The Next Best Bride (2 page)

Rand did not need to think overmuch. The girl was Ros's sister after all; there must be more similarities than were apparent at first. He could, at the very least, be honest with her. "You swear she will leave me to my own devices?"

"Exclusively."

A warning voice in the back of his mind compelled him to be cautious. After all, a wife was forever.

''I'll need to speak to her. Can that be managed? Someplace private. I want the truth from her, not you — especially if she's the one to be my bride."

''I'll arrange it. And then you'll see I'm right."

His companion swallowed down the remaining brandy before standing to go. The blue eyes that met his shone with candor, and the smile was one of pure relief. "I know my sister."

With a quick glance around, Ros planted a hard kiss on his lips.

Rand pushed him — or rather her — away with a harsh exclamation. "You forget yourself, Mr. Anderlin. And that after jilting me."

She only laughed, which made the false sideburns glued to her cheeks quiver. "What? Do you worry for your reputation?" And then her expression grew more somber. ''I'm sorry, Rand. I don't want to be married, not even to you, who'd let me do as I liked."

He didn't answer. She, of all people, knew the hopes he had pinned to a marriage. An heir. A life of his own that did not depend on his grandfather's approval. He was glad to see her squirm a bit with guilt.

Still, he was not surprised to see that she would not change her mind.

She fingered her whiskers, her gaze full of certainty. "I know my sister. You and Helena will suit. I'm sure of it."

* * * * *

"It's the perfect solution you know, Hellie." Ros's disembodied voice drifted down from the apple tree. "I can't marry him."

Helena ignored her, concentrating on the sketch she was roughing of Ros in the apple tree. She couldn't see her right now, but she knew her sister had her skirts hiked up in an unladylike way. No doubt she was swinging one leg idly as she spoke of foolish things. America. Why did Ros always wish for adventure? Why could she not simply settle down with the earl, have children, and enjoy tea and gossip with her sisters? Helena brushed away the leaves that had landed on her sketch pad and sighed.

Rosaline moved sharply when Helena did not respond, making the branches sway overhead. "I won't marry him — even if you don't agree to take my place. I shall jilt the poor man in a most humiliating fashion."

Helena could imagine the scene. The duke would be furious at the scandal. His duchess, their oldest sister Miranda, would do her best to soothe the ruffled feathers of family and guests. "Perhaps that is for the best, then. He is a reprobate of the first order. No doubt it will only add to his reputation, to be jilted." Try as she might, Helena could not picture Rand Mallon sad or angry. The earl would doubtless have some wicked quip to offer the embarrassed guests — at Ros's expense as well as his own.

"He is a good man, Hellie, no matter that he seems a little wild."

"Wild as a tiger. Even you had not intended to tame him, Ros. Just to leave him to his own vices while you pursued yours." Helena allowed herself to imagine the earl across the breakfast table. Absurd. The man, no doubt, did not rise until well after noon.

"I've never known him to do harm to anyone."

"He's fought a score of duels. Over cards and over women. Married women."

"Rumors, all."

Helena resisted the urge to screech. "You seconded one, Ros. Do you think I didn't know?"

"Sometimes a man of his reputation ends up in a situation he would rather not. He shot into the air."

"How noble."

"I would not have done so. Lord Melfrom had dealt from a marked deck and fleeced half a dozen green boys before Rand exposed him for it."

"The man I always dreamed of — able to turn up a cardsharp and manage to live through a foolish duel."

Ros's unusual spate of patient persuasion snapped. "He's willing to marry you, knowing why you'd even consider trading places with me."

Helena went still, and cold dread seized her limbs. "You didn't tell him."

"Of course I did. How else could I convince him that you would accept his offer?" Ros was silent for a moment when Helena did not answer, and then she offered tentatively, "He didn't seem to be bothered a bit."

"How reassuring." Perhaps it was a blessing that her sister was going to jilt the man. Facing him again, knowing that he was privy to her darkest secret...

"Considering your circumstances, I can't believe you would throw stones."

