The Misguided Matchmaker (21 page)

The
poor earl looked so miserable, Maddy’s heart bled for him. She put an arm
around his narrow shoulders and gave him a friendly squeeze. “Nonsense, my
lord, we don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do, no matter who expects
it—and plainly, neither of us wants this marriage. Just leave my father to me.
I have a lifetime of experience dealing with tyrants.”

With
her arm still encircling the earl’s shoulders, she looked up as the door of the
salon burst open, revealing none other than the “tyrant” himself, looking like
the cat that had not only swallowed, but thoroughly digested a particularly fat
mouse.

“So,
Maddy, my lord, may I be the first to wish you happy? I’ve a groom standing by
ready to ride to London with the notice for tomorrow’s
Times.
I shall
dispatch him forthwith.” Her father’s booming voice bounced off the walls of
the small salon, and his triumphant grin spread from ear to ear.

Maddy
felt the earl cringe as if he’d been dealt a severe blow. She had no idea what
hold her father had over him, but the very thought of anyone terrorizing the
dear little fellow made her hackles rise.

“No,
Papa, you may not wish us happy,” she said with icy disdain. “The earl has made
his offer, urged on by you, I’ve no doubt, and I have refused him. We simply
would not suit, as anyone with no more perception than a barn owl in broad
daylight could really see.”

“Not
suit? The man is an earl without a feather to fly with; you are an heiress
without a title. Where could you find a better match than that?”

Money.
So that was what this was all about. Maddy gave the earl another friendly
squeeze. The poor fellow’s pockets were to let and to save his beloved
Winterhaven, he had put himself on the auction block. Apparently her father was
high bidder. Maddy felt choked with anger and disgust. “I like the earl very
much,” she said coldly, “but I do not love him, and he certainly does not love
me.”

She
glanced at the earl, standing mute as a stone beside her. “In fact, now that I
think on it, I feel certain his heart is already engaged.” The sudden flush
suffusing his pale cheeks confirmed her suspicion that she had read the sadness
in his eyes correctly. “He may be trapped by his circumstances, but I am not. I
will never embark upon a marriage founded anything other than true love.”

“True
love!” her father sputtered. “Nonsense, girl, you’re well past the age when you
should be believing in such romantic nonsense. I can tell you from personal
experience that unless a marriage is a practical arrangement meeting the needs
of both parties, it is doomed to failure.”

“I
will believe in true love until the moment I draw my last breath on earth—and
beyond that if there is a heaven,” Maddy declared stubbornly.

“Damn
it, Maddy, I’ve let you ride roughshod over my plans to turn you into a proper
lady because Lady Ursula begged me to humor you. But I’ll not humor you in this.
I have looked the field over and the Earl of Rand is the man who most perfectly
fits the requirements I set for a proper husband for you.”

“Requirements
you
set?” Maddy clenched her fists in frustration. “What about
my
requirements? Don’t they count for anything with you?”

Her
father turned his baleful gaze on the trembling earl. “Leave us, my lord. I
would have a word alone with my daughter.”

“You
sorely disappoint me, miss,” he said as the door closed behind the hurriedly
departing earl. “I had thought you had a few brains in your head. I see now
you’re the same witless kind of creature as your mother.”

“And
you likewise disappoint me, sir. I had foolishly believed you cared about me.”

“Of
course I care about you. Why do you think I’ve spent thrice what I pay all my
sea captains for a year before the mast on refurbishing Rand’s dilapidated
townhouse and country manor if not because I intended you to be mistress of
them? Think of it, Maddy, with my money and Rand’s title, you’ll be the darling
of London society. Not one of those stiff-necked society matrons will ever dare
snub you the way they did your mother—and your firstborn son will be a
bona-fide earl with a seat in the House of Lords.”

Maddy
eyed her father, shocked to realize for the first time how deeply wounded he’d
been by her foolish mother’s defection. She shook her head sadly. “How ironic
that a man who has accomplished all that you have with your life should
consider an inherited title so important in the measurement of a man’s worth.”

