The Misguided Matchmaker (22 page)

Absentmindedly,
she pleated a fold in her skirt. “I am fond of your brother,” she said. “Who
could not be fond of such a kind and gentle
person.
I
could no more be the instrument of his destruction than you could. But I shall
make him a terrible wife, which is very sad since he deserves to be deeply
loved, not merely tolerated.”

She
smiled. “And I would have made such an excellent wife for you. I do not even
think my waspish tongue would have bothered you overmuch, since I feel quite
certain you would never have felt the need to take a mistress once we were
married.”

She
watched the knowing smile play about his sensuous lips, and knew he, too, was
remembering the fiery kisses they had shared. “And therein lies the saddest
truth of all,” she said with a sigh. “By the time my father realizes how wrong
he has been, it will be too late to undo the damage he has wrought.”

For
a long, silent moment she studied the face of the man she had come to love so
dearly—as much for his unmistakable courage and honor as for the passion he had
awakened in her. He looked tired and gaunt and his eyes held a haunted look
that made her want to clasp him to her breast and comfort him as the countess
had when he was a little boy.

“I
love you, Tristan,” she said shyly. “Just once, I wanted to know the pleasure
of saying the words.”

“I
love you too, Maddy.” He held his body rigid, never moving from the spot where
he’d stood since he’d entered the room, as if the tight control he’d imposed on
himself would snap with the slightest variation of stance.

Maddy
rose and walked toward him. “I would have my second kiss now, please.”

He
stepped back, his fists clenched at his side. “Do not ask it of me, my little
love. It would be like tearing my very heart from my chest to kiss you, knowing
it must be for the last time.”

“But
I do ask it of you,” Maddy said. “For the joy of remembering it will far
outweigh the pain in the empty years to come.”

“Ah,
Maddy,” he moaned, “what am I do with you…and whatever shall I do without you?”
Without another word, he took her in his arms and covered her lips with his in
a kiss so fraught with tenderness and longing, she felt as if he had lighted a
candle deep in her soul that would burn hot and pure and bright all the days of
her life.

The
kiss ended, and gently she touched her fingers to his cheeks. “Go now,
Tristan,” she said, “before I am disposed to collect my last kiss. For I am a
merchant’s daughter and would keep you in my debt. That way, wherever you are,
some small part of you will always belong to me.”

T
he engagement of Garth Ramsden, Fifth
Earl of Rand, to Miss Madelaine Harcourt was the main topic of discussion in
every fashionable drawing room in London on the afternoon following the
announcement in the
Times.

The
Ramsdens were not the first noble family to bail out their sinking ship by
bestowing a title on the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. With times so
hard, a number of others had been forced to do the same in recent years. But
the Earlship of Rand was by far the most distinguished house to go such a
route—and Caleb Harcourt the richest of the merchant princes. In the eyes of
other indigent noblemen, this particular alliance gave the solution an air of
respectability it had heretofore lacked.

As
Beau Brummel laughingly remarked to his fellow diners at Waters, “It appears
the stench of commerce becomes palatable to even the most noble of nostrils
once they feel the pinch of poverty.”

At
Lady Ursula’s urging, the visit to Winterhaven was cut short. “Much as I enjoy
visiting with our darling Tristan,” she explained to anyone who would listen,
“we have too many things we must accomplish before the wedding to waste our
time in bucolic pleasures.”

“Not
the least of which is the reading of the banns in St. George’s for three
Sundays,” Caleb Harcourt added. “I want this wedding to take place as soon as
you can make the proper arrangements, dearest lady.”

Maddy
didn’t demur. As far as she was concerned, the event was like scheduling a
tooth extraction—the sooner the painful business was over, the better. She had
said her good-bye to Tristan. There was nothing left to hold her at
Winterhaven.

Thus,
one week to the day after the Ramsden Party left London, they returned—all
except the earl, who elected to spend another fortnight at Winterhaven helping
Tristan with the renovations.

To
their surprise, droves of invitations for balls and routs, masques and
musicales, picnics and Venetian breakfast, had already arrived at the townhouse
addressed to the earl and his betrothed. Caleb Harcourt was ecstatic. “Now you
see how right I was about this marriage,” he declared that evening when he,
Lady Ursula, Maddy, and Lady Carolyn sat in a small salon in the second floor
of the London townhouse.

He
waved the sheaf of invitations in Maddy’s face. “The doors of the finest houses
in London are open to you, Maddy girl. You’ll be hobnobbing with earls and
dukes, maybe even a prince or two—everything that was denied you as a mere
merchant’s daughter.”

Maddy
turned a page of the book she was reading without looking up from the text.
“You are confusing me with my mother, sir,” she said coldly. “It was she, not
I, who set such store by titles.” They were the first words she’d spoken to the
old tyrant since he’d posted the announcement of her engagement in the
Times.

