RICHARD (A BAD BOY ROMANCE) (51 page)

Chapter 1

Four
years later…

It was a well-known fact that
driving your own car in London was, above all things, a very poor decision.
Even among the aristocracy—who seldom touched the wheel of their own vehicles,
save for an odd sense of personal enjoyment—you never drove yourself through
the streets of London town. In fact, such a thing was widely accepted as the
key to a stress-induced heart attack—or at least, a minor brain aneurysm.

I, thankfully, had never needed to
worry much about the perils and stresses of London traffic aside from a slight
sense of inconvenience, what with the readily available use of my own driver on
hand.

That might have sounded snobbish,
but to say that I ever took dear Franklin for granted would have been a gross
injustice—I prized that man almost as much as my own family, sometimes even
more. In fact, if it were to be put in order of people I could count on more,
it would be my beloved Franklin who would have to sit squarely on top, my own
parents residing somewhere abysmally lower. It wasn’t uncommon for women such
as myself to have a—shall we say—distant affection for their parents, but my
feelings about my family often bordered between apathy and sheer disdain—and
that was on a good day. I grew up with all of the perks of a wealthy
upbringing, as well as the minimal parental appreciation.

The life of a young woman living
among the upper echelons of British society was, without a doubt, one of
privilege and often a great deal of to-do that hardly seemed to mesh with the
modern age. For instance, many among the aristocracy still scoffed at the idea
of work, aside from a few select professions: lawyer and politician being the
most agreeable to the senses of the “old blood.” Men were, more often than not,
still expected to hold down respectable careers while women were expected to
take up one or more charities to help boost their popularity among the people.
I, being only the stepdaughter of a lord, was afforded certain freedoms, most
of which came from not bearing the name of his house upon my shoulders. The
greatest of these freedoms, I felt, was the simple option of actually choosing
my own profession, something few of my fellow members of the nobility shared.

My job, which many would not qualify
as “acceptable” or “respectable,” was something that many among the upper class
still desperately needed, especially in a day and age where “good breeding” was
hard to come by. When the country’s nobility needed to find their sons and
daughters matches, I was the one who found the most compatible options.
Matchmaking was my specialty, and I was one of the best in Britain.

I always laughed at the old saying
that “those who can’t do, teach,” but the longer I stayed in my profession the
longer I came to realize that the same was true for a great deal of people like
me. “Those who can’t find love, find it for others.”

Thoughts like that brought me back
to days before I was the confident woman I am now, back when I had been spared
the misfortune of the attention of men—back when I’d not yet grown fully into
myself. It was those thoughts that made me think of Tristan.

For all the years he had been away I
still found my mind drifting back to that pantry, to the way his hands touched
me. I closed my eyes and tried my best to push those intrusive images away. And
were it not for my driver, I don’t think that was a battle I would have won.

“Where to this morning, Ms.
Gwendolyn?” came Franklin’s deep, heavily accented baritone from the front seat
as I shut the door and buckled myself in. I’d always liked Franklin’s Scottish
drawl, ever since I was a much younger girl.

“Straight to the office today, I
think, Franklin,” I sighed. “No time for our usual stops. And besides, it looks
like rough seas today.”

“That it does,” Franklin said, his
voice taking on a dark, mocking tone. “Lucky for you, then, that you’ve got
yourself a fine sailor at the helm of this ship then, isn’t it?”

“Aye, aye, captain,” I said, smiling
as I relaxed back into my seat. I watched as Franklin pulled my car out into
the sea of honking horns. It almost felt like we’d joined a herd of angry
wildebeests with an exceptionally colorful vocabulary.

“Must be a big to-do if you’re
skipping your morning
cuppa
, Miss,” Franklin said,
clucking his tongue. “Does some big fish need to find their
soulmate
so fast the breakfast had to wait?”

“Afraid so,” I said, shaking my head
at his motherly concern. That had always been his way, especially in my younger
days, looking after my best interests and always making sure that I was fed. I
always joked to myself that Franklin doted on me like an old fishwife,
especially with the lack of his own children at home. “At least, that’s what
Tina made it sound like this morning.”

Tina, my personal assistant—and
probably the person I could rely on just as much as Franklin—handled much of
the running of day-to-day aspects of my business including acting as the buffer
between myself and the multitude of pompous nobles who all demanded that they
be first and last priority when it came to my time and energy. There was no one
so demanding of quality work as those who had never done a day of it in their lives.

“Must be, if Ms. Tina is calling you
so early,” he said, glancing back at me through the rearview mirror, his
crinkled blue eyes creased with no shortage of empathy. I wasn’t sure what I
ever did to deserve Franklin, especially on stressful days like this.