“Don’t
you see, girl—it is the one thing my money can’t buy. Oh, I’ve arranged to
obtain myself a second-rate baronetcy by paying off Prinny’s debts, but that’s
small potatoes compared to an earlship. My plan will ensure that you and your
children will have the kind of prestige I can never hope for.”

“Well,
I am sorry to disappoint you, Papa, and sorrier yet that you have wasted so
many of your precious guineas, because I can see you are truly convinced you
are doing what is right for me. But it is not right. I should be absolutely
miserable in a marriage such as your suggest.”

“Nonsense.
The earl is a fine fellow. A little shy maybe, but you’ve spirit enough for
both of you. I’ll not be thwarted in this, Maddy, for I do know what is best
for you.”

Maddy
shook her head sadly. “No, Papa. Only I can determine what is best for me, and
much as I care for you, I cannot let you rob me of the right to make my own
decisions about the course my life should take. I shall be one and twenty in a
fortnight and free to follow my own dictates, which I fully intend to do.”

“Humpf!
Free to starve in the streets is more like it. You forget I hold the purse
strings—a fact that sharply curtails this freedom you appear to think you
have.”

Maddy
raised her chin defiantly. “And you, sir, forget I am not one of your
milk-and-water English misses. If a Frenchwoman like Madame Héloïse”—she
crossed her fingers behind her back—“can make her own way in London, so can I.”

“So
now you’re telling me you can sew a fine seam,” her father’s heavy brows veered
upward. “Don’t try to bamboozle me, daughter. I have already heard from Lady
Ursula that the simplest embroidery is beyond you.”

“True,
but I have never aspired to be a seamstress. My talent lies in a different
field. I am an excellent cook, Papa. A master chef, as a matter of fact. Who do
you think has cooked all those superb French dishes that have graced your
dinner table for the past three weeks?” She tossed her head defiantly. “Even
Cookie admits I could easily earn my living managing the kitchen in any great
house in London.”

“Cookie!
By God, I’ll skin that traitorous little weasel alive and feed his carcass to
the wharf rats.”

“For
merely stating the truth? Don’t be ridiculous, Papa.”

“And
what of you, miss? Would it not be ridiculous to choose to cook in another
woman’s house rather than be mistress of your own?”

“Of
course. Contrary to your opinion, I am not a fool simply because I disagree
with you as to whom I should marry. I can think of nothing I would rather have
than my own kitchen in my own house—but only if I can share it with the man who
has won my heart.”

“Some
prissy French Royalist your grandfather picked out for you do doubt. You know
no man in England other than the earl.” His eyes narrowed. “Except his
devil-eyed half-brother. By God, I knew I smelled something rotten in that
quarter. If that slippery son of Satan has defiled my daughter, I’ll see him
swinging from a yard arm.”

“Tristan
has not defiled me. Nor has he done anything else of which he need be ashamed,”
Maddy declared indignantly. “He is the most honorable of men.”

“He’s
a penniless bastard, and one of Castlereagh’s spies to boot—the last man on
earth I would allow my daughter to marry. Why, you’d be a social pariah married
to such as that.”

Maddy
faced her father squarely. “Please, Papa, let us be done with this pointless
squabbling. We have spent too many years apart; let’s not allow a difference of
opinion to separate us further. I know what I want in a husband, and the earl
is not it. I am determined to marry the man I love. He may not meet your
standards, but to me he is everything that is honorable.”

“But
will this honorable bastard of yours choose to marry you if you force me to
send his brother to debtor’s prison and turn his stepmother and sister into the
street? I doubt it. From what I’ve seen, he’s mighty fond of the lot of them,
as well he should be, considering all they’ve done for him.”

Maddy
stared at her father in horror. “You cannot mean you would do such a terrible
thing just because you didn’t get your own way.”