“Still
moping about, are you,” he asked, obviously not the least bit fazed by either
her silence or her caustic words. “Well, just wait until you’ve waltzed with a
duke and had your hand kissed by the Regent himself. You’ll sing a different
tune then, my girl.”

“Dear
Caleb is right, Madelaine,” Lady Ursula interjected setting aside the list of
wedding guests she was writing and rising to her feet. “Once you’re over your
initial shyness, you’ll find this world to which you’ve gained entrée more
exciting than your wildest dreams. Just think, my dear, with your father’s
money and your new title, you could easily become one of the
ton’s
most
prominent hostesses. And what a feather that would be in all our caps.”

“And
so she will be, with you to guide her, dearest lady,” Caleb Harcourt purred,
rising to stand beside her. “Now let us adjourn to the book room to make our
plans for the wedding.” He offered his arm to the diminutive countess. “I want
this to be the grandest affair of the Season, and I defer to you in all matters
of taste.”

“You
are too kind, dear Caleb,” the countess smiled, and arm in arm they departed
the room, beaming happily at each other.

“When
did my father become ‘dear Caleb’ and the countess his ‘dearest lady’?” Maddy
asked Lady Carolyn when the two of them were out of earshot. “How have I
managed to miss this interesting development?”

Carolyn
looked up from the scarf she was embroidering. “I believe you’ve had other
things on your mind. The two of them have been inseparable ever since the
announcement of the engagement of their children.”

She
flushed. “Do not think too badly of Mama for falling in with your father’s
plan, Miss Harcourt. You must understand, the only way she could survive thirty
years with my rakehell father was to turn a blind eye to the nightmare of
reality and pretend her life was happy and serene. Self-delusion has become
such a habit with her she has already convinced herself that you and Garth are
ideally suited. I feel certain that by the day after tomorrow she will believe
you are deeply in love and this marriage was your idea, not Mr. Harcourt’s.”

“You
are wise beyond your years, Lady Carolyn,” Maddy said, setting her book aside.
“And your compassion for your mother does you credit.” She hesitated. “I shall
need a sage friend to help me through this ordeal ahead,” she added
tentatively. “I would hope you would be that friend as well as my sister. Can
we not seal that pact by agreeing to call each other by our given names from
now on?”

Carolyn
nodded solemnly. “I would deem it an honor to be both friend and sister to the
woman my brother, Garth, marries—and my brother, Tristan, loves.”

Maddy’s
heart skipped a beat. “Tristan has spoken to you?”

Carolyn
nodded. “He confessed his love for you before he left for Winterhaven. But only
to me. Neither Mama nor Garth is aware of his feelings. It would upset them
dreadfully to know he is made unhappy be your marriage.”

“As
it has upset you. I know now why you have turned into a water pot this past
fortnight. And I suspect at least half of your tears are for your brother,
Garth, and the lady he loves.”

Lady
Carolyn’s face went blank with surprise. “You know about Sarah?”

Maddy
turned down the corner of the page she was reading and set her book aside. “I
didn’t know her name, but it was not difficult to see the earl was nursing a
broken heart.”

“Garth
and Lady Sarah Summerhill, the daughter of our neighbor Viscount Tinsdale,
pledged themselves to each other when they were but children. There has never
been anyone else for either of them, and they are so much in tune with each
other, it almost seems as if they are one person, not two,” Carolyn said,
threading her needle with dark green embroidery thread.

“Sarah
is four and twenty. Long past the marrying age,” she continued, jabbing her
needle into the scarf and pricking her finger in the process. “But she turned
every suitor down and waited for Garth all the years he was on the Peninsula as
Wellington’s aide. It nearly killed him to have to tell her that she’d been
waiting in vain.”

Maddy
regarded her companion with solemn eyes. “I assume Lady Sarah’s family is in
the same serious financial straits as the Ramsdens then.”

“Lud,
no. Viscount Tinsdale is as rich as Croesus.”

“Then
why didn’t he help your brother?”

Carolyn
looked up from her embroidery, the sadness in her eyes making her resemblance
to her brother more apparent than ever. “For one thing, Garth didn’t ask for
his help. For another while Viscount Tinsdale is a loving husband and father,
he is also a high-stickler. I imagine he considered a man tainted with
financial scandal to be beneath his daughter’s notice.”

Her
eyes filled with tears. “I just wish both Sarah and you could be my sisters,
and for the right reasons. I cannot bear to see my brothers and the ladies they
love so unhappy. And all because of our fathers. Mine, who cared nothing for
anyone but himself—and yours and Sarah’s, who care so much, they are blinded by
their ambition for their daughters.” She brightened suddenly. “Maybe Mr.
Harcourt will develop a
tendre
for Mama. Surely he wouldn’t send the son
of the lady he was courting to debtor’s prison.”

