Azalea (26 page)

"Azalea, you sly creature! Here you are, to
be most heartily congratulated, and you never said a word! How
wealthy you will be! Wasn't I right when I told you not to
discourage him?"

Her expressive face was wreathed in smiles,
but Azalea was completely mystified. She chewed quickly and
swallowed.

"I am afraid I do not understand you,
ma'am," she said when she was able. "Do I collect that my name is
mentioned in the paper?"

"Did you not know the announcement was to go
in today? Well, then, I suppose I can forgive you for not having
spoken. I shall assume you meant to tell us yourself before we saw
it in print." Lady Beauforth still looked enormously pleased.
"Here. Perhaps you would like to see the wording yourself. He must
have called here yesterday after all, though you did not say so."
She handed the paper across the table.

It took Azalea a moment to find the item
that had caused her cousin such joy. A wild idea struck her as she
searched the page, and her heart began to flutter. Surely,
Christian wouldn't have... Then, halfway down the sheet, she found
it: an announcement of the betrothal of Miss Azalea Clayton to
George Bemler, Viscount Drowling.

* * *

CHAPTER 14

Azalea stared at the paper for a full minute
in disbelief, trying to understand how that particular combination
of letters and words could have come there by accident. For surely
this had to be an accident? Who would intentionally play such a
cruel joke on her?

The answer, however, came at once and with
blinding clarity: Lord Kayce.

Lady Beauforth, meanwhile, was chattering on
about the place in Society Azalea would have as Lady Drowling, the
balls and routs she could give, and when the wedding would likely
take place.

In near panic, Azalea
interrupted her in midsentence. "Cousin Alice, you do not
understand! There
is
no betrothal. Lord Drowling has not offered for me, and if he
had, I most certainly would have refused. I cannot imagine how this
announcement comes to be in the paper at all!"

That gave Lady Beauforth pause for a moment.
Then she fastened her attention on what seemed to her the most
significant part of Azalea's statement.

"Why ever would you refuse him, child?
Drowling is one of the wealthiest men in England. You cannot hope
to do better, even as Kayce's ward."

A sudden thought seemed to strike her.
"Perhaps that is the answer! Everyone knows that Kayce and Drowling
are very close; perhaps he applied for your hand through your uncle
—and very properly, too, I may add—and has been accepted. Of
course, he should have spoken to you before any announcement was
made, but if Kayce approves the match, then no real harm has been
done."

"No real harm!" exclaimed Azalea
indignantly. "Ma'am, think what you are saying! All of London will
believe me betrothed to Lord Drowling now, when I am no such
thing!"

And what will Christian
think when he sees this outrageous announcement?
she wondered frantically.

"Please, Cousin Alice, promise not to
discuss this with anyone, unless to deny it, until I have seen my
uncle. If, as you say, he and Lord Drowling are responsible for
this, then it seems to me it should be up to them to have a
retraction printed." And in the afternoon papers, she hoped.

"A
retraction!
Oh, Azalea, my
dear,
how scandalous! Do
you wish Society to think you a fickle young lady who accepts a man
one day and rejects him the next? 'Twould ruin your reputation, I
vow!" Lady Beauforth groped for her smelling salts to underscore
how shocking she found such an idea.

"Better my reputation than my life, ma'am,"
replied Azalea grimly. "And I have accepted no one. Pray have the
carriage sent round. I will call on my uncle at once, in hopes of
straightening this out. Do cheer up, Cousin Alice! Perhaps it is
merely some prank, after all."

Lady Beauforth seemed not at all cheered by
this idea, but Azalea had already left the room to fetch her
pelisse and reticule.

"Shall I have the carriage sent round,
Mama?" asked Marilyn, who had remained uncharacteristically quiet
throughout the exchange.

Lady Beauforth nodded gloomily, "We can only
hope that Kayce will be able to bring the girl to her senses," she
said.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Azalea presented
herself at the door of Kayce's mansion to request an interview with
her uncle. Her temper had cooled somewhat during the drive, and she
now wondered whether the betrothal announcement might truly be a
prank, perhaps by Drowling, rather than a plot by Kayce. In any
event, she would know soon enough.

