Never a Bride (3 page)

He could still feel the young lady’s invitingly tempting lips on the side of his mouth. He had been with his share of women and couldn’t understand why this one had affected him more than most. But she had. And he didn’t even know her name. Maybe that was part of her allure.

Forcing her from his mind, he turned his attention back to the conversation of three young bucks sitting at a nearby table.

“With our first kiss she was slipping her fingers down my neckcloth, trying to get under my shirt.”

“Mine, too!”

“I’ve not yet had an opportunity to ask her to dance.”

“You’ll have to get in line. Every chap in Town is trying to get on her dance card in hopes of slipping out into the garden with her.”

Camden listened, slightly amused by the boasting. From their conversation it was clear that London Society hadn’t changed in the six years he’d been gone. Well, maybe some things. The bachelors seemed younger to him now that he was nearing his thirtieth birthday.

The dim lighting and masculine decor of the taproom hadn’t changed over the years. Neither had the heavy smells of liquor and cooked food or the constant drone of hushed conversations and muted laughter coming from the gaming tables in the next room. Many were the times years ago when he would sit in this very club with his friends and discuss the latest debutantes. The ones bold enough to allow kisses were always a favorite topic of conversations.

Camden didn’t pity the young lady they were discussing. No doubt she was enjoying the attention and assumed she could still make an acceptable match. He knew from experience that for some women one man just wasn’t enough, but only the most desperate of men would offer for a young lady who was so free with her affection.

His thoughts drifted back to the young lady he’d met earlier in the evening. He’d known immediately that she was from quality and money. Although, he had wondered why she was alone on the street. He found it difficult to believe she had wandered so far away from the party simply because she was in need of fresh air.

The invitingly scooped neckline of her silk evening gown showed the pale skin of her chest and the swell of her breasts. He’d had the urge to reach out and glide his fingertips down her cheeks and outline her lips with his thumb. He wanted to reach over and place a kiss in the hollow of her throat.

At first it had struck him that she was running from someone, but he discounted that when he looked into her eyes and saw no fear. They were such a clear shade of green. The color reminded him of the fresh appeal of spring’s first leaf. Wispy strands of her dark auburn hair had fallen from the confines of the carefully placed bows and flowers pinned on the top of her head. She was slightly built but taller than most young women—and certainly more daring.

He liked what he saw when he looked at her and what he heard when he spoke to her. She was intelligent, friendly and bold to the point of being careless with her reputation. He liked the way the moonlight shone on her hair and glistened off her beautiful skin. He liked the way she teased him with the brief kiss that had just missed his lips. Had she kissed the corner of his mouth by mistake or design? Did she know that it would intrigue him until he discovered the answer?

He remembered how the limp silk of her dress had molded softly to her rounded breasts. Their fullness barely peeked from beneath the flimsy material. She held herself well with a slight tilt to her chin so she could look into his eyes. At times, he had felt she hadn’t wanted to look away—and neither had he.

When she’d reached down and pressed her lips to the side of his mouth, he’d caught a whisper of the scent of a spice. Cinnamon or clove? He wasn’t sure, though he was sure that he wanted to see her again and find out. But that was impossible. He was destined for another.

The clink of glasses and good-natured laughter caught Camden’s attention. The chaps at the table next to him were on their second round. He had to stop thinking of the young lady who had intrigued him. He couldn’t allow himself to continue to dwell on her dreamy eyes, her heart-shaped face or her softly pale skin.

Camden sipped his aged brandy and looked around the dimly lit room, searching for a face he recognized among the members. Surely conversation with an old acquaintance would get his mind off her. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he’d been thunderstruck by a woman again, after all these years. And there was no way in hell he would allow that.

He had arrived in Town late in the evening and hadn’t wanted to disturb his father’s household in the middle of the night, so he had taken a carriage directly to the club his family had been members of since it opened fifty years ago. He knew he would find food, drink and a bed. After securing a room, he decided to go for a brisk walk to purge his senses of the salty sea air that clung to him from the long sea voyage.

His father, Wilson Thurston Brackley, Earl of Lockshaven, had finally gotten his attention by having his mother write a letter and plead with him to come home immediately. She insisted that he had neglected his responsibilities to his family and that as a man of honor he must come home. He hadn’t wanted to return. Not yet. He’d needed another year in America to solidify his investments.