“This
has nothing to do with getting my own way,” he said grimly. “You may not
believe it, but I love your dearly, Maddy, and I’ll do whatever it takes to
keep you from making a mistake that would deny you everything I have worked so
hard to provide you.”

Maddy
felt consumed with a helpless, smoldering rage. “If you force me into a
marriage that is abhorrent to me, I shall hate you, Papa,” she said coldly.

“That
is a chance I will just have to take. Better that than see my only daughter
ruin her life.” The ruthless set to his jaw warned her he meant every word he
said.

“If
you doubt I’ve the will or the way to destroy your honorable bastard and his
precious family, try me,” he added grimly. “But think long and hard on it
before you do. And you might think on this while you’re at it as well; Tristan
Thibault has been part and parcel of the plan to save his brother’s bacon from
the very beginning. All the while this ‘most honorable of men’ was winning your
heart, as you so quaintly put it, he knew full well you were slated to be his
brother’s wife.”

Like
a condemned man heading for Tyburn’s gallows tree, Tristan wound his way
through the labyrinthine halls of Winterhaven to the salon where Caleb Harcourt
had told him Maddy was waiting to talk to him.

He
had no doubt what was ahead of him; his ears were still burning from Harcourt’s
version of what had transpired to abort his daughter’s long-awaited engagement
announcement.

Now
Garth was in a panic, Lady Ursula had taken to her bed with a migraine, and
Caro was holed up in the library, weeping copiously. All had agreed with
Harcourt that since Tristan was the “fly in the ointment,” so to speak, it was
up to him to make Maddy see reason. But no one offered the slightest clue as to
how he was to bring this about. Nor did anyone except Caro appear to realize
his own aching heart.

He
took a deep breath, knocked on the door of the blue salon, and entered to find
Maddy seated on a fiddle-back chair, her eyes downcast, her hands folded in her
lap. She raised her head, but instead of the anger he expected to see sparking
in her eyes, there was only a dull resignation and the same, terrible sadness
that had wrapped its stifling tentacles around his heart.

She
searched his face. “Papa said you have known all along he intended me to be
your brother’s wife. Is that true?” she asked, getting straight to the point as
he’d known she would.

“Yes.”

“Why
didn’t you tell me?”

Tristan
reached back and closed the door. Propriety be damned. This was between Maddy
and him and what he had to say was for her ears alone. “Your father had sworn
me to secrecy before I ever left London. Had I known then what I do now, I
would never have given my word to keep the knowledge from you.”

“As
I thought. I could not believe you would willingly lie to me, even by omission.
Now I know what you meant when you said honor forbade you from poaching another
man’s preserves.” Her sad little smile widened the fissure in his wounded heart
in a way anger never could have—even as her unquestioning belief in him felt
like warm rain on his parched spirit. Once again she had surprised him with her
brave and loyal heart.

“Was
I terribly foolish and naïve to fall in love with you?” she asked, in a sad
little voice that was nearly his undoing.

“No,
Maddy, never think that.” He would give her up because he had no choice, but
nothing—not even his loyalty to Garth—could make him lie to her. “If love is
foolish, my love, then we are foolish together,” he said softly.

A
single tear coursed down her cheek and dropped onto her hands, still clasped
tightly together. “We have that, then, if nothing else. It will make the
loneliness a little more bearable.”

She
searched his face as if memorizing every feature. “I don’t suppose you had any
more success dissuading my father from his course than I did?”

“I
knew better than to try. He has a fetish against bastards, especially penniless
ones. I could cheerfully kill the man if I were not so certain he believes he
is acting in your best interests.”

“Papa
is a fool,” Maddy said, “but a well-meaning one who holds all the winning cards
in this particular hand—and I know him well enough to believe he will play
those cards if I refuse to marry the earl.”

She
shook her head, as if unable to believe all that had transpired. “Unfortunately,
such well-meaning fools often create more havoc in the lives of those around
them than men of a truly evil nature.”