An Unsuitable Match (15 page)

Alex and David exchanged a furtive glance, but Clarice caught it. In response to Alex's raised eyebrow, David shrugged his shoulders.

‘If you ladies would please make your way back up to the main garden party, David and I shall follow behind. It is getting late, and no doubt Clarice's father will be looking for her shortly,' Alex said.

Clarice followed Lucy and Millie back to the garden party. In her reticule lay the necklace David had given her. In her heart a tiny spark of something new had begun to burn.

Was it possible that she was falling in love with him?

David was in no mood to haunt the parties and balls of London later that day, settling instead for an evening at his club. His private rendezvous with Clarice had left him in the oddest of tempers.

She had not refused his suit, but neither had she accepted him. ‘Maybe' and ‘perhaps' were such foreign concepts to a man who lived his life making unequivocal decisions.

‘At least she didn't say no,' he'd muttered to himself as he followed the rest of their group back to the garden party.

Now, hours later, he sat, cards in hand, trying to get his mind to focus on a game of whist. He looked across the table at his playing partner before making a slow study of the other players sitting on either side of him. All were several glasses of whisky and brandy further into the evening than him.

He smiled to himself. How ironic it was that Alex's marriage had been the spur for David's recent run of sobriety. Without his drinking partner beside him each evening, he had lost the taste for long evenings of drunken debauchery.

‘Come on, Radley, play,' said the man to his right.

David gave his cards a cursory glance. He always knew exactly what he held in his hand at any time. He pulled a card out and threw it down on the table, confident that he had remembered the cards already played. The opposing pair of players put their cards down and reached for their drinks. He yawned.

When did gambling become so boring?

The final trick played itself out, at the end of which he drained his glass and got to his feet. He picked up his gloves and left the table.

While waiting for his hat and coat to be retrieved by a club servant, he checked his money. He had arrived at White's with fifty pounds in his pocket and he was leaving with exactly the same.

‘It appears to be my day for not making any headway,' he said and headed out into the night.

He hailed a hack, but once inside could not decide where he wanted to go. Finally, he instructed the driver to head to Strathmore House. Even at this point in the season, someone from his family would be at home.

He chuckled at the thought of what his youngest sister Emma would say if he suddenly decided he wanted to read to her at this late hour.

Sitting back in the seat, carefully avoiding putting pressure on his slowly healing wound, he looked out into the London night.

Usually, when faced with a problem, the decisive David Radley met it head-on. If it had been a man causing him such grief, he would have tracked him down and sorted out matters like a gentleman. Occasionally a disagreement had resulted in a dark laneway brawl, but he never left a fight without having resolved the situation.

Clarice Langham was an entirely different matter. Only the most dishonourable blackguard would coerce a woman into marrying him. She presented a problem to which he was forced to admit he had no skills or experience to overcome.

A sly grin formed on his lips. He might not know how to soften her resolve, but he knew someone who did. He rapped on the roof of the carriage and bellowed to the driver.

‘Change of plans. Take me to George Street.'

Late the following morning, he travelled to Park Lane. After calling upstairs and saying a quick hello to his youngest sibling, he knocked on the door of Lady Caroline's sitting room. At this hour of the day he could count on his stepmother being busy with her needlework.

As he entered the room, the duchess put down her fabric and needle. She rose from the couch and greeted him with open arms. She brushed a kiss on the side of his cheek and gave him one of her special smiles.

‘My beautiful boy,' she said.

He chuckled. For as long as he could remember, she had always called him her beautiful boy. Whatever terms of endearment she used for his brothers, she always reserved this one just for him.

‘Your Grace,' he replied.

Her eyebrows rose in disapproval.

‘Mama,' he corrected himself.

‘Better. It's lovely to see you today; I was wondering when you would come and visit me. Lucy told me you were at the Brearleys' garden party yesterday, but you didn't attend the Archers' evening ball. Are you well?'

He nodded. ‘Yes, I just didn't feel I could spend the evening at yet another gala ball. I think I may be suffering from mid-season fatigue.'

Caroline laughed.

‘Have you put your head into your father's study yet? I think he will be back by now. How was the trip to your new estate? We have not had a moment to catch up on all your news. I can't wait to hear how things went.'

David smiled.

‘Sharnbrook Grange is exactly what I would have chosen. Of course it needs work, and the bloodlines of the livestock will need to be re-established, but yes, I think I can make it a viable estate once more.' He nodded. ‘And yes, I shall make sure I see Papa before I go. But the truth is, I came especially to see you.'

Caroline's brow furrowed as David began to rub the smallest finger on his right hand. Since childhood, it had been a telltale sign that he was decidedly uncomfortable about something.

She motioned toward the couch and he took a seat beside her.

‘So?' she said, taking his hand before he could do further damage to his now-reddened finger.

He took a deep breath. ‘It's about my mother.'

Caroline nodded.

‘I need to understand why she left. Why she ran away.'

Caroline closed her eyes and fell silent. When she opened them, she blinked away tears.

