The Bargain Bride (8 page)

“As am I. I respect your intelligence, my pet, and I would not think of ordering you about. As long as you stay away from my horses,” he added with a laugh.

“And you won't wish to select my clothes and arrange my schedules and choose my friends?”

“Good grief, I am no jailer, or governess, and you are an adult. I assume you will conduct yourself as befits a viscountess, that is all.”

“And you will not hate me?”

“Is that one of your terms? Why should I hate you? I will be proud to call you my wife.”

“And you will not mind that I do not like you?”

He smiled again. “I am a likable chap. Everyone says so. I will grow on you; depend on it. In fact, that is one of the terms I propose. Fair is fair, right?”

“Of course.”

“Very well, I propose that you try to make something of this arrangement neither of us asked for.”

“That is what Grandpapa and Marcel said I should do.”

“They are both eccentric, but wise. And as for your not liking me, you hated me when I did not marry you, so you cannot hate me now, when I will. That is not fair.”

“Grandpapa always said that life is not fair, but the alternative is less appealing.”

“So you will try? We have a bargain?”

She took a deep breath. “We have a wedding tomorrow, yes. Heaven help us.”

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

 

 

 

“
T
oo bad Constance and the girls could not be here,” Penny's father said as they waited in the back of St. Cecilia's Chapel. “The gals would be tickled pink to be bridesmaids.”

At least Penny had been spared that horror.

This was not the wedding she would have chosen. Not that she was haughty enough to demand St. George's, but Penny had always imagined her marriage taking place in some majestic church amid elegant guests, not in the dark and drafty country chapel that someone had tried to make festive with flowers and ribbons, while sheepherders and farmers and their wives gawked at the suddenness of the ceremony. The children from the orphanage had been scrubbed and seated in the back, where they squirmed and whispered, almost as loath to be here as Penny.

The special license her father held meant she could wed anywhere, at any time of day, but Sir Gaspar would not hear of the smallest delay, not when victory was at hand. His victory, her hand.

For that matter, her father was not the man Penny would have chosen to give her away. She did love her father, but he was not giving her; he had sold her. She'd rather her grandfather took the last steps of a single woman with her, as he'd been with her these years of her exile from London. Grandpapa was acting as best man for the viscount, however. Marcel had offered to be her attendant, but he was joking, she hoped. It was Mrs. Carne who stood next to the vicar as Penny's witness, although the schoolmaster's wife had eyes only for the groom.

This was not the gown Penny would have chosen for the momentous day. She had her mother's bridal ensemble set aside in the attics, but there was no time to alter the white satin dress for her thinner figure. And the white lace overlay had yellowed with age. She would have dyed it with tea leaves, to a color more becoming her pale complexion, had there been time. When she complained, her father had offered to pay for her new London wardrobe as her trousseau. Meanwhile, she wore her favorite pale pink merino gown, with rosebuds in her hair and a single strand of pearls at her throat. The gown had the advantage of long sleeves and high neck, necessary in the unheated chapel. Penny shivered anyway.

The church, the gown, the wedding party—all meant nothing. Kendall Westmoreland, Viscount Westfield, was simply not the man she would have chosen to marry.

The tall, dark, and handsome gentleman waiting for the vicar to finish his Sunday reading before going on to the wedding ceremony was a stranger. In his London finery, to say nothing of his proud stance, his air of authority, Lord Westfield was as out of place here as Grandpapa's pug would have been. Little Falls might never have been visited by a real live viscount before, for all she knew. Like Mrs. Carne, no one was even looking at the bride, only at the splendid groom.

He spotted her in the back and smiled.

Oh no, she would never have chosen to wed such a man. Attractive, charming, titled, educated, he was a fairy-tale prince without the happy ending. Westfield would break her heart, over and over again, if she let him. She would have high rank and a fine address and, thanks to her father, a fancy wardrobe—she would get him to buy a new carriage, too, before the day was over—but she would not have what every woman wanted: a loving marriage to a good man. Westfield was neither loving nor good. Why, as soon as he had his heir, the rogue was liable to forget about Penny's existence for another thirteen years.

And he brought out the worst in her, all the bitter resentment, all the anger. That could not be a good sign of things to come. In less than two days she had committed violence and blasphemy and lies. Even now she wanted to strangle the vicar with his own clerical collar. Furthermore, she had resorted to blackmailing her own father.

Penny had agreed to the wedding, but at a price. There had never been a choice—everyone knew that—but her father had bargained to avoid another scene. Now he was not just financing the refurbishing expenses for the London town house and the trousseau, but he was going to keep paying Penny's allowance, and Lady Bainbridge's salary as her companion. He could not expect Penny to bring out his stepdaughters on her own, could he, while she was a stranger to the
ton
herself?

Her father would have acquiesced to anything—except Marcel in a gown tossing orange blossoms and rose petals—when Penny started crying. Maybe he was assuaging his own guilt with his gold, but Penny was not going to turn down his conscience money. She had pride, but she had some recompense coming, too, she decided, with interest. She was her father's daughter, after all.

West had proved right: Tears worked better than screams and shouts. Penny had not even had to threaten to disrupt the ceremony with cries of how she was being coerced, of how Sir Gaspar was an unnatural parent, or how he'd bedded the innkeeper's wife. No, a few tears—honest ones, too—and he had agreed to her demands. She had to remember that for the future.

