own celebration, but she was busy with the servants, ordering more wine, more waltzes, more food put out on the refreshments tables because no one appeared to be leaving. When he looked for her again, she was whirling around the room in that cad Hazlitt's arms. And laughing.

This was not the homecoming West had planned. He'd dreamed of Penny rushing into his arms, of carrying her to his bed, of making love all night for the rest of their lives. He'd dreamed of her hair loose, her skin warm, her lovely breasts in his hands, in his mouth. Now he had a glass of flat champagne in his hand, and a bitter taste in his mouth. And an awkward arousal. So he went back out to the terrace, where Cottsworth was smoking a cheroot.

“Have one?” his friend offered, so moonstruck he'd forgotten that West did not smoke.

West was so rattled that he forgot that fact, too, and accepted, then coughed when the smoke filled his throat and lungs, so he drank the warm champagne. “Horrid night,” he said.

“Oh?” Cottsworth leaned back against the railing. “The stars are out, the music is delightful, the smell of flowers is in the air, and the company was lovely, until now. What more could a man ask?”

“Straight answers to my questions.”

“Oh.” If Cottsworth had two good legs, he would have jumped off the terrace and fled through the gardens. Instead, he had to tell West what he knew, from Lady Bainbridge and the servants. “I am not certain what is fact and what is fiction,” he concluded. “But the scandal seems to have been averted. Your wife is a success.”

His wife was in yet another man's arms when West stormed back into the ballroom. Damn.

He had heard so many accounts of events, been subject to so many innuendos, raised eyebrows, and outright smirks, that even he began to wonder if the gossip grist contained a grain of truth. Some of the men—his former friends—must believe the stories, because they were buzzing around Penny like bees on a flower, or libertines on a loose woman. Damn.

And then he realized his own wife was avoiding him. Damn.

 

When the current dance ended, Penny found herself near the ballroom entry, facing Lady Greenlea, who was not invited, on the arm of a raddled marquis, who was. Penny had to nod graciously and allow the marquis to kiss her—thankfully—gloved hand. Lady Greenlea waved her fan, making certain Penny saw the flash of a ring on her own gloved finger, a thick gold band, set with a garnet. West's ring.

He wouldn't have. He couldn't have. And where was the toad when she needed him?

Before Penny could demand an answer, or start crying, Nicky pushed past her. “That's my ring,” he shouted, “and you were the last person I spoke to before getting sick.”

“Dear boy, you were dreadfully drunk that night.” The widow kept wafting her fan, and the ring.

Nicky tried to grab her hand to pull the ring off. “You put something in my wine. I know you did!”

The marquis started to make huffing sounds, and Lady Greenlea stepped back. “What, are you foxed again? Tsk. You really must learn to hold your liquor, you know, especially at your new sister's ball.”

A crowd had gathered around them, eager to taste scandal broth more potent than the punch being served. Penny's chances of restoring her reputation, of taking her place in proper society, in West's world, were slipping away. She did not care, not if West cared so little for her.

Then he was beside her. “A problem, my love?”

“Take your glove off,” Penny demanded, no matter who heard.

West paused. Here he'd been ready to cause a scene in the ballroom, but his lady wife was before him.

“Take it off,” she repeated, pulling at his glove, de rigueur for a formal affair. She freed his hand, revealing the garnet ring. Then she threw herself into his arms, right in front of the entire beau monde.

Her stepmother shrieked; Lady Bainbridge staggered into Cottsworth's arms. “I thought I taught her better than that.”

“I knew you wouldn't give her your ring.”

“Of course not. It was a last gift from my mother.” West kept his arm around Penny's shoulder, and raised the eyebrow of his undamaged eye at Maeve Greenlea.

“No woman likes being cast off,” was all she said, turning her back on him and taking the marquis's arm.

“Not so fast,” West said, but before he created even more of a scandal for the avid listeners, Nicky dived past him, almost knocking Maeve to the ground. He wrestled the ring off her finger. “My mother gave me one, too. I'd never part with it. I bet you were working with Nigel Entwhistle to cheat me.”

