The Wrong Marquess EPB Read online

  Since his affianced had fainted into his arms, the comment was likely inappropriate. This assumption was quickly confirmed when the bride-to-be lifted her head and scowled over his shoulder.

  Ellie felt the pink flush of embarrassment creep to her cheeks. “Not that I would, of course. I already have a gentleman of my own. Or, at least, I will have. And, I daresay, his speech will be just as pretty or even—”

  The young woman sighed loudly, eyes flaring.

  Ellie took the hint and disappeared between a pair of spiral topiaries. Besides, she had no time to dawdle, she needed to return to the house posthaste while these proposals were still fresh in her mind. They were wonderful bits of research for the book that she and her friends were writing on the marriage habits of the native aristocrat. And while Winnie and Jane had done their fair share of studying scoundrels, it was up to Ellie to write about marriage-minded gentlemen.

  The only problem was, she wasn’t an authority on the subject. At all. Otherwise, she’d be married already.

  Nevertheless, she was determined to finish her portion of the book this Season, and the sooner the better. After all, both Winnie and Jane had found wedded bliss by the time they’d finished their research. And Ellie had every belief that it would be the same for her.

  Encouraged by the thought, she hurried, practically skating in her slippers along the path toward the tall hedgerow that bordered the garden. As she reached the intersection marked by a pair of arrow-wielding cherub statues, she lifted her face, offering them a hopeful smile and a wish in passing. Then she turned and—Oof!

  She came to a sudden, bone-jarring halt.

  Of the countless ways Ellie had imagined she would die—fever, lingering illness, run down by a wayward stagecoach, unexpected avalanche of books at the Temple of the Muses, just to name a few—a full-body collision with a gentleman in the Baxtons’ garden wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t at all prepared.

  She felt her heart stop and her lungs shrivel. The force even knocked the soul completely from her body. It hovered above her, suspended and weightless, no longer attached to this earthly plane.

  This was it, she thought, the untimely end of her unremarkable life.

  It seemed rather unfair to arrive at Death’s door so soon, and so dreadfully unmarried. But it was happening, nonetheless. There was nothing she could have done to stop it. So she bid a fleeting adieu to her loving aunts, her supportive friends, and especially to—

  “Bloody hell,” she heard muttered with vehemence. Hardly the chorus of angels one expected at a mournful time like this.

  Then Ellie felt the grip of hands on her hips. The firm pressure of thighs and torso against her own. The sturdy cage of arms anchoring her. And the hot drift of breath against her cheek.

  At once, her soul plunged back into her body. Her feet found terra firma. Her lungs drew in a new breath, filled with the appealing aromas of spring air, warm cedar, and starched linen. There was another scent as well, some unidentifiable and enthralling spice that compelled her to lean forward and take a deeper breath.

  But then the gentleman released her. Too quickly, in fact. She wobbled on her feet. Reflexively, her hand latched onto the nearest solid object—him—or rather, his firm forearm, which she may or may not have squeezed to affirm her findings.

  Jolted by the near-death experience and somewhat giddy, she blinked down at the brushed gray broadcloth beneath the grip of her ivory kid glove. Her gaze shifted to the cashmere waistcoat where she saw a loose thread that needed trimming. Distracted, she gave her head a shake to clear out the cobwebs and felt the staggered slip of her straw hat, listing toward the left side of her head.

  “My apologies, sir. I did not see you there.” With her unoccupied hand, she groped for her hat before it fell, all the while knowing that chivalry would demand that he take full blame for the practically fatal event, as any true gentleman would. “To be sure, I’m not usually so nearsighted, or . . . ungainly, or . . .”

  She faltered. Why wasn’t he interrupting her?

  Ellie lifted her gaze to the starched cravat and stiff collar points, to the chiseled jawline and the shallow cleft in his chin, to the uncompromising mouth and aquiline nose, and finally to the shadowed ashy gray—no, mossy green—eyes beneath the broad brim of his hat.

  A frisson of recognition darted all the way to her toes.

  Even though they had never been formally introduced, there wasn’t a woman in society who didn’t know of London’s most elusive bachelor, the Marquess of Hullworth. And from this close proximity, he was even more handsome than rumors credited him.

