The Bargain Bride (5 page)

West ignored that last. “There will be no duel. There was never going to be one. I would not shoot at a man old enough to be my father. Nor shall I be coerced into a marriage I never agreed to. I told you I was ready to repay the money you gave to my father. With interest.”

“Of course I'd collect the interest if I was going to accept your bribe. But I told you, I will not take your blunt. A deal is a deal.”

“I made no deal.”

Sir Gaspar set aside his plate and cup altogether. “You paid your father's gambling debts, didn't you, even if you never held the losing cards? You weren't the one who took my girl's dower money and spent it on fast women and too-slow horses, but you paid those chits.”

“My father's debts were a matter of honor.”

“And his promises are worth less? In my world, a man's handshake is as binding as an IOU, a gentleman's agreement, same as play and pay. Hmph. Seems to me you pick and choose what you call honor.”

“One is only money. One is trading your children.”

“Only money, eh? I guess I can see why you were mucking out stables yourself. Well, no matter. If you won't respect your father's integrity and his intentions, maybe you will respect the law. If you won't duel, I'll sue you for breach of promise. See if I don't. And drag you and your family name through the courts. Asides taking every shilling you have. I can afford the finest barristers in the land. You cannot.” Satisfied he had made his point, Sir Gaspar reached for another strawberry tart.

West could imagine his horse farm sold, his lands mortgaged, his younger brother forced into some trade to pay the cost. He was horrified.

So was Penny. “You cannot do that, Father. The scandal would reach as far as France, much less Little Falls. Everyone would wonder what was wrong with me that Lord Westfield had to fight the betrothal. Besides, that is blackmail.”

Her father brushed crumbs off his waistcoat. “No, that is justice. Obeying the law. What do you call reneging on a contract? I call it a crime.”

Perhaps West should accept the man's challenge after all, he thought, and choose sabers. Instead he said, “I call your behavior barbaric. Your daughter does not want to marry me.”

“Of course she does.” Goldwaite turned to Penny at her gasp. “You ain't stupid, girl. You'll never find a more pleasing partner.”

“Pleasing to you.”

“And half the women in London. Just ask Lady Greenlea.”

West growled at private matters being mentioned in polite company, much less in front of a young lady, especially his betrothed. He should simply run the banker through and be done with it.

Penny gasped again while West was thinking of murder. So that was his current, colorful flirt, and the color was green. Definitely green. “You would have me marry a womanizer I loathe?”

“Bosh. You were kissing him, weren't you? Asides, I'd have you wed a real man who can give you sons.”

Before West could stop her, or say anything in his own defense, Miss Goldwaite leaped to her feet. “I am not a broodmare for his stables, Father, nor for yours. I will not do it, I say. Since I am of age, there is no one who will marry me against my will, so you are wasting your threats.”

Sir Gaspar steepled his fingers over his stomach, unconcerned. “Very well, missy, where will you live if you do not wed Westfield?”

“Why, here, of course. Grandpapa would never throw me out.”

“No, but I doubt Littleton can afford to keep you, or the roof over your heads. For sure I will not pay an allowance to some chit who defies me.”

“Grandpapa would take care of me.”

“He mightn't be able to, when he has no income.”

“Nonsense. He makes ample money on his paintings. I keep his books, and he is very well-to-pass.”

“Hah! Who do you think buys those wretched things he calls paintings? The fool wouldn't take money to keep you, but a Goldwaite pays his own way. So I have an arrangement with that art dealer in London where you send the canvases. I have a whole warehouse full of the scribbles and splotches.”

“You buy them? Oh no, Grandpapa would be heart-broken if he knew. He is so proud that he can still support all of us.”

Sir Gaspar merely smiled. “He doesn't have to find out.”

Now it was West's turn to claim that was extortion of the worst kind.

Penny was not willing to concede. “I have funds of my own. I can pay Grandpapa's bills.”

“Of course you have money. It's invested with my own bank, ain't it? I know to a farthing how much you have and how long you could support your grandfather, his, ah, butler, and the rest of the household. Not very long, I figure—not without my help. That brandy doesn't come cheap, nor do his fancy paints.”

“How could you be so cruel?” Penny cried, sitting back down, as if she felt comfort in West's nearness.

“Cruel? How cruel is it to want my only offspring settled and secure? That's what every father wants, ain't it? Just think, girl, what will happen to you when the old man passes on? Not even Littleton can live forever. You cannot want to come home to London, not as some old maid who's been jilted.”

“I can find a cottage somewhere and live an independent life.”

“A dried-up old stick with no family of your own? Is that what you want? You'd be prey to every charlatan and fortune hunter, and plagued by scandal besides, a woman living alone. I know the way of the world, even if you do not. What kind of father would I be if I did not protect you from withering away like that?”

Penny looked stricken, and West wished he could comfort her, but he half agreed with her father. A woman like Miss Goldwaite should have a lovely home, fine gowns, servants at her beck and call, tousle-haired children at her feet. She should not take in stray cats in a shack.

“Why now, Father?” she asked. “Why are you doing this now?”

For the first time, Sir Gaspar looked embarrassed. “None of us is getting any younger. I want to see my grandchildren. And I want the best for you, no matter what you think.”

“But now? Why did you not settle this years ago, or when Westfield came into the title?”

“I didn't want any son-in-law I had to support, coming to me for loans to repair that old pile of his.”

She looked up at West as if to say “I told you so.”

Her father was going on. “He's solvent now and can support a wife in decent style, especially with the wedding gift I intend to give. In fact, I'll sweeten the deal and pay to refurbish his London town house for you. The place looks too shabby for a viscountess.”

