The Infamous Bride
Look for the other books in the Once Upon a Wedding Series,:
THE INFAMOUS BRIDE
by
Kelly McClymer
Copyright 2001 © Kelly McClymer
Cover Copyright 2011 © Julie Ortolon
First published by Zebra Books, October 2001
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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This book is lovingly dedicated to Jim, Kristen, A.J. and Brendan, who put up with my distractibility, preoccupation, highs, lows and a few burned dinners while I created it. All thanks belong to the amazing group of women who helped me polish this manuscript to a shine: Yvonne, Kathy, Trudy, Lynn and Jackie.
Boston, 1843
"Let me make certain I understand you, Father, Mama Annabel." R.J. Hopkins, from long practice, smoothed the bitterness out of his tone. "In order for you to have faith enough in me to turn over management duties, you require that I go to London and select a bride?"
"Precisely." Jonathan Hopkins nodded.
"We will see the world, R.J.," his younger sister, Susannah, said with a tight smile. "That is the way I'm choosing to look at our trip to London." Apparently she was no more pleased at the news than he.
"And I must do this immediately?"
His stepmother ran her finger down the bright yellow feathers of the finch perched on the cuff of her sleeve. "You needn't make the trip sound like a death sentence, R.J. Every man needs a wife to keep his life in order. And London should be a pleasant change for you. You have never complained about travel before."
"I travel for business. I have no business in London."
"I always meant to establish stronger ties with those I deal with in London," his father said hastily. "Never fear, I shall keep you busy enough. Wouldn't want to send you over there just to have you come back as idle and worthless as some of those aristocrats, my boy. Just want you to find a well-bred wife and settle down to a sober life of business."
"You believe a wife will prevent me from becoming a libertine, then?" The finch ruffled its feathers, cocked its head, and fixed its bright, beady eyes on him. He lowered his voice. "I had not realized my behavior warranted such a worry."
"Your behavior is all that a father could ask." Jonathan Hopkins sighed. "A good wife is necessary to a successful businessman, R.J. You have seen how valuable Annabel has been to me. Sometimes I believe no one would do business with me if it were not for her charm and her skill at entertaining."
Annabel smiled as she scooped up the finch perched on her sleeve into one hand. She rose to place the bird back in the ornate gold cage that hung at the window behind his father. "Nonsense, Jonathan. It is your head for business that they admire and respect."
R.J. privately agreed more with his father's assessment. While the men and their wives who attended their dinner parties no doubt respected Jonathan Hopkins's acumen, it was not his father's sober talk that kept the dinner table lively and the conversation keen. Annabel knew how to manage things, even men like his father, men with ledgers for hearts and black ink running through their veins.
Men who rarely doubted their own judgment. "Your point is well made, Father." He knew there would be no profit for him to argue, not if he wanted to prove himself worthy of heading his father's business. So, he would take a wife. It was time, after all.
The little bird peeped once, but Annabel shushed it and closed the little door. R.J. did not like the disapproving gaze Annabel fixed on him as she sat down once again. He watched the caged bird hop on its perch and fix beady black eyes on the gardens beyond the window as if it wished to flyaway free. Could a bird long for something never experienced? No matter. Escape was not a possibility.
He would marry. Still, there was one point he must argue. "I would rather ask Lucy Matthews to marry me. I see no reason why I must go to London for a bride."
For the first time, his father blinked, as if it took him a moment to find a ready answer. "Lucy is a biddable girl, though young, and would no doubt become a good wife in time. If you find no one else, you may ask her when you return."
"I would prefer to ask her now." He would prefer not to have to think about marriage at all. But if his father wanted him married, then he wished to choose a wife at once and be done with the business as soon as possible.
His father shook his head slowly. "Annabel has her heart set on a title for Susannah, and she believes a little English noble blood wouldn't hurt your line, either. I agree."
So that was it — an infusion of good blood to balance out any taint of his mother's legacy. "Do you believe venerable English blood will be of any more value to my children than that of the Matthews? I can think of no family more proper."
"Do you fancy yourself in love with the Matthews girl?" His father's shrewd eyes bored into him.
"No," he said honestly. "But she answers all the requirements for a wife, and her family has made it clear that she will have me."
"True enough." His father nodded approvingly. "Then what does it matter to you if you delay asking her until you have seen what is available in London? I am needed here. I cannot accompany Annabel and Susannah. While there, you might as well look for a bride. Marriage is an important matter, and you shouldn't settle for the handiest woman but the best suited to make your life pleasant and smoothly run."