  He wasn’t as handsome as George, of course, her conscience prodded. No man was.

  And yet, this man exuded a certain aura of self-assured masculinity that would be undeniably attractive to most women. Just not to her.

  “My arm, if you please, ma’am,” he said, accusation etched in his cool articulation. His jaw was already tight with patent exasperation as he flicked an impatient glance down to her hand. “That is, if you find yourself steady enough to stand on your own.”

  She barely lifted her hand before he took an immediate step back. He tugged sharply on the cuff of his sleeve, then on the hem of his trim waistcoat as if attempting to erase the encounter completely.

  Ellie tried not to take offense. Though, to her, he was quite determined to give it. He acted as though she’d committed a crime upon his person. Attempted wrinkling—punishable by public flogging.

  Nevertheless, she hadn’t been looking where she was going, nearly killing them both in the process. Such an event could put anyone in a less than ideal temper. And, perhaps, the elusive bachelor simply hadn’t had an opportunity to exhibit his renowned gallantry. Therefore, she decided that a little leniency was necessary for the moment.

  Spying a familiar square of embroidered lace on the grass, she found the perfect means for the marquess to improve her opinion of him.

  “Oh, dear. I seem to have dropped my handkerchief,” she said with a polite smile, raising her offending hand to reset her hatpins.

  He gave the fallen object no more than a cursory glance and said, “So you have.”

  Then, the rudest fellow on the face of the earth tipped his hat and stalked off.

  Of all the unchivalrous nerve!

  Bending down, Ellie swiped at her handkerchief, only to sully her fingertips in the process. Splendid, she thought crossly. Now she would need to restore her soiled glove before tea was served.

  After sending a much-deserved glare to the retreating figure, she stalked off in the opposite direction. As far as she was concerned, she never wanted to see that ill-mannered, overbearing, odious man ever again.

  By the time she reached the terrace doors of Lord and Lady Baxton’s grand house, her aunts were nowhere to be found. Though if she had to guess, they were likely lingering somewhere near the kitchens and bribing a scullery maid.

  No one amongst the ton knew it, but Aunt Maeve and Aunt Myrtle were thieves. Wherever they went, they stole recipes from everyone else’s cooks. They’d done this for the past three years. And at home on Upper Wimpole Street, there were drawers upon drawers brimming with pages of their ill-gotten gains.

  Ellie had asked them what purpose it served on several occasions. In response, she’d only received shrugs and blank looks of innocence, leaving her to presume that her eccentric aunts had become squirrels in their dotage.

  Choosing to seek them out later, she found her way upstairs to the retiring room. As she drew near, the white-glazed door flew open and a dour-faced Lady Doyle barreled forth with a huff, heaving displeasure from her rather imposing bosom.

  “Eugenia,” the lady barked, “we shall not waste another instant inside repairing our hats while Lord Hullworth is outside and on the loose. Why, he is likely being pursued and charmed by our hostess and her simpering twit of a daughter as we speak!”

  “Yes, Mother,” a young woman of similar bearing said, marching closely behind. She rolled he
r eyes and issued a haughty toss of her coiffed blond ringlets.

  “Mark my words, you will be a marchioness by Season’s end,” the lady said resolutely, both chins raised. She sniffed in Ellie’s direction by way of greeting, then cast a disparaging glance over her shoulder. “Dash it all, where is that useless maid?”

  “Coming, ma’am,” a harried mop-capped girl said as she rushed behind, her arms overladen with a shawl, two straw bonnets and a plethora of ostrich plumes. In her haste, she lost half of her burden along the way.

  Sympathetic to her plight, Ellie picked up the fallen bonnet and handed it to her. “Here you are, dear. I quite like what you’ve done with this one. The ribbon is in a lovely Gordian braid that’s difficult to master.”

  The maid’s cheeks lifted, a mouthful of pins clamped between her grinning lips. Before she hurried off, she bobbed a curtsy and mumbled a happy, “Fank you, ma’am.”