Helena was stung by her sister's words. "You speak as if my fate is dire if I do not marry your earl. Are you not the one who encouraged me to slip the bonds of propriety?"

Ros threw a wizened apple down, which bounced off Helena's shoulder and rolled down to rest in her lap. "You speak as if you have no fear of scandal or humiliation. And I told you a few moments alone in the garden would give him an opportunity to speak his heart — not lift your skirts."

Helena knew she had been foolish; she did not need Ros to remind her. Her only hope had been to keep that knowledge from anyone else. And now Ros had told the earl, who might gamble the secret away for his own drunken amusement. "You should not have told him. Perhaps no one need ever have had to know. I am not yet certain that I will have a child."

Ros came down from the tree in a shower of leaves. She did not hug — she was not one for embraces — but her hand came to rest warm and strong and steady on Helena's shoulder. "There is always the tea —"

Helena shook her head violently. "No. If I was so stupid to believe William and end up with a child, then I deserve the shame." She closed her eyes. "I cannot believe I thought he would marry me."

"He told you so, with his hand upon his heart. How could you have guessed he lied?"

Helena looked into her sister's blue eyes, the mirror of her own. How could they be so different inside? "You would have known."

"I don't dream the same dreams you do. I don't want a husband, babies, a home to manage." She pressed, "All things you can have with Rand, if you marry him."

"But not love. Not a husband who will cherish me, or who will make me proud." She imagined an evening in society with Rand. Would he dance with her before retiring to the cards — or would he favor some other woman with that honor? His mistress. One of his many mistresses.

"He will give you your freedom, Helena. Once you've given up your dreams of fairytale princes, you will see that you made the best bargain possible. Just think — you will be able to draw and paint. Perhaps spend a year in Italy taking lessons with a master. And Rand will not play the part of disapproving husband. He will applaud you; he will encourage your talents."

"Don't try to wheedle me with your own brand of fairy tale. If I consent to this marriage, I will be much too busy producing and raising his heir to have much freedom to travel to Italy."

Rosaline wrinkled her nose. "That is one reason why I decided America was more attractive than marriage to Rand, freedom or not. But you are not me. You want children."

"I do want children. But I do not want a life of lies. And if the worst happens, I will have to explain an early child — who will no doubt have William's robust health and large size. And I will worry that my husband might speak the truth that would destroy me because he was too drunk to watch his tongue." Or worse, that he would do so cold sober because he could no longer bear to claim her child as his.

"I hope you do not have to. However, if the worst were to happen, Rand will not mind." Her hand tightened on Helena's shoulder and there was a note of iron will in her voice as Ros added, "I will make him swear it. I will not have you or your child hurt. And I will promise you both that he will answer to me if he does not keep his word."

It was not until then that Helena realized Ros was set on this marriage. Not only so that she could go to America. But so that Helena would be protected from her own foolish actions.

There was truly only one question left to answer:

Would marriage to the earl save her — or sentence her to a life of misery?

Chapter Two

Helena shook off her sister's comforting hand.

"Oh, why did I have to be so foolish? Why couldn't I have been like you — dressing the part of a man and content with gambling and drinking? Why did I think it would be romantic to be alone with him? To let him ... "

"I don't know, Hellie. It was a mistake. But you can mend it. Marry Rand. He'll be happy to accept your child, if you are to have one. And if you are not, you'll only have to bear his company while you make a child together. I assure you, he will be eager to let you live your life however you wish."

Helena wanted to cry. The offer was much too tempting, and all because she had not been as sensible as she should have been. "One foolish mistake—"

"Two, actually." Ros snapped her mouth shut, as if she realized that she should not have spoken.

Sometimes Helena wished she did not always confide in her sister. "He said he would speak to Valentine that very day. I did not know what to do."

"A simple and firm 'No' would have served, I am certain."

"I'm afraid you inherited all the will for the pair of us, right from the womb."