The marquis sidled away.

West was about to usher Maeve, Nicky, and Penny into a private room when Penny's grandfather shouted from his nearby corner of the ballroom: “I say, ain't that Maeve O'Brien?”

“Eh?” another old gent shouted back, holding up an ear trumpet.

“You know, Maeve who used to pose nude for Froggy Fogerty. I recognize the voice.”

Another of his cronies held up a pair of opera glasses. “Sure as the devil. I never forget a bosom like that.”

The second aged artist slapped his thigh. “Too bad you can't remember what to do with one. I wonder if Froggy still has that portrait over his mantel. You know, Maeve and the wolfhounds and the fruit.”

“Shut up, you old fools,” Maeve screamed as she ran past them, but Grandpapa Littleton put out his cane to stop her, not so accidentally setting it on the hem of her clinging green satin gown. Which ripped, right up the back, revealing her lack of petticoat or much else under it.

“That's Maeve, all right,” the fellow with the spyglass yelled for the benefit of his deaf friend. “I never forget a—”

“Not in my granddaughter's ballroom,” Mr. Littleton warned, grabbing for the magnifying glass. Lady Greenlea was already out the door, the efficient Parker draping a cloak around her.

“Good riddance, I say,” Nicky called after her, until West's glare stopped him. “I'll just, ah, say adieu to some of my chums, shall I?”

Penny looked around to see the shambles of her ball. All her guests were scurrying to spread the tale. Even the orchestra had stopped playing. Worse, West's uninjured eye was narrowed, almost black instead of his usual warm brown color, and his mouth was set in a harsh line. The question in her mind was the cause of his anger. The rumors about her and Nigel? Nicky? Her failure as a hostess?

Perhaps, she thought in hope, he was mad at Lady Greenlea, or at himself for leaving her alone, the way Grandpapa blamed him? No, the dagger looks he was sending her way told her exactly the object of his fury. She had not trusted him, or acted like a proper viscountess. Now he made no pretense of smiling for the company, no efforts to urge the guests to stay. Penny thought about leaving with her father and his family, but Nicky had already noticed West's dark looks and offered to accompany the Goldwaites home. “Coward,” she hissed as he made his farewells.

Nicky tapped his temple. “Older and wiser.” Then he became a boy again, pleading, “You won't tell him, will you? I am speaking to Sir Gaspar about my future. If I can prove to West I am turning over a new leaf, perhaps he won't be so mad. I don't want to join the navy.”

“Is that what he threatened? Nevertheless, I do not think he is angry at you.”

“Only because he does not know the full story yet. Please, Penny?”

She was starting to get mad herself, not at Nicky, but at West. Half this mess could be laid at his door, for not being in London, for not marrying her when he should have. Besides, weren't proper British gentlemen supposed to hide their feelings, not show any displays of emotion? He was doing a poor job of it, brusquely hurrying the last guests off, looking thunderclouds at the servants who were starting to clean up, glaring at Lady Bainbridge and Mr. Cottsworth as they said their good-nights. Then, without a word to Penny, he disappeared into the library. She took herself to bed. She thought about locking the door in case he was drinking himself into a rage, but West would not do that. At least she did not think so.

She dismissed her maid after being helped out of the rainbow gown, cursing West in her mind. She'd wanted him to be the one to unfasten the shimmering cloth, to see how eager she was to renew their lovemaking. The thought of joining their bodies together made her body grow taut and moist.

A plague upon her husband, he was about as eager as a goose going to market. Penny brushed her hair until it crackled, her temper along with it, while she waited for his huffiness to recall he had a wife.

He came to her door an hour later, still wearing his formal clothes, white satin knee breeches, white marcella waistcoat, dark blue superfine tailcoat, his neckcloth as pristine as when he donned it. He had the same grim lines at his down-turned mouth, the same dour crease between his eyes, one swollen, one skewering her with a steely glint.