The Wrong Marquess Read online

  Brandon wasn’t certain which possibility bothered him more.

  While he mulled this over, Maeve Parrish greeted him and Meg with easy familiarity.

  “Lord Hullworth. Miss Stredwick. How good you are to keep my niece company. I see that Myrtle has abandoned her for the sake of flirting with another nut seller, tittering and batting her lashes.” She cupped a hand to the side of her mouth. “Between the three of us, she has half the vendors in London thoroughly besotted. Needless to say, we are never in want of nuts or muffins.” She waggled her eyebrows with meaning before turning back to her niece. “I have a hackney waiting near the gate. Do you think you can manage the distance, dearest?”

  “I believe I am able,” she said with a comical sigh. “The question is whether I want to hobble around appearing infirm and feeble.”

  “Then take my arm,” Brandon offered, coming to her aid after assisting Meg to her feet.

  Miss Parrish held up a hand to him. “Thank you, no. I do not wish to end up in the late edition of today’s scandal pages.”

  “I insist.”

  “And I insist more. Stand aside or I shall throttle you with my cane,” she said, brandishing it with a laugh that ended on a hiss the instant she attempted to rise on her own.

  Brandon did not move away. Instead, he leaned, so close that the brims of their hats rasped intimately together. So close that he tasted her sweet fragrance in the air. “Allow me to assist you or you’ll soon find yourself carried through the park over my shoulder.”

  She gasped. Even he was startled by his determination to follow through with his threat, his hand already splayed against the small of her back. She seemed to have awakened some strange and primitive side of his nature. But there was still enough of the gentleman in him to wait for her murmur of acquiescence.

  “Careful now,” he said, settling his other hand beneath her elbow as he drew her up beside him, giving her time to find her footing.

  She bit down on her lip, her brow furrowed as she tested her weight, her hand gripping his forearm tightly. With a nod, she lifted her gaze to his, her irises soft and warm. “I think I can manage.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “She said she could,” Meg said softly in singsong, her teeth clenched in an imitation of a smile. “And you have an audience, Brandon.”

  One glance proved she was right. Damn it all. A crowd of parasol-wielding busybodies had formed, gloved hands lifted to hide the whispers that their scandalized arching eyebrows could not.

  “Let them look,” he said, keeping her hand on his arm. “The more they do, the more they will see that circumstance demands it.”

  “Of course, we know that,” Meg said from the other side of her friend as the three of them made slow progress along the path. “But your gaggle will surely use this as a script to follow. I doubt we’ll ever be able to walk in the park again.”

  “Gaggle?” he asked, perplexed.

  The corner of Miss Parrish’s mouth twitched. “Your followers,” she supplied dryly. “I may have referred to you as ‘King Goose’ before I realized that Meg was your sister.”

  “Don’t forget about calling him odious and overbearing,” her aunt reminded with a lilting laugh as she veered toward the nut seller’s cart to tug at her sister’s arm.

  Miss Parrish offered a sheepish glance. “Under the circumstances, I should likely recant two of those.” Then she added under her breath, “Though you’re still being rather overbearing.”

  He grinned, unapologetic. “I’ll claim it. And, actually, I rather like ‘King Goose,’ as far as monikers go.”

  Meg expelled a dramatic sigh. “I told you it would go to his head.”

  “I suppose, that leaves but one,” Miss Parrish said. “And I’m discovering that you’re not nearly as odious as you were before, my lord.”

  “Just somewhat odious,” he offered ruefully.

  “As you say,” she mocked.

  They reached the waiting hackney far sooner than he’d expected. And he was forced to relinquish his claim on her when Maeve and Myrtle appeared at his side.

  Once she was settled snugly in the dark interior of the carriage, he said, “We’ll call on you later to see how you are faring.”

  She shook her head instantly. “I . . . I feel much stronger after the short walk.” Looking past his shoulder to those who were still watching, twin spots of color rose to her cheeks. Then she continued in a whisper. “I appreciate your assistance, of course, but there is no need to continue our spectacle.”