Maddy
grimaced. “You mean by withholding the funds to pay his creditors.”

Carolyn’s
eyes widened with shock and the scarf, threads, and scissors slid off her lap
and landed in a tangled mess on the carpet. “Oh dear, I thought you knew,” she
wailed, pressing her fingers to her lips.

“Knew
what?”

“I
dare not say. Garth told me in strictest confidence and made me promise I
wouldn’t breathe a word of it, lest it upset you unduly.”

Maddy
watched the color recede from Carolyn’s face. “But you must tell me this thing
I should know and obviously do not. It may be information I can use to
advantage. Perhaps there is yet a solution to this dreadful riddle in which we
find ourselves.”

Carolyn
hesitated, obviously wrestling with her conscience over betraying her brother’s
confidence, and Maddy felt her heart thump ominously in her breast. Her woman’s
intuition told her this information Carolyn possessed could well be the clue
she needed to extricate herself and the earl from the stranglehold her father
had on them.

“Tell
me, Caro. I must know,” she urged.

“Garth
has only one creditor,” Carolyn said finally, her voice sinking to a whisper.”
Mr. Harcourt bought up all my father’s gambling vowels and the mortgages he
took out on the Ramsden estates…”

“And
blackmailed Tristan into bringing me back from France, and Garth into promising
to marry me,” Maddy finished for her. An icy rage swept through her, chilling
yet another of the newly kindled sparks of warmth she felt toward her father. “
Nom
de Dieu
,” she muttered under her breath. “No wonder the old tyrant is the
richest merchant in England; he has no scruples when it comes to accomplishing
his own aims.”

Rising
to her feet, she paced to the pianoforte and back again, deep in thought. “But
maybe we can beat him at his own game if I can lay my hands on the records of
the earl’s debts.”

She
pressed her fingers to her temples. “Where would my father keep them? I have
been in every room in his house and seen no sign of a safe.” She stared into
space, envisioning the house in Bloomsbury Square. “He often sits at his desk
in the back room, working on his accounts. They could be there in a locked
drawer I suppose.”

Carolyn’s
worried gaze followed Maddy’s pacing. “It is more likely they’re in the office
on the waterfront. That was where he showed them to Tris and Garth. But how
could you search for them there? No lady would dare be seen on the Billingsgate
docks.” She frowned. “And what will you do with the papers if you find them?
I’m not certain it would be entirely honest to destroy legal documents.”

“It
would be entirely dishonest, as a matter of fact. But then how honest is
blackmail?” Maddy sighed. “But you have point. Knowing Tristan and the earl as
I do, I shall probably have to find some honorable way of disposing of the
records of the debts. Well, I’ll worry about that after I locate them. At least
they will be rendered harmless in my possession.”

She
stopped her pacing to stand before Carolyn, her arms folded across her chest.
“First I’ll search in my father’s desk at the house. But if they’re not there,
then we’ll have no choice; we’ll have to pay him a visit at his place of
business.”

“
We?
”
Carolyn blinked. “You mean you and
me
?”

“Of
course. I shall need you to create a diversion. You know, swoon or some such
thing, while I search the desk in his office,” Maddy said, hoping she had not
been mistaken in thinking Carolyn was a creature of spirit.

“Oh
my goodness, I really don’t think I could.” Carolyn’s voice cracked. “I mean
what would Mama say? Besides I never swoon. I shouldn’t have the slightest idea
how to pretend I had.”

She
hesitated, a mischievous smile tilting the corners of her pretty little mouth.
“Still even Mama has often remarked that I could have made my living on the
stage, had I not been born a lady.”

The
papers were not in the desk at the house in Bloomsbury Square. Maddy had held
out little hope they would be, so she was not too bitterly disappointed. But
before she could divulge her plan to Carolyn on how they should lay siege to
the Billingsgate office, she was caught up in a series of fittings for her
bride’s clothes which took all of three precious days.

She
dared not refuse to submit to Madame Héloïse’s pinning and draping, but she
took so little interest in the fabrics and designs of the proposed frocks, Lady
Ursula threw up her hands in despair. “How shall I ever turn you into a lady of
the fashion, Madelaine, if you take no interest in your appearance? Do you wish
to break your poor, dear father’s heart?”

Maddy
held her tongue, though she longed to say, “He has shown no compunction about
breaking mine.” Caro was right about Lady Ursula. She had closed her eyes to
the possibility that this marriage Caleb Harcourt had arranged was not the
perfect solution to all the problems the Rand family faced. Hiding her
frustration beneath a meek smile, Maddy made a pretense of studying
La Belle
Assembelée
with a view to choosing the design for her wedding dress.