But while it had been easy to ignore his father’s many appeals for him to claim his bride, he hadn’t been able to disregard his mother’s pleas that he marry the young lady he’d been betrothed to for six years.

“Oh, Camden, thank God you’re home.” His mother’s lips trembled with happiness as he walked into the parlor of his parents’ town home. “We’ve worried so about you, and wondered if you’d ever return.” Her pale brown eyes turned misty with tears of relief as he reached her.

“You don’t look a day older than when I left, Mama,” Camden said. Though he was surprised at how her classic features had aged in the half dozen years he’d been gone. He reached down and kissed her soft, blushing cheek, and gave her a gentle hug before turning to his father.

“It’s good to see you, sir.” He shook his father’s hand and gripped his upper arm affectionately. Camden didn’t remember being taller than his father when he left home, but now he saw that he stood at least an inch or two higher than the master of the house. He also noticed his father had streaks of gray in his hair and in the beard he’d grown since Camden last saw him. Maybe he was a little thinner through the shoulders, too.

“It’s been a long time, son. Too long. I’d almost given up hope. Welcome home.”

“Thank you, sir. Hudson, how are you?” Camden shook hands and briefly hugged his younger brother. “You’ve grown up.”

Shorter than Camden and his father, Hudson was no longer a boy now that he was twenty-one. There was strength in the grip of his hand and hardness in the muscles of his upper arm, but his face was still full of youth and inexperience.

“I’ve been well, Brother, but I have to agree with Mama. I was beginning to think you had decided not to return to England at all.”

“I don’t know why you would have worried. London is home, and I promised to return one day.”

Camden let his gaze sweep all three family members. Yes, it was relief he read in each face. Had they missed him that much? He watched his mama dab the corners of her eyes and then her nose with an embroidered handkerchief. The ends of the square of cloth were raveling and showing age. His gaze skimmed down her dress. The fabric was faded and stained and hung loosely on her thin frame.

An uneasy feeling stole over Camden. He quickly scanned his father’s attire and found it old and worn like his mama’s, but that wasn’t the case for Hudson. His dark coat, trousers and white shirt looked crisp and new. His parents might be scrimping on their own clothing but they were seeing to it that Hudson was dashing.

“You’re here now, dear,” his mama said, coming to stand beside him. She wrapped a thin hand around his upper arm. “That’s all that matters. And see how you’ve filled out. But what has happened to your face? It’s so dark now. And your skin has so much color to it.” She picked up his hands and looked them over.

Camden gave her fingers a gentle squeeze and smiled at her. “It’s from working outside in the shipyard, under the hot sun.”

She pursed her full lips in a studious way. “Working in the sun?” She waved her hand. “I’m sure I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Hard work doesn’t hurt a man, Mama.”

“Well, you don’t look natural. I’ll ask the apothecary if he has a cream that will help lighten your skin.”

Camden chuckled under his breath. He saw no reason to tell his mother that he was the same color all the way down to his waist from working shirtless on the shipyard, or that most of the men who worked beside him looked just like him.

“Don’t worry, Mama, I think time will take care of the coloring.”

“He even sounds different,” Hudson said, looking at their father. “He’s picked up more than a different color of skin from his years in America.”

“I noticed,” his father said, handing a drink to Hudson. “It’s clear that the young man who went away is not the one who’s returned to us.”

“Enough about me,” Camden said and accepted the glass of wine his father had poured for him. “Let’s sit down. I want to hear about all of you. Letters have been far too infrequent between us.”

No one spoke or moved even though he’d invited them to. All eyes were latched on Camden. The quietness stretched and grew. Instinctively he knew something wasn’t right, and he suddenly felt uncomfortable.

“You all look well and healthy.” He would have liked to say happy but that was one thing he didn’t see any trace of on their faces. They looked tense and on edge. “Why don’t we sit down,” he said again.

His mama quietly headed for her favorite chair by the small Hepplewhite side table. His father took the worn brocade armchair on the other side. Hudson chose to stand behind their mother.