  “You are so right, Ellie,” Meg said, her voice rising to reach the crowd. “It is terribly rude when the snootiest members of society refuse to mind their own business. Instead, they linger like white-gloved vultures waiting for the feast of rumors to begin.”

  She turned to glare at Lady Doyle and her daughter. The ladies dispersed on a sniff.

  “Meg, you are positively incorrigible,” Miss Parrish said with affection that had all the appearance of being genuine. Perhaps it actually was.

  His sister beamed brightly. “You’ll have to get used to it, I’m afraid.” Meg waggled her brows then waved her fingers, oddly keeping one hand behind her back. “Ellie, I’ll send you a missive later and tell you all about how my brother enjoyed eating his crow for dinner after accusing you of feigning this injury.”

  “Splendid. I look forward to it,” she answered, her laughing amber eyes flitting to him.

  He cautioned himself not to be taken in by her charms. After all, just because he’d been mistaken about her ankle, didn’t mean he was wrong about everything else.

  Realizing his hand had been lingering on the open door all this time, Brandon closed it. Then he inclined his head and sent the driver on. But as he and Meg began walking on the pavement toward their town house, he felt his brow furrow as he reexamined everything Miss Parrish had told him, albeit from a slightly less suspicious viewpoint.

  He didn’t particularly like where his thoughts took him.

  “Who the devil is this George fellow?” he grumbled under his breath. And what kind of gentleman would have left her in such a state in the first place without bothering to see her home? No gentleman, at all, in Brandon’s opinion.

  “I believe he is the man for whom she has set her cap, brother. You see? I told you that you could trust her motives.”

  “Hmm . . .” he murmured, stubbornly holding on to skepticism. “You believe he is, but have you met him? No. I thought not.”

  “Do you doubt his existence simply because Ellie hasn’t introduced me to him within the first twenty-four hours of our acquaintance? Or is it because”—she eyed him impishly—“you’re jealous of his claim on her affections?”

  He ignored the idiocy of her comment. “I am only looking out for your best interests. You deserve someone who is honest and forthright.”

  “And so do you,” she said as if it were that simple. But he knew better. “Surely you’re not going to let a bad apple spoil my chances of my becoming an aunt one day. I should like to be the kind who flirts with street vendors when I’m in my sixties and rides in phaetons until my gray hair is mussed.”

  It wasn’t just a bad apple. His decision came from something far more serious than that. From something he’d lost years ago and, unless he found it, he’d never consider marrying. “And I think that you should focus on being twenty and enjoying your Season.”

  Meg shrugged in response and began whistling a tuneless melody.

  He looked over at her skeptically. “You only whistle for one reason. Tell me, what mischief are you up to this time?”

  He didn’t have to wait or prod her, for she was all too eager.

  From behind her back, she produced a familiar leather-bound booklet and feigned surprise. “Dear me! I seem to have forgotten to return Ellie’s book. I suppose, we’ll simply have to pay a call on her.”

  He snatched it out of her hand and tucked it inside his inner coat pocket. “I’ll send it by courier.”

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nbsp; “Likely for the best,” she said with the scholarly air and severe expression she employed when attempting to imitate him, walking with purposeful clipped strides, her shoulders plank straight. “After all, she’ll have George paying a call on her instead, I imagine. And we wouldn’t want to interrupt them.”

  Brandon’s step faltered. Nothing more than an errant stone on the pavement, he was sure. But beside him, Meg started to whistle again.

  Chapter 5

  “A debutante should view a gift with a degree of skepticism before heaping too much favor upon the gentleman. After all, the Trojans accepted an impressive offering once, too.”

  —A note for The Marriage Habits of the Native Aristocrat

  “I came to see the ungainly creature from the park,” George said with a dark-eyed wink as he swaggered through the parlor doorway later that afternoon.

