The Convenient Bride (26 page)

He
smiled. "That was a month ago. But I think I better make a few more
wishes, er, for my safety. What say you, Fairy Lady?"

Smiling,
Briana wiped her eyes. "I was wrong. She might be a little mean. You'd
better make a lot more wishes."

"A
lot more!" came the voice from beyond the door. "And Tinkles and
Tumeys has a multitude of parasols for me to choose from! Do you hear me, my
lord?"

Briana
bit her lip. "I think she's going to stand by that door until we come
out."

"Dash
it all, she can wait all day and all night for all I care. I have more than a
few feckles to kiss."

Briana
suppressed a giggle as his lips covered hers.

"Open
up this door, you young puppy! I have a few things I want to say to you! Now
that you're home—"

With a
quick turn, Clayton whipped open the door. Agatha stumbled into the room, and
he caught her. "And I have something I want to say to you, Miss Appleby.
First I think you should return to Tinkles and Turneys to buy yourself some
more parasols." Her jaw dropped. "For the baby, my dear lady. We
don't want your goddaughter's child to have too much sun, do we?"

"Child?"
the lady said with a squeak in her voice, peering intently at Briana's stomach.
Agatha surprised Clayton, turned and headed toward the door. He started to
follow her, and she whacked him in the shin with her parasol.

His eyes
grew wide. "What the devil was that for?"

"Don't
just stand there, my boy! Go kiss those feckles."

With
those last words, Agatha slammed the door closed, leaving the couple to stare
at each other in stunned amazement.

Clayton
grinned. "Do you think she will ever like me?"

"Get
her a new parasol, then see what she says."

He
tugged playfully at his wife's hair. "Do you like me?"

"Hmmm,
get me a new parasol and see what I say."

Without
missing a beat, he lifted her off the ground. "Madam, I will never buy you
a parasol. Do you understand me?"

"Yes,
dear. Anything you say."

"I
thought you would see it my way."

There
was another knock.  Clayton put his wife down once again, yanking open the
door. "What the—"

To his
surprise a parasol came flying into the room.

Agatha's
head popped around the corner. "Hit him with that if he causes you any
trouble, child. Always works."

Clayton's
eyes flashed with mirth as he picked up the parasol and handed it to Briana.

Briana
shook her head, laughing. "I don't need it. If you cause me any trouble,
I'll just call Agatha." A bark sounded in the hall and Nigel appeared by
her godmother's side. "Sorry, boy," Briana said with a chuckle.
"And Nigel, too."

Clayton
tugged his wife into his arms. "There won't be any trouble your feckles
can't handle. And you're not a convenient bride at all, sweetheart. You are
definitely, absolutely, positively essential to my heart and soul."

Tears
flooded Briana's eyes. "Clayton, that's beautiful."

Agatha
cleared her throat. "Thank goodness for feckles, you young puppy, or you
would be in the suds!"

There
was another bark as the door clicked home.

Briana
tucked her head below her husband's shoulder and giggled. "I think she
likes you now."

Clayton
tipped his wife's chin and kissed her freckles with all the passion of a
husband in love with his new bride.

"Well,"
he grinned, "all I can say is thank goodness for Fairy Lady feckles—and
young puppies."

Briana
looked into those twinkling violet-blue eyes and smiled. It was the most
perfect day of her life. She was definitely, absolutely, positively in love,
and it felt wonderful.

TO MARRY A MARQUESS

Excerpt,
Copyright © Teresa McCarthy, 2004

All
rights reserved

Chapter One

L
ady Victoria, daughter to the late
Earl of Wendover, sank into the leather chair beside the rosewood writing desk,
gripping her aunt's accounting ledger in her hands.

No,
this couldn't be true.

An
uneasy chill spread down her back as she flipped through the marked pages of
credits and debits. The expenditures of the past year were all itemized.
Invoices and bills were totaled. Family jewels and silver had been sold. The
quaint cottage in Yorkshire had been mortgaged. Taxes were due in two months.

Debts
and more debts. The columns showed continuous losses. It was all there for her
to read.

"Oh,
Aunt Phoebe." Victoria slouched forward, tucked a strand of mahogany hair
behind her ear, and closed her eyes in anguish.

Leaning
her elbow on the desk, she brought a shaky hand to her brow, breathing in the bouquet
of lavender that still lingered in the air. It was Phoebe's scent. Her aunt
must have left the library only minutes ago.

Victoria
swallowed past the lump in her throat and opened her eyes, turning back to
today's date. The numbers in the right-hand column of the page were smudged
with fresh tears.

Sickened,
Victoria shifted a blank gaze toward the library window. A moaning wind blew
hard about Hanover Square, sending dust and grime swirling in the air,
mimicking the tumultuous emotions clouding her mind. The trees outside the
Chester townhouse resisted against the mighty force of nature, but they
eventually bowed, not able to combat the storm hovering in the distance.