‘What can I tell you that you do not already know? My sister decided that she did not wish to marry your father and she left.'

‘I need to know it all. I am certain that, being her sister, you know more about this than either Papa or I do,' he replied.

She looked away. ‘Your father knows everything that I know regarding what happened then. I have no secrets from my husband. But you are correct in thinking that
you
do not know the whole story. Before I tell you, can I ask why you want to know? Why would you now desire to drag out painful old memories? They cannot serve any purpose but to cause you distress.'

‘I have decided to marry, and have made my feelings plain to Clarice in both letter and in person.'

Caroline let go of his hand. ‘Go on.'

He scratched his cheek, remembering the long hours he had lain awake the previous night. It was only in the early hours of the morning that it occurred to him he might have to put his own shadowed past behind him in order to move matters forward with Clarice.

‘Clarice did not say yes, but fortunately she did not say no to my proposal either. I have thought long and hard about this, and while a major impediment in my suit is her father, the fact that I do not know the whole story of my birth also plays a part. I cannot fight a battle when I do not know how the war began.'

Caroline sat silent for a moment before she gave him a smile that filled him with hope. His beloved stepmother, whom he thought of as his true mother, could always be counted upon to bolster him in his occasional bouts of self-doubt.

‘At five and twenty I suppose it is time. But wouldn't you rather hear it from your father?' she replied.

‘No. I need to understand matters from a woman's perspective,' he replied.

‘Yes, of course.'

David did not call in to see his father before he left Strathmore House; he was too numb with shock. He hailed a hack out in the street and once inside, pulled the window blind down.

As he sat listening to Caroline explain how an earl's daughter had jilted the Duke of Strathmore for a penniless naval officer, he felt an icy hand take hold of his heart. Lady Beatrice Hastings had made a terrible error of judgement in assuming her paramour would accept her once he knew she carried another man's child.

Abandoned and alone, she had given birth to her son. And died.

Eyes closed, and with his head resting against the thick leather squab of the carriage, the cruelty of fate's hand burned in his heart.

If his mother had come back to his father, gone through with the marriage and given birth to him as the Duchess of Strathmore,
he
would be the Marquess of Brooke, not Alex.

‘Your father begged her not to call off their betrothal, but she refused. Even after she jilted him, he would have taken her back, forgiven her. No-one knew where she was; our families searched the length and breadth of the country. We only learnt of your existence because the maid she took with her felt honour-bound to write to your father,' Caroline noted sadly.

At that moment she looked away, and would not meet his eyes. He suspected there was more to the tale, but seeing his beloved mama in such pain, he decided he would take his leave.

‘Bloody hell, he would have taken her back,' he muttered. No wonder his parents had kept the truth of the circumstances of his birth quiet for over a quarter of a century. He had lived his entire life believing his mother had been too scared to return to his father. That she had died of shame.

He was a bastard because she'd refused to put her own bitter disappointment aside and return to marry his father. Instead of giving her son all that by rights should be his, she had deliberately condemned him to a lifetime with the stain of illegitimacy.

‘I am sorry you are dead, but I can never forgive you for what you did. How could you do that to your own child?'

In the early afternoon Clarice received a note from Susan asking her to walk in Hyde Park with her cousins at five o'clock. Considering how things had been between them of late, she decided it was prudent to agree.

At half past three Bella knocked on the bedroom door and admitted Lady Susan Kirk.

She was alone.

Susan stood just inside the doorway and waited until Clarice had dismissed her maid.

‘You are early; I thought we were going to the park at five?' Clarice said. She put down the book she had been reading and rose from the window seat.

Susan nodded. ‘Yes, well, I wished to speak to you in private before my cousins arrive. There are important matters we need to discuss, and I don't think their presence will serve any useful purpose.'

In all the time Clarice had known Susan, they had never shared more than the mere semblance of a friendship. They walked in the park regularly, they shopped together very rarely, but never did they share anything akin to a secret. She ushered Susan to the small drawing room across the hallway and, after ordering some refreshments, took a seat on the couch next to her.

Susan cleared her throat. Her hands were held tightly together in her lap.

‘Firstly, I must apologise for my behaviour yesterday. I was rude to you in front of your grandmother and that was unacceptable. I offer my unreserved apology.'

Clarice watched as Susan slowly wrung her hands.

‘Accepted. But only if you will accept my apology,' she replied.

Susan stared at her, her brow knitted in confusion.

‘I spent time with the Radley girls during the past week at the cost of spending time with you. I treated you poorly, and for that I am sorry. I know things are difficult for you at the moment, and it was wrong of me to abandon you.'

She took hold of one of Susan's hands and held it in hers.

‘Now, let's have something to eat and we can go to the park as soon as the others arrive,' she said.

A small, terse smile formed on Susan's lips. ‘Thank you; that's very kind of you, but it was not the main reason why I came here today. It's Mr Fox.'

An image of the small exchange between Susan and Thaxter Fox at the garden party leapt into Clarice's mind.

‘Yes?'

Susan shifted uncomfortably on the couch and turned to Clarice. ‘Do you intend to marry him?' Susan was never one to soften her words if she needed to know something.