  Ellie beamed from ear to ear. Until that moment, her thoughts had been rather maudlin. Seeing herself dressed in cream muslin on the red caffoy settee with her shawl-draped legs stretched feebly across the cushion, she’d felt like a sacrificial offering, laid out and waiting for Death to ride his horse through the doors to carry her unmarried soul off into the veil.

  But now her spirits and her heart were bright and airy, like the lemon souffles in her aunts’ collection of stolen recipes.

  Ellie knew he couldn’t have simply forgotten about her. Well . . . not like he had at the Baxtons’ or the Easterbrookes’.

  Nevertheless, she refused to hold on to disappointments. After all, men of his ilk often had pressing matters to attend. It would be wholly selfish of her to expect him to drop everything over trifling matters like garden parties or turned ankles. He certainly would never want a wife who couldn’t manage on her own. No man would.

  Striding into the room, he paused by Aunt Myrtle’s and Aunt Maeve’s chairs to buss their cheeks in greeting. And hanging at his side, he held a string-tied cone of jonquils.

  Ellie’s breath stuttered happily in her lungs. He’d never brought her flowers before. When they were children, he’d presented her with pretty rocks and foundling buttons—all of which she still kept stored in a blue glass vase on her bedside table—but nothing since he’d left for university or after.

  This, however, filled her with so much hope that her little souffle heart could barely contain the joy rising within it. Surely a gift of flowers meant something.

  She pressed her top teeth into her lower lip to keep from smiling too broadly. “Are those for me, George?”

  “Just thought I’d bring them for all my best girls.” He lifted his shoulders in an absent shrug and with each step he took toward her, she could see their future unfold, their wedding, their first child, their second . . .

  Then he dropped them unceremoniously onto the low oval table.

  A few of the yellow petals fell off and scattered over the polished rosewood surface. Her souffle deflated a bit. And then a bit more when she saw the pitying glance the aunts exchanged.

  Ellie couldn’t help but compare this lackluster flower presentation to the startlingly romantic one from Lord Hullworth after their unexpected dance. But that was unfair to George. After all, he had come here to see her when he might have been off at his club or on whatever errand had drawn him away from the park earlier. Not only that, but he’d gone out of his way to purchase flowers. Lord Hullworth had merely plucked a convenient blossom from the ground.

  So, surely, this gesture from George meant something, she thought again. Progress in the right direction.

  This was definitely worth noting for the primer. Only, as she looked toward the table, she didn’t see her little pocket ledger. Hmm . . . where could it have gone to?

  Well, it didn’t matter at the moment. She would focus instead on seeing if she could glean any other positive signs from his visit. And she likely wouldn’t have long because he was already milling around the room in his usual restless fashion.

  “The flowers are lovely. Thank you.” She twisted and stretched, trying to pick them up, but they were just out of her reach. Just like George.

  At least, for now.

  Aunt Maeve stood and nodded with encouragement, her eyes bright as she bent to retrieve the bundle. “I’ll just go put these in water and return straightaway.”

  “I’ll come with you, sister,” Aunt Myrtle said with excitement, drawing her hands together in a cascading clap of fingertips before bustling out of the room. “I’ve always had an eye for arrangements.”

  George studied them with a wry smirk then turned to look at Ellie. “This reminds me of the time you fell off that swing on the hawthorn tree. Cried like a little girl the whole time I carried you inside.”

  “Well, I was a little girl at the time and you’d pushed me too high,” she said with mock scolding, remembering that day.

  It had felt exhilarating at first, the swooping sensation, her plaited hair lifting in the wind as if she were flying. But then she reached the pinnacle and caught a glimpse of the cemetery on the hill. The wrought iron fences. The grayed marble headstones. In the same instant, the ropes had fallen slack, as insubstantial and limp as hair ribbons. It only lasted a second. Perhaps less. Yet, it was enough time for her to see how high she was, to imagine her own small coffin and the piles and piles of worm-smelling dirt the grave diggers would shovel on top of her. The same things that still gave her nightmares to this day.