“I’m just hoping that I don’t walk
into another one of Lord
Adderby’s
explosions like
the last time she called me so early.” The infamous Lord
Adderby
was one of my more usual clients, being a man in his late sixties, finding him
a proper match had proven to be more than a little challenging, even for my
considerable talent. It had been over a year since he had engaged my services
as a matchmaker, and the entire time he had either offended or rejected every
single woman that I had set him up to begin courting. This, in part, had been
due to the lord’s rather grating personality, and the fact that he was probably
the most inappropriate man that I had ever had the misfortune to do business
with.

I could only hope that my luck would
hold out and I’d have a quiet day at work, with minimal instances of undesired
screaming.

***

“She slapped me!” Lord
Adderby
declared, his jowls wobbling as he raged, reminding
me in no small way of a flustered walrus. “That woman is lucky I haven’t called
the police! The nerve of that girl, laying her hand on one of her betters like
that!”

“Calm yourself, Lord
Adderby
,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose. It took
every ounce of my self-control not to slap the man myself. This was true for
any unfortunate instance where the two of us had to occupy the same space, let
alone have his spittle threatening to land right on my glasses whenever he
spoke. “I’m sure we can work this all out.”

“I’ll tell you what we’ll work out,”
he said, his face reddening with every word. “I want another match! A
respectable
match! And you’ll have her
name to me today before I set foot out of that door, young lady!”

“My lord, your tone isn’t helping
this situation,” I said, my patience already worn thin by his lordship’s
inability to mind the expulsions from his mouth. It was exactly this kind of
situation that made me lament giving up coffee only a week before. “I’m sure we
can talk to Miss Fairchild and sort all of this out, if you would perhaps only
apologize to her for whatever offence—”

“
Me?
Apologize to
her?
Absolutely not!” he
spluttered. “And as for my tone, I will not have a girl of your station—no
matter the breeding of your stepfather—tell me anything to do with
tone!
I’ll have that little bitch
brought up on charges!”

I clenched my fists, tightening my
lips into a thin line as I felt the limits of my tolerance breaking like a levy
in a storm. If there was one thing I disliked—no,
hated
—more than anything it was the word “bitch,” especially in
regards to a fellow woman. Second would be the implication that my own
authority was somehow determined by the marriage of my mother.

“Get out,” I said, my voice coming
out much louder than I had imagined that it would. I could feel my heart
pounding like a drum, thudding in time to the bubbling anger that was given my
voice its steely tone.

“I beg your pardon?” Lord
Adderby
said, blinking with incredulity. He seemed to
regard me fully for the first time since I had walked into my office and he had
started his insufferable tirade. “Just who do you think you are?”

“I think that I am the proprietor of
this business, Lord
Adderby
,” I said, my jaw set as I
looked the old fossil directly in his drooping eyes, “and that I have
instructed you to leave this instant. From this moment forward, you will no
longer be receiving my services in your romantic endeavors.”

“How
dare
you?” the blustering tub of lard asked, stomping his foot like
a spoiled child. “I have never received such disrespect in all my years! Do you
even realize the repercussions that this will have on you, young lady? Why, by
the time I’m done with you, you’ll never be able—”

I held my hand out in front of his
face, silencing him almost immediately. His mouth closed with a snap and I
watched as his face turned from a deep scarlet to almost bruise-like purple
around his cheeks.

“Leave, Lord
Adderby
,
before I have you removed by building security.”

“This is an outrage!” he cried,
mouth agape and face contorted, as though he could hardly believe that I’d make
such a threat. He turned on his heel and wobbled toward the elevator with his
considerable girth, shouting the whole way. “You’ll pay for such insolence!”

Once his sagging, scowling face had
disappeared behind the elevator doors, I turned my attention toward my
assistant, doing my best to curb my already considerable frustration. I took a
deep, slow breath through my nose before I slowly let it out through my mouth,
trying my best to even out my tone before I opened my mouth again.

“What happened?” I asked, my words
crisp, though considerably less sharp than they had been with Lord
Adderby
. Tina didn’t deserve my ire, as I was sure she got
more of the brunt of that walrus’s screaming than I had.

“It appears that his lordship made
untoward passes at Ms. Fairchild on their… ‘date’ last night,” Tina said, a
frown affixed to her face. “When his lordship didn’t relent, Ms. Fairchild
struck him across the cheek with her open hand, picked up her belongings, and
left.”

“I see,” I said, once again
attempting to keep my frustrations in check. “Make sure that Ms. Fairchild is
sent flowers as an apology from us, and a letter apologizing specifically for
facilitating her unfortunate encounter. I’ve had enough of cleaning up that old
bastard’s messes for the past year.”

“Yes,
marm
,”
Tina said, nodding as she tapped on her tablet.

“Thank you,” I sighed, brushing a
strand of hair away from my face. Tina was undoubtedly the only person on the
planet I could trust to keep her composure in the face of men like Lord
Adderby
, and the only person I trusted to handle the minute
details of what amounted to my entire life’s work. She was a godsend, and more
often than not it was me who had to force her to go on vacations every few
months.