Camden looked around the parlor of the two-story town house as he walked to the thin-striped settee which faced his parents’ chairs. All was not right. He immediately noticed the silver tea service was missing from the rosewood pedestal table by the window. The marble-and-gilt clock was gone from the mantel, the seventeenth-century tapestry no longer hung on the wall over the settee and the expensive rug his mother had been so fond of wasn’t on the floor.

Suddenly Camden felt a chill in the room even though it was warm for a late spring afternoon. It was clear they had not been living well and were afraid to come right out and tell him. He didn’t want to bring up the subject and ask embarrassing questions when he’d been home for less than five minutes.

He placed his untouched drink on the round butler’s table in front of him and calmly said, “All right, we’ll skip the chitchat. Why doesn’t someone tell me why Mama wrote me that I was neglecting my family and my fiancée by not coming home sooner? What dire circumstance has happened to this family that required me to return home immediately?”

“Oh, nothing out of the ordinary, dear,” his mother said, leaning forward. “We wanted you to come home because we love you, and we’ve missed you.”

Her tone was sincere. He believed she truly wanted him home because she loved him, but from the chilling atmosphere in the room he knew there had to be something more. Everyone was tense.

“And?” he finally said.

“You belong here,” his father said. “It was time for you to come home and marry the lady you promised to wed. Past time.”

His father’s clipped tone did nothing to ease the tension. “Why?” He looked pointedly at his mother before turning his gaze toward his father. “I allowed you to make the marriage contract for the benefit of this family. There was no time limit put on the date of my return that I’m aware of.”

“No.” The earl’s tone was brusque suddenly. “Surely Miss Whittingham’s father didn’t expect you to stay away so long. Nor, I assume, did your future bride.”

Camden didn’t like the sound of the word “bride.” When he first left England, he told himself that if he stayed away long enough the young lady would get tired of waiting, find a husband of her choosing and force her father to break the engagement. That never happened. Which led him to believe that his fiancée was not a young lady he needed to rush home to. If she was beautiful or intelligent surely some other man would have been clamoring for her hand long before now.

“I’m quite willing to bow out of this engagement without any consequence if that’s what the young lady and her father would like.”

“No!” The word echoed throughout the room.

It surprised Camden that his mother, father, and Hudson, who’d just perched on the arm of the small sofa, said “No” at the same time.

“What’s going on?” he asked again. “All of you are acting like I’m about to sit on a cushion filled with needles.”

“Nothing is wrong,” his father said.

“Nothing that your return doesn’t take care of,” his mother added with a bright smile as she tucked her handkerchief under the sleeve at her wrist.

Camden couldn’t let it go. His father had needed money when the marriage contract was arranged, and an uneasy feeling in his stomach had Camden believing that was the case now.

“Sir, just tell me what is going on here,” Camden said.

“All right,” his father said in an exasperated tone. “Mr. Whittingham threatened terminating the engagement if you didn’t return by this Season’s end and start making plans for a wedding.”

“I’ve already stated I’m agreeable to letting the young lady out of the engagement.”

“We’re not,” the earl said.

“We need that money from—”

“Norine.” Wilson cut off his wife’s soft voice, and he gave her a stern warning with his eyes before returning his attention to Camden.

But his mother had already taken the bloom off the rose. He now understood the circumstances and the dire need for him to hurry home. They needed money. His parents wanted to make sure the engagement
wasn’t
broken.

“Quite frankly,” his father continued, “I had to agree with Whittingham that a wedding was long overdue. I’ll send a message to him right away that you are home, and we can start making arrangements immediately.”

Camden felt a tightening in his chest. For six years, he’d been his own man. It wasn’t going to be easy to walk back into the life his father had laid out for him. His natural inclination was to revolt even though he’d known from childhood that he’d be the ninth Earl of Lockshaven one day.

There was only one good reason for continuing with this arranged marriage, and it was the same reason he’d agreed to the engagement when his father asked him years ago. He didn’t know this lady who was to be his bride. They had never met. Therefore, he didn’t have an emotional attachment to her. He had no intention of falling in love so why not let his father pick his bride?

He’d given his heart to one lady, and she had betrayed him. He would never be foolish enough to love again. All he needed was someone to share his bed when he so desired, and to give him sons. No doubt one woman could do that as well as another as long as she was respectable.