  In Ellie’s opinion, no one deserved to suffer obnoxious fools during one’s all too short existence. Unfortunately, insufferable people were everywhere. Case in point—Lord Hullworth in the garden. As far as she was concerned, he deserved a mother-in-law like Lady Doyle.

  Stepping through the door, both she and her temper found the airy retiring chamber blessedly vacant. The pale azure-painted walls and the breeze drifting in through diaphanous ivory drapes provided her a moment’s peace to put the garden collision far from her mind. Even so, she found herself muttering “hateful man” under her breath as she proceeded toward the washstand in the corner.

  Fortunately for Ellie, the Baxtons spared no expense on their soap. They had an oval bar of Pear’s in a ridged porcelain dish, which proved more effective than a more caustic paste in a jar would have done.

  Satisfied with her scrubbing, she stripped off her dampened gloves and laid them near the windowsill to dry. But then she cast a disparaging glance at her bare hands and sighed in dismay.

  Oh, they were fine enough as far as hands went, both pale and smooth with manicured fingernails. And yet, there was a glaring flaw on the left one.

  It was still ringless.

  This circumstance might have been a mere trifling matter if she were, in fact, the twenty-three-year-old debutante the ton believed her to be. Only the aunts knew her secret—that she was approaching spinsterhood at the alarming rate of a velocipede careening down a steep hill.

  As of today, she’d passed a quarter century without a gold band on her wedding finger. Nine thousand one hundred and six unmarried days, to be exact.

  Twenty-five pathetic years.

  An impatient breath left her as she reached up to take the pins from her bonnet and set it aside. As far as she was concerned, her research couldn’t be finished soon enough. She needed all the insight she could garner to finally get George to propose.

  One glance at the disheveled slattern in the looking glass and she gave Lord Hullworth more of her ire. High-handed popinjay. She huffed. Here she was, repairing her coiffure when George might very well have been in the garden waiting for her. Turning her head, she stabbed her tortoiseshell comb into the twisted configuration of her ebony curls. But when she caught sight of a faint shimmer of something silver, she went stock-still.

  Was that a . . . a . . . gray hair?

  She gasped in utter mortification. It was official—she was ancient. A foot in the grave. A single stitch away from a burial shroud.

  George would never marry her if he saw this. The Marquess of Nethersole would require an heir from his bride. One look at the gray-haired hag she’d suddenly become and all he would think she could offer would be a knitted shawl.

  Ellie had to do something, and quickly.

  She wanted to yank out the offender but her aunts were forever saying that, whenever they plucked one gray hair, four more sprouted up in its place. One was bad enough, but four? She might as well start walking with a cane and flirting with octogenarians.

  Her gaze darted around for a way to conceal her shame. A pot of ink, perhaps? Just a little brush of black in the right place would allow her to return to the party as if nothing were amiss. As if she weren’t as old as Methuselah. A veritable crypt-keeper.

  But there was no writing desk in this room and no ink. Drat!

  Distractedly, she reached for her bonnet only to realize it had slipped from the arm of the chaise longue and fallen against the wall. Crouching down to retrieve it, she heard the chamber door open, then close, on the far side of the room.

  “If I hear the happy news of one more betrothal, I’m going to scream,” a feminine voice muttered, her statement punctuated by an exasperated growl and the stomp of a soft-soled slipper.

  Even in her agitated state, Ellie smiled to herself. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one a bit tired of everyone else getting married.

  She delicately cleared her throat to make her presence known, then stood and arranged the broad-brimmed straw to keep the unsightly, hoary coil hidden from view. It was safer that way. For all she knew, it held Medusa-like properties and gazing upon it could turn one’s person—and one’s marital hopes—to stone.

  “Oh! I beg your pardon,” the young woman said, her uncommonly clear blue eyes widening behind a frame of black lashes. “I didn’t realize anyone else was in here. The maid told me she would return to mend my dress as soon as she finished her task with Lady Doyle.”

  Ellie flitted her fingers in a gesture of little consequence and set her hatpins. “Think nothing of it.”

  The young woman nodded. She tugged smartly on the ribbon of her bonnet, lifting it to reveal spills of inky hair a shade darker than Ellie’s. It was so black it had the bluish tinge of a raven’s wing. She was lovely, too, her skin unblemished by either sunlight or age. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, at most.