West might have argued that point, but he knew the older man was right. He had not spent money on Westmoreland House, not when the estates needed so many repairs. He and his brother lived spartanly in one wing of the mansion.

Penny did not care about the state of Westfield's house, which she hoped never to see. “And if Lord Westfield were not able to keep me in jewels and furs, would you leave me here?”

“Well, he is, so that's not to the point. I didn't like sending you off, you know. But with a new wife, I did not have much choice. Couldn't have two women in the household, now, could I?” he asked, turning toward West.

When West did not answer, he added, “Besides, there was Nigel.”

“Who the deuce is Nigel?” West wanted to know.

“M'wife's son, Nigel Entwhistle.”

“The ivory turner?”

Penny looked at both of them. “An ivory turner?”

“A cheat, a Captain Sharp,” West explained, while her father claimed nothing had ever been proved.

“But neither is Entwhistle welcome in the more discriminating gentlemen's clubs. He is your stepson?”

“To my regret. I sent him off to India to make his fortune. He lost a parcel of mine, instead. He came back with the fevers—and the idea that he ought to wed Penny. No blood relation, don't you know.”

Penny almost shouted, “What?”

So did West. That bounder with West's fiancée? That is, Miss Goldwaite was not his betrothed any longer, but he still felt protective of the woman.

Sir Gaspar shook his head. “The jackanapes thought to keep my blunt in his family. Counting the days until I shuffled off, I suppose. I wouldn't put it past him to compromise my gal, so I had to get you out of London. His mother wouldn't hear a word against him, of course. You can't say I didn't have your best interests at heart, poppet, protecting you from that. Westfield is a far better choice.”

“I am safe here. I still want to know why you will not let me stay where I am happy, if you say you care for me.”

“I told you, I want grandsons. Besides, it's not right, you living in this harum-scarum household. A blind painter, his Frenchy friend . . .”

“What's wrong with Marcel? He takes good care of Grandpapa.”

Now the banker blushed. “He's in the backroom studio, half naked except for some feathers. That ain't right. You need the company of females.”

“You were the one who dismissed Lady Bainbridge after my come-out.”

“She insulted your stepmother.”

“She told her the Egyptian style looked ridiculous in our London house and that her daughters were spoiled brats.”

Now Sir Gaspar took off his spectacles to polish them with his handkerchief, not meeting either West's eyes or Penny's. “Yes, well, that's, um, another reason I need you wed to his lordship and back in London.”

“You want me to redecorate your town house?”

“I want you to take the girls in hand.”

Penny saw her stepsisters twice a year, once when they met in Bath in the winter, once at summer when she traveled to the Lake Country. Lady Bainbridge had been correct: They were horrible children. They were horrible young women now.

Her father was still polishing his glasses. “They're both of marrying age, you see, and ready for their come-outs. Constance doesn't have the same connections a viscountess would, not even with my knighthood.”

“You want me . . . to marry this man, this person who ignored my existence for thirteen years . . . so that I can bring out your wife's daughters? That is how much you care about my happiness?”

Sir Gaspar looked up. “Here, now, I planned your wedding before I ever met Constance. I always wanted you to be a lady like your mother, and I am not ashamed of that. I saw you were brought up for the position, didn't I, with all those books and schooling and some snooty baroness to haul you to the Queen's Drawing Room for a formal presentation?”

“Yes, you did that, Father.”

“And your father agreed, Westfield. My gal was good enough for him, and she is good enough for you.”

“It was never that she is not good e—,” West began.

Sir Gaspar did not give him the chance to continue. “I have the special license in my pocket, and the innkeeper's wife says she can bake a cake big enough for the whole village for tomorrow, right after church. I already sent a message to the vicar.”

“Tomorrow?” Penny asked with a groan. “You have waited thirteen years, and now tomorrow?”

Her father nodded. “I don't want to have those females around the rest of my life.”

And that, Penny and West both supposed, was as good a reason as Sir Gaspar needed to force them to wed. Tomorrow.

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

 

 

 

“
W
hat are we going to do?” Penny cried once her father left to make the rest of the arrangements.

West was pacing. “What do you think we are going to do? We are going to get married tomorrow morning, it appears.”

“But . . . but I do not even like you.”

He rubbed his jaw. “That much is obvious. At least I am not a totally rotten fellow. Not like Nigel.”

“You do not like me, either.”

“I just met you! And you struck me.”

“Will you forget about that incident already! I apologized, and now we have more important things to discuss.”

“More important than wedding a violent woman?”

“Botheration, I am not usually so ill-tempered. But if you liked me, you would have been here years ago.”

“Deuce take it, I could repeat your own words and advise you to forget about that episode already. I also apologized. And unlike your vehement antagonism, I had nothing against you. I was simply not ready for marriage.”

“But now you are?”

He was tugging at his neckcloth while he paced, destroying the careful arrangement of folds in the snowy linen, as if he could feel the noose of matrimony growing tighter by the second. “According to your father, I am ready. I just never expected it to be so soon.”

“Soon? After thirteen—no, I shall not mention the wait again.”

“I would not wager on that,” West muttered, just loudly enough for Penny to hear.

She glared at him, or at his back, since he was pacing away from her. “I do not suppose I could convince you to return to London, could I? Or go shooting in Scotland? Best of all, jaunting off to Jamaica? Perhaps there is another war for you to fight.”

He'd thought of it, but was offended that she did, too. “What, leave my bride at the altar? Now, that would be shabby indeed. I would look no-account, and you would be disgraced. No, my honor demands I make an appearance. You could always cry off, though. Brides do it all the time, I understand. There might be a dustup here in Little Falls, but that will blow over with the next rainstorm. No one in London knows the wedding is to take place tomorrow, so no one will notice when it does not. Our reputations will survive.”