“Wait,” Hudson said with a good-natured smile on his young face. “I have a better idea than simply sending word to her father. Your fiancée has been attending every ball this Season, Camden. She’ll surely be at the Worsters’ tonight. Come with me. You can observe her from a distance, and when you’re ready I will present you to Miss Mirabella Whittingham.”

“You’ve met her?” Camden asked.

“Yes, last Season. I think you are the only one who hasn’t met her.”

Camden picked up his drink and took a long sip. In his youth such an escapade might have intrigued him. “I’m too old for games.”

“Not that old, brother dear.” Hudson chuckled. “You can’t tell me that the idea of watching your fiancée when she has no idea you are even in the country doesn’t hit your fancy.”

Hudson was wrong. His idea held no appeal to Camden. The betrothal had been set. In fact, he’d be quite happy if his bride held no attraction to him whatsoever. All of a sudden, sparkling green eyes, strands of auburn hair gently fluttering in the night breeze, moisture-kissed skin and silk molded to breasts that were the perfect size flashed across his mind. He wanted to see
her
again.

“I believe I vowed to never attend another party. My sentiments haven’t changed.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Hudson said. “You’ve come back from America a new man. The past is behind you. Leave it there. Everyone else has forgotten what happened, and so should you. Besides, this will be the perfect time for you to meet Miss Paulette Pemberton.”

“Aha, your true reason for wanting me to go with you to the Worsters’.”

“I’m afraid I have to agree with Camden,” his father said. “I should just send word to Whittingham.”

“Surely Camden hasn’t lost his sense of adventure. I truly want you to meet your Miss Whittingham. But I would also like for you to meet Miss Pemberton, the beautiful young lady who is trying to steal my heart.”

“Hold to it tightly, Brother. You’ve only one.”

Hudson smiled. “A heart was made to give away.”

Camden thought that once, too, when he was Hudson’s age. “Then why do only the foolish fall in love?”

“No, not the foolish, Camden, the brave. So, will you come with me and surprise your fiancée with an unexpected appearance?”

He looked over at his younger sibling. Camden supposed it would show some amount of courage if he attended a ball or two. Maybe it would be best for the
ton
to know that he was not hiding away from Society the rest of his life because of what happened six years ago. And he had to admit that some part of him wanted the chance to see the sprite he’d met last evening.

“All right. I’ll go.”

Hudson lifted his glass in salute to Camden. “Good. I knew that sneaking a peek at your fiancée before she knows you have arrived in Town would be too much of a temptation to resist. Do we have your permission, sir?”

“I will agree.”

For once Camden thanked God he had a fiancée. If not, he’d be tempted to find out the identity of that intriguing young lady from the previous evening.

***

Good heavens! Even at three parties a night, Mirabella wasn’t sure she could possibly manage to put her finger down the neckcloths of every eligible gentleman Sarah had danced with last Season. Thank goodness Mirabella had narrowed the field by eliminating the tallest men, and she had discounted those who had spent the entire winter away from London.

The task she’d set for herself was enormous. Sarah had left her so little to go on. The second week of the Season would begin tonight and already Mirabella knew she had to come up with some other plan if she was going to succeed in finding the man who had seduced Sarah. She wouldn’t rest until she found him and had him branded an outcast by all of Society.

Forcing herself to push all that to the back of her thoughts for the time being, Mirabella knocked lightly on the door frame. “Papa, are you sleeping?”

“No, Mirabella. Come in.”

She pushed open the door and walked into the second-story bedroom of their large town house. Bertram Whittingham lay propped up on fluffy pillows, a heavy velvet robe closed snugly around his chest.

Mirabella was always impressed at how her father managed to look distinguished even though he was pale and gaunt. Although he seldom left his room, she insisted that Newton keep his gray hair and beard neatly trimmed and his clothing and bedding changed each day.

She wished she could confide in her father about Sarah’s secret, but she couldn’t. She knew he wouldn’t feel the same way she did about finding out who was responsible for Sarah taking her own life. He would be outraged should he ever find out what Mirabella was doing. It was early evening. Dusk lay on the air outside the window. It was that time of day Mirabella disliked most. Too light for lamps and too late for sunshine.