Clarice was stunned. She sat for a moment feeling the overwhelming sense of nausea as it slammed through her body. What had Thaxter Fox told Susan?

‘Because if you do, I don't want you to,' Susan continued. A single tear snaked slowly down her cheek.

A key in Clarice's mind turned and she suddenly understood.

‘Has he proposed to you?' Clarice replied.

Susan shook her head. ‘No. Not yet.'

Clarice managed to stifle a sigh of relief. The prospect of Susan as the future Countess of Langham filled her with dread. There were a hundred other girls in London society better suited to the role. The Langham women down the years had maintained a reputation for being of the finest cut. Social, amiable and of good temper.

Susan was none of those. In all the time Clarice had known her, Susan had taken particular delight in causing discomfort and embarrassment to others. She had been the one at pains to ensure Millie knew of Clarice receiving the love letter from Alex. Susan had positively gloated over the look of shock on Millie's face.

Susan's request was an unexpected turn of events.

A footman knocked at the drawing room door and a maid carried a tray laden with tea cups, a teapot and some small oatcakes. After setting it down on a low table, she withdrew.

‘I didn't think you liked tea,' Susan said, as Clarice picked up the pot and poured a cup.

Clarice nodded. ‘I don't, but from the look on your face, it's apparent you are in need of some.'

She handed the cup to Susan, content herself to break off a piece of oatcake. How was she going to handle this mess? If Susan thought Thaxter was planning to offer for Clarice instead of her, heaven knew what sort of mischief she would create.

‘If I tell you a secret, will you promise to keep it?' Clarice said. Susan put her cup down on the table.

‘Go on.'

Until she could find a way to ensure Susan didn't become the next Countess of Langham, Clarice knew she would have to take her friend into her confidence.

If she knows I am not interested in Mr Fox, she will spend her time in pursuit of him while I think what to do about David.

Considering that rumours of Lord Kirk's financial straits were rife within the
ton
, Clarice was prepared to wager her future on Thaxter Fox being aware of them.

‘I don't intend to marry Mr Fox; I have another suitor,' she said.

As soon as the words left her lips, she began to regret them.

‘You cannot mean David Radley!' Susan exclaimed. ‘Tell me you are not seriously considering asking your father to allow you to marry him? Did you really go and check on your grandmother at the party, or were you meeting David?'

Clarice took a bite of the oatcake and pondered her precarious situation. She had seriously underestimated Susan. There was nothing to stop her friend pounding on her father's study door and informing him that his daughter had had a secret rendezvous with David Radley. The only solution was to lie and pray that Susan thought her incapable of such deception.

‘I did go into the house to check on my grandmother, but I got waylaid by Millie and Lucy. Apparently the newlyweds had just had their first row and Millie needed somewhere private to go and cry. I went with them down to the lake, but I didn't see Alex or David. They must have been somewhere else.'

Susan nodded, picked up her cup and took a sip of tea.

‘So you are not the least bit interested in Mr Fox?' she asked.

‘No.'

‘And what about Mr Radley?'

At that point Clarice remembered she was terrible at telling lies, but she was already too committed to change her mind. The irony of her confronting David over his attempt to lie to her about Mrs Chaplin was not lost on her, but she had quickly run out of options.

‘It's not David Radley upon whom I have my heart set; it's Lady Brooke's brother, Charles Ashton,' she replied.

‘Oh, I had no idea. I don't think I have ever seen you in his company,' Susan said.

Seeing the surprised look on Susan's face gave Clarice immediate hope. She leaned in and smirked at Susan.

‘That is because we have made every effort to be discreet. He is likely to be the next Viscount Ashton
and
his father made an enormous fortune in India. You must know his sister had a king's ransom for a dowry. He is the perfect catch for a girl like me.' She put a finger to her lips and gave a small ‘shh' for added effect.

A sly grin appeared on Susan's face. The idea of Clarice outwitting the Radley girls and their obvious attempts to matchmake would certainly appeal to her sense of spite.

‘You sneaky little minx. Here was me thinking you were playing coy with your two suitors, when in fact you have been going behind everyone's back and making doe eyes at Charles Ashton. I can't wait to see Lucy Radley's face when she finds out.'

As she watched Susan clap her hands with uncustomary joy, Clarice felt her skin crawl. ‘Of course, I am telling you all of this in strictest confidence. Only yesterday morning my father mentioned that he wants me to help Mr Fox find his feet in society. It was his idea for me to spend time with Mr Fox at the garden party.'

She gasped and took hold of Susan's hand. ‘What if Papa has decided he wants me to marry Mr Fox! Oh, Susan, what shall we do?'

Susan gently removed her hand from Clarice's grasp.

‘Have no fear, Clarice, your secret is safe with me. If I can do anything to facilitate your continuing romantic involvement with Mr Ashton, you need only ask. In return all I ask is that you help me to secure Mr Fox's hand.'

Clarice nodded her agreement. If she did have to make a deal with the devil, at least this was one she thought she knew.