Authors: Blaise Kilgallen
No,
Dulcie vowed silently.
I won’t marry at all. I don’t want a husband—not even a suitable one.
“…as soon as you arrive, dear Dulcina, which I hope will be the next day or so,”
the countess’s letter continued.
Assoonasyouarrive,dearDulcina,whichIhopewillbethenextdayorso…
Drat, the witch wants me to come to London right away. She didn’t offer me any reprieve or excuse. No way can I wiggle out of it.
Dulcie shook her head in worrisome dismay.
Botheration! The countess never once called me ‘dear’ all the years I’ve known her except for the first week when Father brought her home to meet me when they were already married
.
“…I’m sure you will be as busy as a bee in a hive in London. Take my word on it,”
the countess wrote
. “The Season is about to begin. I sincerely hope you will comport yourself like a lady and not a country hoyden. And please, bring along some attire with style so that you attract a likely suitor,”
the letter continued.
“You’ll be surprised at what I’m planning for you, my dear. I do hope you enjoy trying new and different things.”
Agina had signed herself,
“Your fond stepmother.”
What a faradiddle that is. Agina is no more fond of me than a man in the moon,
Dulcie thought, folding the single sheet into a square and shoving the crackling foolscap into a pocket of her dull-colored gown.
Dulcie stood up and clucked to Simon. She left the garden, anxiety rioting through her brain in leaps and bounds. The complacent dog trotted beside her as she strode toward the open parkland at the rear of the house. Agitation clogged her throat. “Who wants to go to London?” she muttered, hearing her own complaint. “Oh, blast it and snails tails, why do I have to go?”
“Ooee, yer in a bit of a snit, now, ain’t ye, Miz Dulcie.” The gardener’s son looked up from where he knelt weeding a patch of tender, sprouting daffodils. Denny Walls straightened up to a rail thin, six feet and grinned at Dulcie as she started past him.
Dulcie was so overset she didn’t notice him hidden behind a large bush. She stopped abruptly and said, “You would be, too, Denny, if you were ordered to go to London.”
The thought of staying with her stepmother, even for a few months, was dreadfully unappealing to Dulcie. And she certainly had no wish to parade herself before any suitors in order to snare a husband she didn’t want. One glance in a mirror several years ago had convinced Dulcie she wasn’t attractive enough for a man to dwell on her looks in fawning adoration. She was plain, and she accepted it. Neither did she try to pretty up her appearance. She tied her mousy, brown tresses skinned back from her face, either in a single braid hanging down her back or a thick bun lying on her nape. Any clothes she purchased on her half-yearly shopping trips into Pinkley-on-Barrow, the nearest market town, were chosen for warmth or serviceability rather than to catch a man’s eye.
“London, is it?” Denny asked. “Now, there’s rare bit o’news, indeed.” He moved a few steps closer to Dulcie and examined her expression. “Wot’s yer reason fer not wantin’ to go, Miz Dulcie?”
“My stepmother’s command, for one, Denny.”
“Ah, that one. The second countess.” He ducked his head, wiping a nasty smirk off his lips.
“I simply wish to stay where I am, that’s all, Denny, and…”
“Well, now. ‘Twere it me, I’d give me eyeteeth to get a gander at the glorious sights to be seen in London.”
“Never mind that. It’s worse. She wants me to have a come-out, a London Season,” Dulcie grumbled, wrinkles pinching her smooth brow.
“Is that so terrible? All them fancy parties and what else you’ll be attendin’. Why…”
“Denny, you don’t understand. What she really wants is for me to find a husband while I’m in London.”
“Ahh.” He nodded in agreement, rubbing a soiled hand over a lightly stubbled chin. “Yer nigh as old as me, Miz Dulcie. Mebbe ‘tis time ye chose a good man to take care of ye.”
“You’re here to take care of me, aren’t you, Denny?”
“O’course, Miz Dulcie. Ye know that. But me Pap’s after me, too. ‘Tis time I got me a wife and family, he sez.”
Dulcie’s heartbeat slowed. She and Denny had been childhood friends, even though he was nothing more than the gardener’s son. It was a bit of a jolt to learn that he was seriously considering marriage.
“Then, I suppose I must do what she says, Denny.” Dulcie twisted her capable fingers into knots. “If I don’t, my stepmother will show up posthaste, demanding why I didn’t obey her expressed wishes. She’ll force me to go to London anyway.”