Wiping a
hand across her eyes, Victoria turned her attention back to the ledger. The
storm would come. It was inevitable. Her wonderful aunt would be all but
penniless in a few months. Victoria's chest tightened in dread at the thought
of Phoebe in debtor's prison.

No, her
heart answered with a stab of pain. Not Phoebe. Not the lady who had been her
guardian angel, taking her in at the age of twelve, as if she were her very own
child, after Victoria's parents had died.

Victoria's
lips trembled and her nose started to sting. She had never planned on peeking
at her aunt's books, but curiosity had taken hold of her like a demon in the
night. One minute she was fiddling inside the crammed drawer, searching for an
ink well and an extra quill for William, her aunt's six-year-old son, and the
next minute she was staring at the accounting ledger that had literally fallen
into her lap. Impulsively, she had opened the book without ever thinking that
she would be invading her aunt's private domain.

It had
been wrong of her to look in the book, but she was glad she had done it. Aunt
Phoebe, her father's sister, was all that was good. Beautiful, poised, and
without a hateful bone in her body, Phoebe moved about London, conveying such
an easy grace that once she had actually caught the Prince Regent's eye at a
masquerade ball.

After
that episode, Victoria vividly remembered Uncle Henry refusing to be present at
anything the Regent was attending, unless it was ordered by royal decree. And
if Henry did not attend, Phoebe refused to go either.

No,
Henry Chester had loved Aunt Phoebe with an all-consuming passion, and she had
loved him back. When Henry died, Phoebe had been heartbroken, but she moved on,
trying to make a good life for Victoria, William, and Sarah, Phoebe's niece on
Henry's side.

Sarah
had been orphaned as well, but her parents died when she was but two. Unlike
Victoria, Sarah, now eighteen, had never remembered her parents.

Though
Victoria remembered her uncle fondly, it didn't change the fact that Henry had
never been good with money. He drank a little too much at the gaming tables, losing
enormous sums, and ventured into madcap plans of becoming rich, only to lose
much of his fortune in a scheme gone awry. He meant well, but he wasn't good at
keeping or making money.

Mentally
tallying the columns, Victoria realized Uncle Henry had been punting on the
River Tick when he died two years ago, and it seemed poor Phoebe had been
selling off everything to her name just to keep afloat.

Oh,
Uncle Henry. Not you, too.

Victoria
had learned that trusting a man with one's future always bordered on trouble,
and that is why she meant to choose her own road in life. Her father had failed
her by dying and leaving her with nothing, and even dear Uncle Henry had failed
Phoebe, Sarah, William, and her by his irresponsible behavior.

No,
trust of the male gender was not something that came easy to Victoria. She
tried to suppress the anger that curled inside her at the men whom she loved
and had abused that trust. In truth, she felt stretched like a violin string,
ready to snap in two, if she let one more male decide her fate.

"Vicki,
where is the ink? I have been waiting a very long time. Almost a hundred
hours!"

Victoria
jumped at the sound of William's voice. She turned her gaze toward the doors
where the boy hurried into the room. His play sword, a long wooden replica,
swung at his side while yellow curls bounced playfully about his face.

She
fought the ache in her throat and flipped the ledger closed, trying to control
the trembling within her. What would happen to Sarah and little William if
funds did not arrive in time to pay the debts? What would become of Phoebe?
What would become of them all?

"Botheration!
Vicki, are you listening to me? I've been waiting in my chambers for...
forever! You were going to show me how to draw a pirate ship. 'Member?"

Victoria
smiled. "Of course, I remember, silly. I was looking for extra ink."
She reached toward the back of the jammed drawer and pulled out the ink and
quill, easing the accounting ledger back into place. "There, all
set."

William
peeked over the edge of the desk. "Are you hiding treasures in there, me
princess?"

Victoria
threw a hand to her breast. "Oh, no, Captain. I would never hide treasures
from you."

William
jumped on top of a nearby wing chair and sliced his sword through the air.
"Never fear. I will fight all the pirates on the high seas and save you!
Your treasures are safe with me!"

Victoria
chuckled and rendered the boy her deepest curtsy. "I am in your debt, sir.
What do you ask of me?"

William
took a flying leap onto the Aubusson rug, then puffed out his chest like a
preening peacock. "You must show me how to draw a pirate ship!"

"I
will, Captain. You have my solemn word."

The
sword swooshed through the air. "Very well. Let us begin at once, me
princess. And don't worry about the pirates. I will protect you with my life!
Let us be off before the villains find us."

When
William's small hand slipped across her palm in such a trusting grip,
Victoria's heart turned, and she knew without a doubt that she would protect
this boy with her life.

"I
think a pirate with a skull on his flag is a good idea, don't you think, Vicki?
We could put that in the drawing, huh?"

"Anything
you like, me Captain."