"You have enough will, Hellie; you're just afraid to use it. You'd rather not have the consequences that sometimes result, such as having to marry Rand. I don't mind them, if the goal is worthwhile enough."

"Do you truly believe America is a worthy goal? Why can't you just stay here? I will miss you terribly." Strong emotion made her sister cross, but Helena could not help herself. Ros had always been there — to talk, to help, to show her how to be strong, and to be strong for her when she could not be.

"I've made up my mind, so no use pouting about it. After you've had a baby, you can come to visit." Ros smiled with a misplaced confidence that amazed Helena. "I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you'd quite become resigned to your husband by then."

"The earl?" Helena forced away a picture of Rand's lips descending to meet her own as Rosaline tapped the sketchbook she cradled in her lap. Helena was startled to see what her unconscious fingers had laid out on the page. "You've been studying the male form, I see."

Helena curled her knees up, hiding the foolish sketch from sight. "He would truly not mind if I were to come to him already carrying another man's child?"

"He would count it a blessing."

"What kind of man does not mind raising another man's child as his own? What if I had a son?" Helena doubted any man could feel blessed by a cuckoo in his nest. "I must speak with him. Such a matter cannot be left to your word. I must look into his eyes and see that you are right about this."

Her sister smiled widely, and Helena felt as if she had just fallen into a snare with the noose about to snap tight. "Good. I told him you would meet him tonight, in my stead."

Tonight. The immediacy spurred her to panicked argument. "I cannot — the scandal, if I were seen ...."

Ros snorted in a decidedly unladylike manner.

"You'll wear my disguise, of course, silly. As a man you can go wherever you please without anyone's notice."

"Ros! Helena!" Ros scrambled up from the ground at the sound of their youngest sister's voice. Helena wanted to protest, but she knew she could not do so now. Kate was not one to give up the search, and they both knew there was no sense in staying silent in the hopes she would go away.

With a sharp motion of her hand, Ros indicated that Helena remain as she was. "I'll go. You stay a moment. You look as if you could cry." With a flash of skirts Rosaline disappeared, leaving Helena alone in the shade of the tree.

Helena thought of bracing the earl in his own lair. He was sure to make a mock of the matter between them. But he needed a wife, and she might very well find herself in desperate need of a husband.

She looked at the couple she had drawn, sitting in the tree.

The Adam with the earl's face and the bare chest of David himself, held the apple to his Eve. And an Eve with Helena's face — for Ros could never have managed that expression: a mingling of temptation and trepidation.

* * * * *

"Hold still or you will have sideburns on your chin."

The cleverly padded waistcoat and vest that Ros used to give herself a bulkier, more masculine shape, made Helena's limbs feel heavy and clumsy. "Maybe this is not a good idea. I could speak with him tomorrow, when he comes to dine with us."

Ros continued adjusting the clothing without pause. "With Miranda nearby? Do you want your secret discovered?"

"No." She didn't want another person to know what she had done. That the earl knew was awful enough.

"Then you must speak to him in private, tonight." Ros adjusted her collar and stepped back to survey her work. "You cannot be worried about your virtue, since you no longer possess any."

"Ros!"

"Sorry." Ros made a face at her. "You are the most virtuous of women. One mistake does not make you ready for the dung heap, no matter what some lords and ladies claim."

Helena surveyed herself in the mirror, amazed at the transformation. "You are right never to marry or have a child. Your ability to comfort leaves a great deal to be desired."

"Get the matter settled between you tonight. You will both feel better for it."

Both? Was the earl as reluctant as Helena about this harebrained scheme of Ros's? She sank onto the tiny stool before the dressing table, turning her back on her unsettling image. "You said he had no doubts."

"For himself, no. But he does not believe you will take a man of such ill-repute as your husband."

"He knows of my circumstances—"

"He wants what you want, Hellie." Ros pulled her up impatiently and led her to the door. "He wants to look into your eyes and see that you mean what you say. He does not want a wife who regrets her bargain after a few months' time. Just as you do not want a husband who goes unhappily into the marriage. You two are more alike than either of you realize."