“Aye. I expect yer right, seeing as I remember ye never took a liking to the countess. She has an accursed way about her, ‘tis true. Why, Ben, the earl’s old groom, was let go fer not movin’ fast enough to suit yer ladyship when she called for her favorite mount to be saddled.”
“Well, I’ll not let her bully me, Denny. She is my father’s widow, and I suppose I owe her some respect, but I’m almost one and twenty, or I will be come November.”
* * * *
Agina Trayhern, Countess of Eberley, baptized Vagina Boggs, daughter of a seamstress and a ne’er-do-well costermonger, and blessed with extraordinary angelic beauty, was rarely seen at Bonne Vista after she had captivated and married Dulcie’s widowed father. As Dulcie’s father’s new bride, Agina oozed false charm when she was with Dulcie. However, the pair couldn’t warm up to each other. So Agina rarely spoke to her stepdaughter and kept Maxwell Trayhern entertained, not allowing him to spend much time in close company with his daughter. Rather, Agina brought along invited guests and shooed Dulcie to her room whenever they stayed at the earl’s ancestral estate. Either that, or she badgered her besotted husband to travel to Brighton or London to attend the glittering festivities if the Prince Regent was in residence.
Agina was ecstatic when the earl announced they were to live permanently in the London town house, leaving Dulcie alone in the country with Trayhern’s family retainers. Rarely contacting or even seeing her developing stepdaughter, Agina retained her careless attitude.
The new, lovely countess was a born
bon vivant
, hosting lavish entertainments she wheedled her aristocratic husband to pay for. Both Agina and her constant companion, her lady’s maid, Trent, had knowledge of herbal lore. Together they conspired to dull the earl’s wits so that he turned over his fiscal responsibilities to a handsome, young buck his new wife had hired. In that manner, the countess had gained control of the purse strings and the earl’s fortune.
After they were living in London, Agina had pestered the befogged Maxwell relentlessly until he made her Dulcie’s guardian in his final will. That bit of information was never mentioned to Dulcie. The countess had learned to be shrewd during her earlier years and knew the intricate details regarding the earl’s codicils. Wealth—having it to enjoy now and keeping it later—was the wellspring for Agina’s scheming. But circumstances, and partly because of the earl’s stubbornness, had a way of turning sour for the grasping countess.
Maxwell Trayhern had no male offspring. When he died, the title of Earl of Eberley was passed to a distant, middle-aged, country cousin living in the wilds of Yorkshire. The new earl, however, was not given sufficient property nor income with his bequest to enjoy his prestige. Neither Bonne Vista nor the London property were entailed; nor was Maxwell Trayhern’s personal fortune
Maxwell’s convoluted testament stated that should he stick his spoon in the wall soon, Dulcie would inherit his substantial estate—with the exception of the London town house. Because the countess wanted no part of rustic, country bivalence, Agina was left a life tenancy for Eberley House. Maxwell was of the opinion that while he lived the countess would find a suitable marriage partner for his daughter long before Dulcie turned one and twenty—to a husband who had substantial income. If the earl’s death came prior to Dulcie’s marriage before November twenty-second of 1813, the year of her majority, Agina and her stepdaughter would share the income from Maxwell Trayhern’s holdings.
If Dulcie didn’t marry before that date, the earl’s daughter inherited everything, although Agina would still receive what
she
deemed only a pittance of several thousand pounds a year for as long as she lived. To the countess’s mind, it was not nearly enough to cover her extravagance.
Agina wasn’t heartbroken at the earl’s early demise. She did manage, however, to paste on a sad countenance whenever she ventured out in the aristocratic world of the
ton
.
With mourning now out of the way, Agina was worried about losing her beauty. Trent and Agina were intimate lesbian lovers well before Agina’s scheme to leg shackle the earl, but Agina needed constant reminders of her beauty. Therefore, she also maintained a male following of young, lusty lovers to sate her other sexual preference. Agina was generous with her young
cicisbeos,
plying them with expensive gifts when they satisfied her erotic excesses. All was paid from funds over which only Agina now had control.
* * * *
With no wish to visit London, and no real desire to explore the city’s sights, Dulcie preferred the serenity of the Surrey countryside. Upon receipt of her stepmother’s note, she was forced to visit the Metropolis and reside for a time with the countess.
I can only hope that woman will forget I am living under her roof and ignore me the way she did when she married my father.