Mr. Smithers was turning pages in his prayer book, ready to begin this addition to his Sunday service. Penny's future was now, waiting at the altar, smiling at her. West had been decent about the whole mess, she supposed, kinder than she might have expected or deserved, after her rant. Hadn't he given her the pearls at her throat, saying they were the best he could find in Upper Falls? There were heirlooms aplenty in the family vault in London, but he wanted her to have something new, all her own, as a wedding present. Hadn't he sent the bouquet she carried and the roses for her hair? Probably he was the one who thought of decorating the chapel and bringing the children from the orphanage, knowing how much they meant to her.

He'd also been reasonable about her conditions, without adding impossible demands of his own. Later, he had agreed that they could stay on in Little Falls for a few days, rather than traveling back to London right after the wedding party, as her father was going to do. Penny needed time to pack, to settle her accounts, and to help her grandfather with the move. The house had to be closed, instructions left for caretakers and gardeners. She had to find willing hands to take over her responsibilities at the orphanage.

She thought—she hoped—that West would go on ahead without her. He could busy himself with sending the marriage notices to the newspapers and readying his own home for additional guests. Instead he said that her father would see to the notices, gladly, and notify West's staff at Westmoreland House. He would not let them make any changes until she approved them, anyway. Besides, they would stir the scandal broth worse by not appearing together in Town. He also volunteered to help her with her chores, the rotter.

The scoundrel was trying to make her like him. Charming a female must be second nature to a rake like him. Why, every goosegirl and dairymaid on the hard pews sighed when he flashed those dimples, and he had never given them anything. Yet.

Penny clutched her bouquet more firmly, and her father's arm with her other hand, to keep it from trembling. Now she knew how a convict felt on that last, slow walk to the gibbet.

 

West could not keep a grin from his face. Zeus, his bride was a beauty. She carried herself with such grace and dignity, one would think she was a duchess or a princess. For once in his life, he'd rolled the dice and come out a winner. Who would have thought it? And why did he wait so long?

“Thank you, Father,” he whispered, looking up to where he supposed his dead sire resided, then added, “You, too,” in case anyone else on high was listening.

Miss Persephone Goldwaite was not merely a fortune with a pretty face and figure. She was a delightful creature with a sound mind and strong opinions of her own. She would never bore him, unlike the milk-and-water misses of proper society who never had two thoughts to rub together. They certainly never gave voice to temper or showed their emotions with every touch of pink across their skin. They never, ever disagreed with a gentleman. Hah!

According to her friend Mrs. Carne, the vicar, and the servants, Miss Goldwaite had progressive ideas, and never minded putting her own money or hand to furthering a good cause. Heaven knew there were good causes aplenty at his seat in Westfield. As soon as they had fired off Goldwaite's stepdaughters, they could go to the country and see what needed to be done.

When he'd come into the title, the fields and farms were in such poor state it was a wonder any tenants stayed on at all. His conscience forced him to reduce their rents, his gambling father and wastrel brother having made no improvements in years except to their own standards of living. At first, West's primary concern had been with the horses, to have some income to invest back into the land. The estate was finally showing a profit, but he still had no time or money to see about schools and hospitals. Now he'd have a partner who, it appeared, excelled at bettering conditions for those less fortunate. She had already bettered his by agreeing to the marriage.

So he would have a lovely, interesting, helpful bride . . . who hated him. Well, a man needed a challenge. He smiled again, to see his pearls at her throat, his flowers in her hair. His. Soon he would be able to take the pins out of that golden crown and spread it down her shoulders, feel the curls twine around his fingers, smell the rose water. He'd get to touch her skin, her full breasts, make her nipples harden, make her turn rosy, this time with lovemaking. His.

He wondered how long it would take. Tonight could not be soon enough.

He took her hand when she reached his side, and could feel hers tremble. Or shiver with the cold, damn it. Even through their gloves he could tell that her hands were cold. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, but she frowned across at him. Maybe her hands were not the only things cold about his bride. He prayed fate could not be that fickle, putting an icy heart in an inviting body.

He turned forward and tried to listen to the vicar natter on about the married state, a wife's duties, a husband's responsibilities. Great gods, there had to be more than onerous obligations or no one would get married. He knew a brief moment's panic to think he was taking on those burdens, forever. Then he knew a deeper panic when it seemed he might not be taking a wife today after all.

“Do you?” he whispered to Penny when silence followed the vicar's repeated question.

“Do I what?” she answered, as if in a trance. Panic was as pervasive in the tiny chapel as the cold. She hadn't been listening to anything but her own heart's galloping beat, wondering whether it would stop altogether, and whether that might not be a blessing. If the viscount had not been holding her hand, she would have collapsed for sure. Was he supporting her or dragging her closer to the abyss?

“Devil take it,” West swore, earning him a frown from Mr. Smithers and a reminder where he was. “Hell,” he swore again, “if we weren't in a church, I wouldn't care what she replied.”

The vicar cleared his throat. “Miss Goldwaite?”

West squeezed her hand, too hard to ignore. “Yes?”

“Do you take this man, et cetera?”

“Oh.”

“Do not turn craven on me now, my girl,” West urged, while he could hear mutterings behind him, and a growl from Sir Gaspar. “ ‘Oh' is not the proper response. Do you want to marry me or not?”

“I . . . I think I do. That is, I do.” He squeezed her hand again, this time in gratitude, she thought, so she spoke up louder. “Yes, I do.”

She did.

West raised his eye heavenward again for another prayer of thanks and apology for his harsh words. A breeze blew through the chapel, as if the entire congregation had exhaled the breaths they'd been holding.

She did.

Then he got to kiss the bride. Not that anyone told him he ought, but he did anyway. The kiss was not a hasty formal finalizing of the vows, either, but a real kiss, a deep kiss, a kiss as if no one were watching. A seal on their union, a promise of the union of their bodies as well as their fortunes and fates.