He understood at last. His father did not want to go to London. So the job must fall to him. He allowed the fury at the interruption of his plans to settle before he asked quietly, "And if I do not find any suitable woman there whose family is willing to have me?" He would dare come no closer to alluding to the fact that no young London miss had been allowed to wed Jonathan Hopkins, who had come home with a miserably unsuitable Italian bride — R.J.'s mother.
His father's color grew hectic, but that was the only sign that be understood the reference. "Knowing Annabel, you will. Your stepmother is hard to divert when she has made up her mind." With a wave of his hand, his father's color receded from bright red to slightly pink. "My money's as good as theirs, and my blood better any day."
R.J. nodded. He was as firmly caged in this matter as was the finch. "Very well." He would accompany Annabel and Susannah to London, then. But he was determined to come home without a wife.
The plans he had made so carefully years ago were sowed and needed no change. Ultimately, he would be responsible for running his father's business.
His
business one day. The disruption was unfortunate, but he was a businessman, and he understood that sometimes one must bear an interruption or two — just as long as it did not prevent one from ultimately carrying out one's own plan.
He did not believe he had to worry that Lucy would get another offer during the time he was away. Though her family was all that one could wish, she herself was plain, quiet, and shy. The perfect wife for him.
London, 1843
Juliet Fenster rapped her knuckles on the tabletop in front of her. "Kate, a lady does not bellow, she projects when she sings. Betsey, when playing the harp, the strings are plucked gently, not twanged." The pair of twelve-year-olds exchanged glances and giggled.
"Don't laugh or she'll make you sing that nasty high song only her voice can make sound beautiful," Rosaline, Juliet's seventeen-year-old sister, chided the younger girls.
Juliet's scowl sent Rosaline back to copying out her Latin lesson but did not wipe away the teasing smirk on the girl's face. Fortunately, Helena, Rosaline's twin, looked up from her own studies to give Juliet a smile of sympathy.
However did their governess manage a full day with these monkeys? Juliet had to spend only an hour a day in music instruction, and sometimes that proved too much for her temper. She cut a sigh short when a maid hurried into the schoolroom, offering a welcome distraction. "What is it, Ann?"
"The button girl has arrived." Behind the maid, a shy, gangly girl of twenty dressed in country fashion entered the room carrying a large basket.
"Let me see." Kate abandoned her proper shoulders-back singing posture without asking for permission. She ran to the girl and tugged at her basket. "What have you brought us this month, Sally?"
"Kate!" Juliet reprimanded her youngest sister sharply but ineffectively. For some reason, the younger girls did not listen to her as easily as they listened to Miranda and Hero, their eldest sisters. When she was stern, they teased her and only obeyed her command if it suited them to do so.
"Here." Juliet took the basket from Sally and shook off Kate's hands. She pulled out the bundled roll and unwrapped it to reveal the oak chest nestled inside. "I won't open this until you are all still." She sat at the table and waited for the girls to settle themselves around her.
"Let us see, Juliet please," Helena pleaded softly, even though Kate and Rosaline were still fidgeting.
Juliet opened the box, and they all gave an appreciative coo as they saw the buttons before them. "Doves! How beautiful."
"I like the swans." Helena smiled, reaching in to finger the smooth ivory of the gracefully carved buttons.
"The toads are my favorite." Rosaline was the first to move away from the chest. "Sally, when is your father going to carve swords? I have asked twice now."
Sally laughed. "He says, Miss Rosaline, that he will carve you swords to adorn your wedding gown."
Rosaline scowled as she returned to her copying out. "Then I shall never have any such buttons. I am determined never to marry."
Juliet shared a rueful glance with the smiling Sally and said to her sisters, "You may each choose a dozen for yourselves. But be careful not to lose any. I must send them to the dressmaker promptly or Sally's father will not get paid for his work."
She took out another chest identical to the first except that instead of buttons it held the money earned from the last batch of buttons Sally had delivered. Wrapping it carefully, Juliet placed it back in Sally's basket and handed everything back to Sally.
"Thank you, Miss Juliet," Sally said.
As Juliet walked the girl to the door, she spoke quietly so as not to draw her sisters' attention. "Was he pleased with the last shipment of stone? I found some excellent jade and ivory."
Sally bobbed her head quickly. "Indeed, he told me to thank you for it."
"How are his spirits?" Juliet did not want to dwell on his difficulties, but she knew that Sally's father, having had his legs amputated a dozen years ago, suffered from despondency at times.
"Excellent. And his appetite has picked up considerably."
"Is there anything he needs? Tools?" There was little work for a man who could not walk and Raster Booth had whiled away his time carving little wooden buttons and figurines for his eight children. He had often lamented to her brother Valentine that he was not much use as a tenant farmer without legs. Valentine, of course, would never have sent him away.