After leaving her to wait in the
drawing-room some ten minutes, the skeletal butler returned to
inform her that her uncle would see her in the back parlour, where
he was at breakfast.

Looking about her as she followed the thin,
black-clad back, Azalea was relieved to find that the mansion
appeared considerably less eerie by daylight. In fact, the parlour
she was shown into appeared almost cheerful. A measure of the high
spirits she had enjoyed after her ride in the Park returned —until
she encountered the cool, appraising expression in her uncle's
eyes.

"Good morning, my dear," said Kayce without
rising from the small table. His voice seemed pleasant enough.

But as soon as the manservant had bowed
himself out of the room, he continued, "I fancy your presence here
at such an unseasonable hour means that you have seen a morning
paper. I rather expected that you would call."

"You know about it then?" Azalea's eyes
narrowed, and anger began to well up in her again, along with a
cold touch of fear. "You do not seem particularly surprised or
upset that someone would play such a tasteless prank upon us."

"Why should I be surprised or upset at the
appearance of an announcement I wrote myself?" returned Kayce with
a thin smile. "I regret the shock this may have caused you, but I
thought it best not to delay the announcement, when the wedding is
to take place so shortly."

His matter-of-fact tone put her off her
stride for a moment and she raised her hand to her head, overcome
by a sudden feeling of unreality. "Wedding? But there has been no
betrothal!"

"Indeed there has, my
dear," replied Kayce calmly. "Drowling and I have come to a
most
satisfactory
arrangement on the matter."

"Without my consent?" She
was aghast. "I refuse to have anything to do with this! I do not
even like Lord Drowling, and could not marry him if I did. I intend
to send a retraction to the
Post
the moment I return home." Azalea's fear was
forgotten in her indignation at this blatant manipulation of her
future.

Lord Kayce, however, appeared completely
unruffled. "The announcement has appeared in the other papers as
well, my dear —did you not see them? In any event, no retraction
will be printed. I am your legal guardian, and you will marry
whomever I think best suited to the position. The contracts are
already drawn up. Pray try to accustom yourself to the idea.
Drowling seems to think quite a lot of you, and may even make you
happy. He is not unskilled, by all accounts."

Irresistibly, Azalea was reminded of
Christian's caresses yesterday, then thought of Drowling in his
place. A wave of revulsion swept through her.

"You can hardly force me to take the vows
against my will, Uncle," she said in what she hoped was a
reasonable tone. "I assure you that I cannot marry Lord
Drawling."

"Certainly you can."

The utter confidence in his
voice alarmed her. If he
had
been the one behind the attack on Mr. Timmons, he
must have obtained the marriage proofs —and had probably already
destroyed them. Something of her dismay must have shown in her
face, for her uncle again smiled thinly.

"I believe you begin to understand. I
wouldn't bother trying to talk Drowling out of it either, if I were
you. He stands to gain almost as much as I do from the match. He
appears to desire you for other, ah, reasons as well. A most eager
bridegroom, in fact. You should be flattered."

Azalea hesitated. It was still just possible
that she was wrong. Perhaps Lord Kayce was yet unaware of her
existing marriage. If that were the case, then bringing Christian's
name into the argument at this point might do more harm than good.
She bit her lip, trying to decide her best course.

Kayce's glance became impatient. He disliked
having his morning routine disrupted, and though he had known this
scene was inevitable, he felt that everything necessary had been
said. Besides, there was something in the girl's face that reminded
him all too forcibly of his brother, the one person who had exerted
a measure of control over him in his youth.

"There is no more to be said," he told her
abruptly. "I shall send for you in a few days to discuss the
wedding." She was pointedly being dismissed.

"There is quite a lot more to be said,
Uncle," replied Azalea determinedly, "but I suppose it can be said
later."