Dulcie was determined somehow to wangle her way out of her stepmother’s clutches and return to Bonne Vista, hopefully, without shackling herself to an unwanted husband.
Leaving Denny, whose bright, dark brown eyes followed her everywhere she went, Dulcie bent and patted Simon’s glossy head and strolled back toward the manor. “Come, laddie. I suppose we must pack. Much as I hate to, I fear we are going to London.”
Chapter Two
London, May 1813
When former Lieutenant Griffith Spencer ran into an old school chum, Lord Randolph Titus, unexpectedly on Regent Street one afternoon, Griff latched onto his friend like a limpet. The young lord, only recently arrived to London for the Season, explained to Griff he was scouting the field for a proper wife. He had heard nothing of Griff’s purported disgrace on the Continent.
“I dare say, Griff, old boy,” Rand accosted his friend with a cheery, voluble greeting. “Where have you been keeping yourself? I heard you were in London, but it’s years since I’ve run across you.”
“Rand Titus, you sly dog, as I live and breathe.” Griff returned the greeting while grabbing the peer’s hand in a firm handshake. “Well, you can see by my uniform that I’ve been on the Continent fighting a war, and it’s been bloody hell most of the time. What about you?”
“Gadzooks, Spencer, I assumed you worked in the War Office, not on the Peninsula!” His forehead puckered. “My parents wouldn’t let me sign up. Afraid I might get killed and leave them without an heir. I moved into Town this week for another Season. My parents keep prodding me that it’s time I choose a wife and produce an heir of my own for when my Papa decides to stick his spoon in the wall. It’s all I hear from them. What about you? Are you shackled to someone?”
“Me? No, but I’m thinking about it.”
“Hmm? Maybe we can do the Town together. Where are you staying?”
“I’ve been bunking with an army buddy for a night or two.”
“Ah, empty pockets?”
“I’m afraid so. I’m on rather thin financial ice to tell the truth. My uniform is about all I own, and I’m wearing it. I lost everything in a damn card game on a ship coming here when I sold out.” This was a lie, but it never did well to tell a friend
everything.
“I’m a bit rolled up,” Griff continued. “I need to borrow blunt for new clothes and a place to lay my head if I’m to set my cap at a wealthy wife. Damnation, the way the flats fell the past days did nothing but pave my road to Hades. I’m ready to marry the most needy female I can find. I won’t be fussy about her age or her looks either.”
Griff wasn’t sure if he should have aired that much of his dirty linen to Randolph Titus, but how else could he hint that he needed help? Rand’s father was an earl. Rand, a viscount, had funds to burn by the looks of his fashionable rig. It was worth a try—con a sympathetic ear, give a minimum of information, and hint at some friendly assistance.
“Sorry I spilled my soiled laundry, Rand, you may take me in a bad odor. Perhaps you would rather not associate with the likes of me.”
“It’s that bad, eh?” The young peer squinted, looking Griff over with friendly eyes. He hesitated, but only for a few moments. “I’m not a bit mawkish, and I remember when you got me out of some tight scrapes while we were in school. It’s only fair that I give you a hand until you can fly a kite and are back in gingerbread. Why not stay with me, Griff? I’m rattling around with a Friday face in my parent’s digs with only my valet and a house full of servants. No one talks to me, and my blather dribbles off my tongue. It’d be good to have company. My parents ain’t expected for weeks. We’ll be on our own, eh, kick up a lark like old times? Like our Eton days.”
Rand Titus pulled a calling card out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the ex-soldier. “Here’s my direction, Spencer. You’re welcome to come and stay. I’ll frank you for the Season. I received invitations galore when the knocker went on the door. Do you a good turn and help you make a worthwhile connection, eh what? You can pay me back when you land a bloody rich wife. What are friends for, don’t I say?”
* * * *
Griff eagerly accepted his school chum’s offer. He moved into Rand’s parents’ town house almost at once. After supper, their evening was spent in sharing a bottle of French brandy, remembering some of their earlier class escapades. Later that week, with the help of Rand’s entrée and a stack of engraved invitations to the glittering entertainments of the
ton,
Griff was launched into the London Season.
Tonight was no exception. He and Rand circulated around the ballroom. Unattached males were always welcome during a spring marriage mart, especially if they were reasonably well-shod and not doddering ancients. Better yet, if they were on the prowl and had deep pockets.