  She recalled how the ropes had suddenly jerked taut, startling her. Panicked, she’d leapt off the swing to safety, to reassurance. To George.

  “I told you to hold on,” he said, standing with his hand resting over the back of the cream upholstered chair and wearing a grin of boyish remorselessness.

  “I believe what you said was that I was too afraid to jump.”

  He chuckled. “And I was right. You fell like a lump of coal and were abed for almost a month. Now, look at you. Can’t even hop down from a phaeton without someone to catch you.”

  “Perhaps I should have been born with a stronger skeleton to be around the likes of you,” she said, the words a little sharper than she intended.

  In truth, part of her was cross that he’d insisted she ride in the phaeton at all. It had frightened her to be up so high. When she’d said as much, he’d laughed and told her to hold on. But there’d been nothing to hold on to. The spindly rail on the side of the bench was no higher than her hip. One turn or bump would have sent her flying toward a most awkward demise.

  With George, there were times when Ellie still felt like she was holding on to the ropes, never knowing how high she would go.

  But seeing a confused frown corrugate his brow, she tucked those thoughts away. The last thing she wanted was to mar their time together by making him feel guilty. So, she offered, “I’m sure it isn’t as bad as all that. In fact, it’s hardly swollen at all.”

  He issued an absent murmur of agreement while his attention skimmed over the slender writing desk in the corner. “I see you’ve got some letters to keep you company.”

  “Yes, indeed. One just arrived with splendid news,” she said, glad that she could so easily share it because he was well acquainted with all her friends. “Winnie sends word from the south of France that she and Asher are now the proud parents of a healthy baby boy. They’ve named him Marcus. And even better, they plan to return to England by midsummer. Also, Jane and Raven will have a new little bundle by year’s end. All my friends are starting their families. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Ellie knew she was piling on the enthusiasm like clotted cream over a dust-dry scone. But what else was a debutante hurtling toward spinsterhood supposed to do when given the perfect opportunity to plant the seed of wedded bliss in her intended’s mind?

  In the waning afternoon light sifting in through the window, he looked over his shoulder and gave her that boyish grin again. “Wonderful for them,” he agreed wryly.

  “Surely, enduring a few balls and parties hasn’t turned the fearless boy I knew into a man afraid
of the idea of a wife and children.”

  “Not afraid. It’s just that I like women too much. You’re all so pretty and so soft and—” He stopped and cleared his throat as if he remembered his audience. His gaze turned serious when he looked across the expanse at her, his tone gentle. “I’m not ready to make wedding plans quite yet, Ellie. Be patient, hmm?”

  She nodded, having heard this before. He just wasn’t able to picture how happy their lives would be. At least, not yet.

  Her gaze slid to the stray petals on the table and she wondered if progress might require a little shove for the upswing. “I imagine that both Asher and Raven had felt the same way before they married Winnie and Jane.”

  George sighed. “Don’t you have any news about friends who aren’t married?”

  Ellie took the hint.

  “You might recall my friend Prue, who has been away these many months.”

  “Not sure I do,” he said with an absent pass of his hand over the surface of her desk, scattering her stack of letters. “Oh wait. The shy one with the blond hair. Miss . . . Thorogood, I think?”

  Distractedly, Ellie murmured Mmmhmm . . . as she watched him at her desk, trying to recall if she’d already sent off the letter she’d written to Prue, telling her all about meeting the pompous Lord Hullworth, or if it was still there in plain sight. She wouldn’t want George to read it. He might wonder why she’d dedicated so much ink and paper to another man and believe there could be interest in that quarter. Which there wasn’t, of course. Her accounting of Lord Goose had been less than favorable.

  When George turned around, however, she recognized the folded foolscap in his grasp as the letter from Prue. This was even worse!

  Ellie gave a start, jolting forward on the cushions, hand outstretched. “You mustn’t”—she broke off on a hiss, wincing as the sudden movement caused a twinge of pain in her ankle—“read that. It’s confidential.”