The Misguided Matchmaker (19 page)

Carolyn
cocked her head as if pondering his question. “Very well, actually. I was all
prepared to hate her, as well you know. But now that I’ve met her I find I like
her exceedingly. She’s terribly clever and funny and shockingly honest—and she
has very definite opinions about what she will and will not do.”

Carolyn’s
eyes twinkled. “She fairly curled Mama’s hair when she flatly refused to take
most of the lessons judged necessary to make her into a proper English lady. In
short, she’s nothing like the silly girls I met at Miss Highcliff’s finishing
school or the daughters of Mama’s titled acquaintances. She is the first
genuine original I have ever met, and I do believe we shall become fast
friends.”

His
sister’s candid description painted such a vivid picture of Maddy, Tristan felt
a familiar ache start deep in his chest. “You approve of her as Garth’s wife
then, despite the differences in their interest?”

Carolyn’s
smile faded. “I didn’t say that. In truth, I cannot think of any two people
less suited to each other. She absolutely terrifies him, and I strongly suspect
he bores her to flinders.”

Devil
take it, was it so obvious even an eighteen-year-old could see it?
“I have wondered, myself, if they would be
compatible.”

“Compatible?
You jest. They are like chalk and cheese, as anyone can plainly see. Except
Mama, of course. As usual, she turns a blind eye to the truth when it is too
painful to acknowledge.”

Tristan
pushed back his chair and rose, then strode to the window to stare with
unseeing eyes into the street below. “I was hoping I just imagined their lack
of mutual appeal—for Maddy’s sake as well as Garth’s,” he said bleakly. “But
with each day I spent with her, I became more convinced she and Garth were
totally mismatched. Can you imagine how I felt, knowing I was bringing her home
to be trapped in an impossible marriage?”

“I’m
sure you tortured yourself with guilt, as would any man of honor.”

Tristan
slammed his fist against the oak window frame. “Hell and damnation! It is
enough to make a man take himself off to India or some such far-flung place!”

Carolyn’s
eyes widened. “Such as Belgium on an errand for Lord Castlereagh? I wondered why
you volunteered to take an assignment on the Continent so soon after returning
to England.”

She
stared at him, aghast. “Oh, Tris! Never say you’ve fallen in love with her.”
Carolyn leapt to her feet, and with a strangled cry flung herself into his
arms. “You have! Don’t bother to disclaim it. It is written all over your
face.”

Tristan
didn’t try to dissuade her. The pain inside him was too great to deny any
longer.

“And
the two of you would be so perfect together,” she whispered against his chest.
“Can’t you make her father see that?”

“See
that his precious daughter would be better off as the wife of a nameless
bastard than as the Countess of Rand? I doubt any father would find much logic
in that argument.”

“But
she’s in love with you too. Now that I think of it, you were all she talked
about for the hour the two of us were alone on the day she took tea with us.
And she positively glowed every time your name was mentioned.”

Carolyn
raised her head to stare into Tristan’s eyes. “But I’m not telling you anything
you don’t already know, am I?”

“I
have suspected for some time that Maddy believes herself in love with me. But
she is very strong and in her own peculiar way, amazingly practical. She’ll
recover from any heartbreak she may suffer and make the best of it.”

“She
is also very independent,” Carolyn pointed out. “It occurs to me she may refuse
to marry a man she doesn’t love.”

Tristan
briefly considered the possibility, but shook his head in denial. “I don’t
doubt she’ll balk at first,” he said bitterly, but she’ll soon come around to
her father’s way of thinking. What choice does she have? Harcourt holds all the
purse strings; the rest of us just dance at the end of them like so many
puppets.

“If
he forces her to marry against her will, he will earn nothing but her hatred,
no matter how much money he pours into the Rand coffers,” Carolyn declared.
“Your Maddy doesn’t strike me as a woman whose affections are capricious. Nor,
I wager, do you love easily and often.”