  Ellie sighed inwardly, remembering those youthful days long past. Before the gray hair.

  The young woman turned to set her hat and gloves on a satinwood demilune table. The motion revealed a large rip in her cerulean-dyed muslin. A commiserating gasp left Ellie.

  The young woman nodded, twisting to look over her shoulder. “Dreadful, isn’t it? I fear it’s ruined and I’ll have to endure my brother’s questions and disappointed glowers for days to come when I tell him how it happened.”

  “Well, I know little of brothers, but enough about needlework to know that the maid will likely not be able to mend this properly. At least, not without calling attention to the stitches in such a delicately woven muslin,” Ellie said with the experience gained from a lifetime of sewing alongside her aunts. “Of course, she could attempt to darn it if she has this particular shade of blue in her sewing box. Here, allow me to check.”

  Crossing to the tufted stool in the corner, she retrieved the basket beneath it. Upon opening the hinged lid, however, she saw the contents were as she suspected.

  Peering inside, the young woman shook her head. “This is my punishment, I suppose, for setting the wolves on Brandon. I just wanted to elude his overprotective gaze for a moment. How was I to know that my escape would nearly have me interrupting not one but two proposals? Which, consequently, is how I ended up in a battle of thorns beneath the rose arbor. I was trying to sneak away without disturbing the turtledoves.”

  They must have been within a few paces of each other, Ellie thought with amusement. “Then it is fortunate you were not near the third by the fountain, or else you might have come in here decidedly wet from head to toe.”

  “Three betrothals at one party?”

  “There appears to be an epidemic,” she said with a grave nod. “However, on the bright side, I believe I can assist you. I’ve been told that I’m rather nimble with needle and thread, especially during times of dire circumstances.”

  “Then you are an angel!”

  “Well, before you say that, I should tell you”—Ellie hemmed, eyeing a length of red ribbon from the box—“in order to mend such a sizeable tear, we will need to be rather unconventional.”

  “I de
spise convention.” The young woman flashed a grin. Then she held out her hand. “I know this isn’t done but I feel as though we should introduce ourselves. I’m Margaret Stredwick, but please call me Meg.”

  “Very well, Meg. I am Elodie Parrish, Ellie to you.”

  They shook once, firmly as if embarking on a business venture. And the fix would require a bit of daring on both their parts. Nevertheless, she had the utmost confidence that it was the right decision.

  “I don’t suppose”—Meg hesitated abashedly—“there’s any point in pretending that I didn’t say such a horrible thing when I first entered the room. By the by, you’re not one of the contented brides-to-be, are you? I should hate to have insulted you.”

  A breeze blew in through the open window, lifting hair from Ellie’s nape. In that instant, she was reminded of her speeding course toward spinsterhood.

  “Fear not, I am one of the un-betrothed.” As ever, she added silently as she made herself comfortable on the stool to begin the repair. After threading the needle, she began with a quick slip stitch to hold everything in place and spoke conversationally. “Truth be told, the man I’ve set my cap for is not even here today.”

  “Ah,” Meg said thoughtfully. “Then you cannot be one of the hopefuls vying for Lord Hullworth’s hand.”

  A huff of indignation escaped her. “No, indeed. I do not find him agreeable in the least. Though I’ve not met him formally, he seems a rather cross, unmannerly and vain fellow. At parties he is ever surrounded by his adoring followers. A veritable King Goose among his gaggle.”

  Meg laughed brightly. “Surely, you mean Marquess Goose instead. My brother is not a king, no matter what he thinks of himself.”

  “Your broth—” Ellie pricked the tip of her finger. She instantly put it to her lips as a rush of heat rose to her cheeks. “I’ve stepped in it, haven’t I? Please know, I meant no offense.”

  “No offense directed at me, you mean. Oh, don’t be embarrassed. It’s rather delightful to meet someone who hasn’t set her cap for him.” Her laughter ended on a sigh. “Almost every debutante to befriend me has had an ulterior motive to get closer to Brandon, including the two newly betrothed young women I nearly interrupted today. I suppose I was a ninny to have believed otherwise.”