The Bargain Bride

Miss K. became a devout churchgoer after the death of the husband her parents chose for her. No one knew whether she was offering prayers for his soul, or thanksgiving.

The after-dinner port was sour. So was the conversation between Sir Gaspar and his stepson. They ignored West, but he could not ignore them.

Nigel almost spit out his first taste. “Devil take it, man, are you counting every coin twice, that you cannot afford a decent bottle of wine?”

Goldwaite seemed to find the port adequate. He was on his second glass. “If you do not like it, you can set up your own establishment and dine at your own table.”

“Then blame your late father, not me. Damned if I see why I should pay more than I have to if he didn’t make provisions for his own children. I am already supporting your sisters, which ought to be your job, not mine. You’re a man grown, and not of my blood. So I told your mother, and so I still say. The girls can’t help themselves, but you can. Go out and earn a fortune, same as I did.”

“I’d rather marry one. Same as he did.” Nigel jerked his thumb toward West, who pushed his still-full glass aside, ready to take the dastard by the throat. How many times was he going to be accused of being a fortune hunter, by Harry? And by half of London, it seemed.

His host agreed with him. “You’re beating a dead horse, Nigel,” Sir Gaspar said, lighting his pipe after West turned down a cigarillo. Nigel took snuff, which was a worse habit than smoking, in West’s estimation, in addition to being an affectation. He turned away when the man sneezed several times. Even the sour port was more attractive.

Sir Gaspar ignored the snorts and snuffles. “Asides, marriage between you and Penny mightn’t be legal. I looked into it.”

That meant to West that Sir Gaspar had considered other alternatives than himself as groom, despite his spoutings about honor and contracts and a gentleman’s word. If the banker had seen an advantage to having his daughter marry his wife’s son, poor Penny would have been saddled with the ne’er-do-well. West would have been free, but that notion no longer appealed, not when it meant this scurvy fellow could put his slimy hands on Penny’s soft skin.

Nigel still had a fondness for the idea of marrying Goldwaite’s fortune, if not for the woman. “Persephone and I do not share a drop of blood.”

“No, but the law don’t care about that. They don’t care if you get hitched, either, until someone contests the match. Suppose you are twenty males away from the succession to your grandfather’s estates and nineteen chaps ahead of you stuck their spoons in the wall.”

“Maybe there was an avalanche, or an invasion, an epidemic. That’s aside the point. You could inherit, but the twenty-first heir could challenge your marriage on some consanguinity rule or other. He could have the marriage declared null and void, making my grandson illegitimate.”

“Well, the boy’s father might be more mannered than moral”—now West felt even more like throttling the older man, too—“but at least his parentage ain’t in question. Traced back to William the Conqueror or such.”

“I looked into that, too, you can be sure.” Sir Gaspar blew a smoke circle, and put his ring finger through it. “I hear Mittleman’s daughter blotted her copybook so badly that no one will have her. He might come down heavy for someone to take the hoyden off his hands.”

Nigel snapped the lid on his enameled snuffbox and shoved it across the table so West could see the erotic picture on the cover. Was he supposed to be impressed by such poor taste?

Sir Gaspar knocked the pipe against the table to knock out the spittle. Tobacco grounds scattered across his waistcoat. “So Mittleman ain’t a gentleman. He ain’t the one having to cadge off his mother, either.”

Nigel started to let his indignation show, then remembered the stack of overdue bills he had. If he had any hope of Sir Gaspar paying them, he had to hold his tongue.

He drank a swallow of the bad port. “Mittleman, eh? The fellow owns at least a dozen wool mills. What’d the girl do? More importantly, with whom? A chap might be willing to claim a gentleman’s brat as his own, but what if she’d serviced the gardener, the groom, and half the local militia?”

West had no interest in hearing of some female’s fall from grace, certainly not an unfortunate mill owner’s daughter. He decided she’d be better off with the butler than with Nigel. He stood up, saying Penny must be wondering what happened to him.