Her
eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Is this cit so lacking in sensitivity, he
thinks love is a malady that can be cured with a dose of Mrs. Peterman’s honey
and valerian? If it were, Garth would not still be looking like a whipped puppy
and poor Sarah wouldn’t be a pale wraith haunting the ballrooms where they used
to dance together.”

She
slipped from Tristan’s arms to pace back and forth across the room, the picture
of frustration. “It is like the plot of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels;
everyone is committed to marrying the wrong person. Only in her novels, one
knows everything will turn up happy at the end.”

Stopping
suddenly, she whirled around to face him. “Can’t you just persuade Miss
Harcourt to elope with you to Gretna Green? I’m certain she’d do it; she seems
totally unconcerned about how she is viewed by polite society.”

“Do
not for a minute think I haven’t considered whisking her over the anvil,”
Tristan said bitterly. “But only in the blackest hours of the night when I
think with my heart, not my head. In the cold light of day, I know I couldn’t
live with myself if having her meant seeing her disowned by her father. She is,
after all, the heiress to a vast fortune. I could not ask her to survive on the
pittance I make at the Foreign Office.”

He
pressed his fingers to his aching temples. “Nor could I risk the chance that
Harcourt’s anger might drive him to have Garth thrown into debtor’s prison when
he couldn’t pay the notes against the estate. No, Caro, much as I might wish it
so, that is not the answer.”

“And
it’s all the horrible cit’s fault,” she wailed. “I don’t care what Mama says
about how grateful we should be for all he’s done for us. I hate him and his
stupid plan!”

“Caleb
Harcourt is not the villain here, Caro,” Tristan said, aware of the irony of
defending the very man who was robbing him of the woman he loved. “It was not
his fault our profligate father gambled away the family fortune and brought the
house of Rand to the brink of destruction. He does what he does out of love for
his daughter. He is firmly convinced that to ensure her ultimate happiness, he
must secure her a title husband.”

“Even
if that husband will make her miserably unhappy? How can the man be so blind?”

“It’s
a long story, one that goes back fifteen years,” Tristan said. “Suffice to say,
his intentions are good, and Lady Ursula is right in feeling grateful toward
him. Had someone other than he bought up the old earl’s vowels and mortgages,
Garth could be fleeing his creditors aboard a ship bound for the Americas at
this very moment—or worse yet, be rotting in debtor’s prison.

Anxiously,
Carolyn searched his face. “So, what will you do, Tris? Flee to the Americas
yourself? I cannot envision you spending the rest of your life watching the
woman you love be wife to your brother.”

“I
am not certain where I will go, except that it will be somewhere far from
England. Lord Castlereagh has offered me a post as an embassy attaché in either
Paris or Vienna, but naturally that will not come to fruition until we have
routed Bonaparte once and forever.”

“But
you think we will win out against the Corsican eventually?”

Tristan
hesitated, weighing his words carefully. “We will win if those fools in
Parliament give Wellington the command. Only in England is his leadership
ability questioned. Europe’s heads of state are well aware that he is all that
stands between them and the power-hungry madman.”

Returning
to the table, he poured himself another cup of tea. “But whatever my future
holds,” he said, studying the leaves in the bottom of his cup as if he could
somehow read that future, “I have promised Garth that while he is courting his
heiress I will spend my time at Winterhaven overseeing the workmen Harcourt has
hired to bring the old place up to snuff. I think he fears the meddlesome old
cit will try to change it to suit his taste.”

He
leaned his elbows on the table for support and just for a moment held his
aching head in his hands. “The arrangement suits me find. It matters not to me
if I am at Winterhaven or the Court of Vienna, just so long as I stay out of
Maddy’s sight.”

Tears
coursed down Carolyn’s face. “Oh, Tris, my heart breaks for you, and for Garth
too. Would that I could do something to help you both.”

“You
can, Caro, by promising me you will never divulge what you have learned about
my feelings, or Maddy’s, to either Garth or Lady Ursula.”