"I
will have the bestest ship in the whole wide world when I am grown. Did you
know that?" William looked up expectantly, his innocent gaze fixed on her
face.

Victoria
smiled at the twinkling blues eyes glancing up at her. "Of course. The
bestest ship for the bestest captain, me Captain."

The boy
laughed.

Victoria's
heart squeezed. She would never let this boy go hungry. Never! She owed her
family all the security they had given her when she had come to them a fearful
and penniless twelve-year-old. Her parents had left her nothing, but it had
mattered not to Phoebe or Uncle Henry.

Victoria
had been with Phoebe for more than nine wonderful years, and she would never
change a minute of it.

"Do
you think we could have another ship, Vicki? One with a good captain?"

"We
must have two ships, or we would not have a fight between good and evil."

"But
good always wins, right, Vicki?"

"Yes,
William," she paused, "good always wins in the end."

At that
moment Victoria promised herself that Aunt Phoebe, Sarah, and William would
always have a decent home. They would never be hungry or want for anything.
Never. As long as she had breath within her, Victoria would do what she had to
do in order to see that her family was kept safe and secure.

"Confound
it!" Jonathan Gorick Kingston, the Marquess of Drakefield, hurled the
Times
to the floor, his black brows slamming together in disgust. Drake, as
his friends knew him, gave his butler another blasting glance of disbelief.

Stanby,
the bearer of the ghastly news, bowed his bald head in agony, stuffing one of
his hands, which were double the size of the average man's, against his breast.
"I have it from a most reliable source, my lord."

Drake
paced the drawing room of his London townhouse, his Hessian boots digging into
the Aubusson rug with every angry step. A lock of jet-black hair fell from his
queue as he wiped a tense hand across his face, pinching his right forefinger
and thumb to the bridge of his nose.

"I
cannot believe it. Nightham would have said something to me."

"My
lord, if you don't mind me saying so, sometimes a man in love does stupid
things."

Drake's
jaw clenched.
A man who thinks he is in love, that is.
"But the man
is not in love, Stanby. I tell you, I would have known. Nightham may have a
secretive streak, but this does not signify at all!"

Orderly?
He slapped his free hand against the nearby wing chair. His friend's entire
situation was inconceivable.

With
another curse, Drake snapped the pocket watch closed. Order was the key to
life. Order and predictability. And now Nightham had done the exact opposite.
Blast the man!

"Devil
take it, Stanby. I need a drink."

"My
lord." Stanby gave his employer a curt nod, handing him the ready glass of
brandy. "Heard it from Crotchet, Lord Fairbury's cook, who heard it from
the groom, who heard it from Lord Nightham's groom, who is no longer his groom
by the way, who heard it from—"

"Yes,
yes." Drake downed the amber liquid in one long swallow, raising a stiff
hand in the air. "Plain, old-fashion gossip line to be precise. Always a
reliable source."

"Quite
right, my lord."

Drake
frowned as he turned toward the hearth. "There's no plausible reason for
Nightham to marry by special license, and especially to a penniless female. He
saw what happened to me."

Stanby
stood by, his expression worried. "I do have his direction, my lord. Only
a few hours ride, I believe."

Drake
turned, thrusting a stiff hand through his blue-black hair. "Indeed? Then
have the grays brought about immediately. Seems I won't be going to my
grandmother's after all. I'll talk some sense into that idiot, even though it
pains me to do so. But talking to the man won't do any good if Nightham is
already married."

"Very
good, my lord." Taking one last worried look at his master, Stanby
departed from the room.

Drake
clanked his brandy glass on top of the rosewood table behind him, refilling his
drink. The beating of the nearby mantel clock mimicked the ticking of his brain
where chaos and confusion had swiftly replaced all thoughts of regulation and
order.

Marriage
to a pauper?

He
slowly sipped his second glass, gripping the mantel with his free hand.
Nightham's decision was like a knife to his heart.

Old
wounds began to open again, bleeding him of the defensive armor he had built up
over the years. He was determined not to let the same thing happen to his
friend that had happened to himself. The union of a penniless woman and a
wealthy earl like Nightham would only bring trouble.

But the
loss of one's coin would be the least of Nightham's worries. Drake instantly
recalled the pangs of humiliation he suffered only a few years ago. A
conniving, treacherous woman marrying for money could change a man's life
forever.

When
Honoria died, Drake vowed never to marry a poor woman again. It might kill him
next time or squeeze every drop of blood out of his heart, and to him, that was
certain death. At a score and seven, he was too young to die.

"Papa!"

Drake
lifted his head, pushing his emotions to the back of his mind as his
four-year-old daughter burst through the doors of the drawing room. "Come
here, Margueretta."

"Papa!"
The girl flew into his arms like a well-aimed cannon-ball. "You thaid that
later you would give me a horthy ride."

The
high-pitched voice carried a soft lisp that turned Drake's heart. He loved this
child more than life itself.