“She didn’t look all that eager to me,” Nigel said, earning him another black mark in West’s book. Someday those tallies would be counted and repaid, but not today, not in Sir Gaspar’s dining room. Decent manners demanded restraint, even if one could not get a decent meal, or a decent drink, there.

West had to find his own way to where the women were sitting. No footman appeared to direct him, another indication of Sir Gaspar’s cheeseparing, although the man made sure his own comforts were attended to. Penny gave him such a bright smile, a rush to his side, a swift embrace, when he stood in the doorway of the Gold Parlor, that the whole night seemed suddenly worthwhile. West wished nasty Nigel could see her. Not eager? Hah! West’s spirits lifted, until Penny whispered in his ear, “Help.”

He took advantage of the moment—what red-blooded man would not?—and put his arms around her, drawing her close for a lingering kiss, despite the watchful eyes of her stepmother and the younger girls.

“That is no help!” she yelped, pulling back, but still close enough to murmur, “Find an excuse, any excuse, to leave.”

“I could say you are breeding,” he teased in a low voice, “but your father would bring out the champagne.”

He saw the tea tray a servant was wheeling in: nothing but toast fingers and digestive biscuits. “I am sorry, Lady Goldwaite, but I fear we must leave.”

“What, so soon? I was going to have the girls perform for you. Mavis has a charming singing voice. Don’t you, darling? And precious Amelia plays quite prettily on the pianoforte.”

“And we have much to do tomorrow, so Penny needs her rest,” he said. To placate Lady Goldwaite, he added, “We have to see about opening the ballroom at Westmoreland House, and making that list of guests to invite.”

Once they were in the carriage on the way home, West pulled Penny into his lap and kissed her soundly.

“Worse, they are ill-trained amateurs, nothing but schoolroom misses.” But she kissed him back, to West’s delight.

Now that they were well away, West could be generous. “Oh, they were not so bad. After Mr. Littleton and Marcel—”

“Nothing, nothing at all. I just meant, ah, I meant that after your grandfather refused to go, I was expecting far worse.”

She seemed satisfied, and comfortable on his lap. “Oh. Well, I doubt you could ever be too rude for my stepmother, anyway. You are a viscount, after all.”

“And you are a viscountess. My viscountess.” He pulled her closer, in the dark carriage, and kissed her nearly breathless.

“What was that for?” she asked when he set her aside to straighten his clothing when the carriage slowed.

“Silly goose, both. A lot of both.” He kissed her again, nearly senseless this time. Senseless enough that she said, “I like you, too.”

Not now, not the carriage, not outside his own house, not with the coachman waiting. No man ever had a woman out of a coach so fast and up the steps to his front door.

Parker was holding the door open, smiling. Penny’s face was burning, that the butler knew what they’d been doing. Parker coughed and informed West that Mr. Littleton was abed, and neither Lady Bainbridge nor Master Nicholas had yet returned.

“Fine,” West said, almost pushing Penny toward the arching stairs. Then he stopped. “Wait. I, uh, have something important to do. I will be back in an hour, sweetings. Less if I can manage.”

Penny could not ask what was so important that he’d delay their lovemaking after seeming so ardent, not with Parker standing a few feet away. Her disappointment must have shown, for he asked, “Do you still have that sheer negligee?”

She looked back to see Parker pretending to polish the hall mirror with his sleeve, as if the proper butler would do such a thing. She nodded at West.

She would, if he came back. And if he swore he was not canceling a previous engagement with another woman.

West sensed her withdrawal. He raised her hand, tugged off her glove, and kissed her fingers, one after the other. “Trust me, wife.” Then he kissed the inside of her wrist, and looked as if he’d work his way up her arm if she let him, with Parker still polishing nonexistent smudges.

“Oh, you can be sure I will,” he called over his shoulder, before racing outdoors and giving directions to the coachman. “And spring ’em,” he shouted as he jumped back into the carriage. “My bride is waiting.”