“I
promise,” Carolyn said solemnly. “Garth is burdened enough with his own
heartbreak; I think it would kill him to know that by marrying Miss Harcourt,
he robs you of your happiness as well. And Mama would simply refuse to let
herself believe that the people she loves would not live happily ever after.”

“Then
I have but one more chore I must tend to before I can leave England with a
clear conscience.”

Carolyn
nodded, the sorrow etched on her face making her appear far older than her tender
years. “Garth’s wedding.”

“Exactly,
my wise little sister. I must see him through that ordeal,” he said wearily. “I
can do no less, considering all he is sacrificing to perpetuate the House of
Rand. But devil take it, since there is no way out of this coil, I wish he
would make his offer and be done with it.

Maddy
listened with half an ear to the conversation swirling around her at the dinner
Lady Ursula and the earl were hosting to introduce her to a few of their
influential friends. She scarcely noticed the elegantly appointed candlelit
table nor the equally elegantly dressed guests who surrounded it.

In
truth, she was beside herself. First Tristan had gone haring off to Brussels on
an errand for Lord Castlereagh; now she had learned, just minutes before taking
her seat at the table, that he had again left London, this time to oversee the
renovations to Winterhaven.

One
could almost believe he was avoiding her. But why? Did he think the stigma of
his illegitimacy would rub off on her if they were seen together in public?
Couldn’t the stubborn fool see how little she cared for anyone’s regard but
his?

Her
ruminations were interrupted by the aging Viscount Haliburton, seated on her
right, and she was forced to carry on a few moments of desultory conversation
with the obese old man on the merits of breeding one’s own dogs for the hunt—a
sport that made her blood run cold.

Then
the pimply-faced young Baron Fitzhugh, seated on her left, proceeded to relate
the last
on-dit
about the scandalous affair between his hero, Lord
Byron, and Lady Caroline Lamb. Maddy had heard the same tale before dinner from
the Dowager Countess of Wylde, and the second telling held no more interest for
her than the first.

Nom
de Dieu
, this ridiculous
campaign of her father’s to bring her into vogue with the
ton
was
becoming more annoying by the minute. She had nothing in common with these
people. If she had not been convinced before, she would certainly have become
so during the three weeks she had spent in the company of the Earl of Rand.

How
she would have enjoyed viewing the majesty of St. Paul’s Cathedral with
Tristan; her only regret in leaving Paris had been that they had not had time
to visit Notre Dame together.

And
she felt certain he would have loved the wondrous Elgin marbles as much as she
had; the earl could do nothing but cluck about their disgraceful nakedness.

Furthermore,
the poor fellow had been so bored during the afternoon she explored Hatchard’s
incredible bookstore, he’d actually fallen asleep leaning against one of the
bookshelves.

Still,
she couldn’t help but like him. He was the kindest of hearts, and he had done
his level best to see that she had a proper introduction into London society.
But enough was enough. She had spent ample time in his company to see and be
seen my members of the
ton
, and her patience was wearing thin. It was
high time Lady Ursula and her father realized she was a square peg who would
never fit in the round hole they had chosen for her.

Then
maybe they would leave her to her own pursuits—namely to convince Tristan she
would be the ideal wife for a man whose ambitions lay in the diplomatic field.
But how could she convince the stubborn man of anything if she never saw him?

The
evening progressed at a snail’s pace through a mediocre dinner—she could have
given Lady Ursula’s high-priced French chef a lesson or two on how to prepare
la
mousseline de faison.
He had shown such a heavy hand with the nutmeg, the
delicate flavor of the pheasant was nearly lost.

And
for his
noisette de porc
that these
bourgeois Anglais
raved
about, she could scarcely bring herself to think about that. With the first
bite, she had ascertained the lazy fellow had never bothered to inquire what
the pig had been fed prior to butchering. Any chef worth his salt knew that
only pigs fed plums or apples dressed out suitably for such a dish; this pig
had obviously been fattened on garbage scraps. She could scarcely wait to get
back to Bloomsbury Square to discuss her deplorable dining experience with
Cookie.