Without waiting for the ghoulish butler to
show her out, she left the house and re-entered the waiting
carriage.

* * *

One glance at Azalea's face told Lady
Beauforth that Lord Kayce had not been able to change his niece's
mind. Looking as grim and determined as she had an hour ago, she
proceeded directly to the library upon her return, not even pausing
long enough to remove her pelisse.

Although her ladyship knew it would be wiser
to say nothing to her young cousin while she was in this mood, her
curiosity overcame her good judgement, as it so often did.
Following her into the library, Lady Beauforth attempted to find
out what had gone on.

"Well, my dear, what did your uncle have to
say? Was the announcement a hoax, as you thought?"

"No, Cousin Alice, it was not," Azalea
stated flatly. "In fact, this whole thing is entirely my uncle's
doing, and he had the effrontery to tell me that I can do nothing
about it. I mean to prove him wrong." As she spoke, she was
purposefully pulling paper and pen out of the writing desk.

"What— what do you intend to do?" asked Lady
Beauforth fearfully.

"I intend to send a retraction to the papers
—all of them. If I do so immediately, it might make the afternoon
editions."

Lady Beauforth made a last, despairing
effort to talk Azalea out of such a disastrous course. "But, my
dear, is it not possible that your uncle knows best in this matter?
After all, Lord Drowling is a brilliant match, far above what you
might have expected as a virtual unknown with only whatever dowry
Lord Kayce sees fit to bestow. No doubt he has been very generous
on your behalf to bring this about."

Azalea was already writing
and made no reply. Encouraged by her silence, Lady Beauforth
continued. "Besides, it is not as though Lord Drowling were ugly,
or so very old— why, many account him quite handsome, and he is but
two or three years older than I. Pray try to accustom yourself to
the match, my dear—it will save so much trouble and speculation if
you do. And just
think
of the fun we shall have shopping for your trousseau! No
doubt Lord Kayce will forward you a substantial sum for that
purpose, as he is so set on the match."

At that happy thought, Lady Beauforth looked
hopefully at the girl, certain that this last consideration would
sway her. She was, after all, female.

Azalea, however, merely folded up the note
she had written and addressed it. "Would you mind if I had one of
your footmen take this round to the papers, Cousin Alice? I'd like
to have it done as soon as possible."

Lady Beauforth's face fell. "Very well," she
said heavily, and rang for the footman.

Abruptly contrite, Azalea rose to give her
cousin a quick hug. "Please don't worry so. Trust me. This will all
turn out for the best."

Lady Beauforth felt somewhat reassured by
her young charge's confident tone. She had always acted
intelligently before, after all, and perhaps, just perhaps, she
really did know what she was doing.

Azalea, meanwhile, prayed
that her words might prove true. In reality, she felt far less
confident than she sounded. If Kayce had obtained the marriage
documents, she might
not
be able to persuade him to call off this horrible
wedding he planned.

As the fashionable hour for afternoon
callers drew near, Azalea vacillated between hope and fear that
Christian would come as he had promised. Would he have seen the
announcement by now? How would he react? Would he be angry? Or,
even worse, what if he did not care?

She would have to tell him the truth about
their marriage, she had decided, whether she'd prepared the ground
well enough or not. With the marriage documents gone, he was her
only hope for thwarting Kayce. But when, and where, was she to do
so?

She intended to deny her
betrothal to anyone who would listen, so there would be no need of
privacy for that, at least. Surely Christian would listen to her
explanation about the announcement; and, if not, there would be the
retraction tomorrow to validate it, she comforted herself. As to
the other —she would have to wait until they were alone for
that
explanation.

Did everyone read the
Society columns, as Cousin Alice asserted? Surely not. Before
today, Azalea herself had scarcely ever glanced at them, though of
course she knew that she was not exactly a typical member of the
London
haut ton.
At any rate, the majority of the fashionable world would not
be in Town until April, and by then all of this would have been
long settled. But oh, how she wished that it were settled
now!