The Perfect Mistress (24 page)

"Twenty-three. Surely I will find a number of reasonable prospects out of such a response." She selected a letter, intending to open it, but his hand on hers stopped her.

"Wait—you can't just read them and decide based on whichever one takes your fancy." He gave her a smile that made her feel as if she was being patted on the head. "You should think for a moment about what it is you are looking for… develop some
criteria
for judging which of your prospective husbands would be best suited to you."

She leveled a gaze on him, annoyed by the veiled sarcasm in his tone. No doubt all this was quite amusing to him. "I already have, your lordship. I know precisely what I am looking for in a husband."

"Do you indeed?" He sat back and crossed his arms with a patrician air.

Reaching into her handbag yet again, she drew out another piece of paper and handed it to him. "Here is the list of qualities." The way his nostrils flared and his mouth tightened was quite satisfying. "Ranked in order of importance."

Pierce jerked open the paper and stared at her list, scarcely able to read it at first, for his irritation. How dare she be so logical and detached and…

prepared!

"Honesty," he read aloud, "charity… generosity… education…

tolerance… moral rectitude…"

"Go on," she said, when he lowered the paper to stare at her. "I believe

'love of children' comes next, then 'kindliness' and 'good manners' and

'cleanliness'…"

"Obviously," he said, reddening at being caught flat-footed in groundless male condescension, "you have given it a great deal of thought."

"I have." She looked at him with a steady gaze. "And now I think I'd like to see what my first prospective husband has to say." Pulling a letter opener from her purse, she slid it under the flap of the first envelope. He glared at her handbag in annoyance.

It would have been a perfect validation of her plan if the first letter had been from a gentleman who was honest, charitable, generous, and well educated. But in fact, the first letter was not from a man at all. It was written by a woman on behalf of her nephew who was a sergeant in the army, posted in India, and due to return to England in several months. He would need a good situation and a wife as he "settled in."

The next three letters were no better. One claimed to be heir to a sizable estate, wrongfully deprived of an inheritance and eager to have the support of a wife in seeking legal redress. Another was from the typesetter who had assembled the type for her advertisement. Struck by the "most excellent composition" of her words, he had immediately deduced that she would understand his "most meticulous nature." Since "meticulous" was not on her list of qualities, she went quickly on. The next fellow was a packet-coach driver who had seen her ad while in London to either "deliver testimony at a trial" or "deliver terrible lot of mail," depending on which way his writing was interpreted. He was most keenly interested in whether or not she could cook something besides "banes an burley"—whatever that was.

But the fifth letter was from a prosperous London merchant, owner of a flourishing ready-made clothing concern. His letter was written in beautiful hand and worded with unmistakable refinement. He loved children and looked forward to raising his own with "proper paternal devotion."

Heartened to have a sound prospect at last, she set it aside and continued.

There were a few more agreeable surprises—three more, to be exact. One was a mill owner in the town of Reading, west of London, another was vicar of a church in Brompton, and the last, and most distinguished, prospect proved to be a member of the peerage… a "Baron Colchester."

Gabrielle eyed the stack of "suitable" letters; only four sound prospects out of twenty-three. Privately disappointed, she made herself focus on the fact that all four held true promise and reminded herself that she only needed to have
one
to marry. When she roused from her single-minded concentration, arched her back, and looked around, she found herself surrounded by letters and empty envelopes on the seat and realized the carriage was stopped at the side of a treelined street. She dimly recalled the driver putting the top up, at Pierce's direction, to give them more privacy and some protection from the breeze that flirted with the corners of the letters.

Pierce was seated across from her, watching her with a frown. "Was it worth it?"

"Of course." She sat straighter. "I have four very fine prospects."

"
Hmmm
. And where shall we go next, Miss LeCoeur?"

"To a stationer's, if you don't mind," she said with as much dignity as she could support just now. "To reply to these"—she lifted the stack—"I shall need to lay in a supply of papers."

"If you are determined to do this, why waste time writing to the ones you've chosen?" He gathered up the rejected letters, raised the seat beside him, and stuffed them in the stowage underneath it, leaving her with only her four "very fine prospects" in hand. "Why not go and see them? Have a look and see what they are like before you respond." He smiled and waved a magnanimous hand. "My driver and I are completely at your service."

11

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G
abrielle would have preferred to deal with her suitors on paper, for the present, but she sensed a challenge beneath Pierce's offer and could not refuse. She did manage, in the name of decency and logic, to insist that she remain unannounced to her potential husbands to allow for a proper introduction via letter, later. And as the carriage rumbled along the streets, she clutched the clothier's reply in her hands and felt her stomach drawing into a knot of apprehension.

The "prosperous clothing concern" of Calvin Londsdale was not located on Oxford Street, as indicated in his letter, but a block away, fronting on something of an alley that had no street sign. They found it only because Pierce's driver stopped several people to ask and finally located "Londsdale's place." The shop entrance was set into the side of a large brick building, and for a prosperous concern, it appeared strangely run-down—lacking in paint, with display windows stuffed with a jumble of cheap garments and knitted goods faded by the sun. Traffic was brisk in and out of the door, and when Gabrielle and Pierce stepped inside, they found the shop crammed with tables and counters piled with "ready-mades," which were being examined by customers in clothing that clearly announced their modest means.

Gabrielle backed a step, where she bumped into Pierce. Her plan that they remain inconspicuous was instantly forfeit; they were considerably better dressed than anyone else in the place.

"Lookit wot we got 'ere! Well, guv'na," a buxom shop attendant declared pushing her way through the customers, eyeing Pierce's dignified looks and Gabrielle's elegance. "Wot can we do fer ye?"

"Just having a look, my good woman," Pierce said with a genial tone.

Then he lowered his head and his voice. "And just where would the proprietor of this establishment—Mr. Londsdale—be?"

"In th' workroom… out back," she said, jerking her thumb toward the curtain hanging over a doorway at the back of the shop. While she went back to her customers, Pierce and Gabrielle made their way toward that doorway and into a short, dingy corridor beyond. Gabrielle's every instinct was to head for the nearest exit, but with both Pierce and her pride at her back, she couldn't abandon her quest for a glimpse of her first suitor. She found herself stepping into a huge workroom filled with stale air, dust, and lint… and benches and tables crammed with young boys, stitching rough garments.

"What are you doin' in here?" came a roaring challenge, startling them both. They turned and discovered a thin, knotty man with lank brown hair and watery eyes glaring at them. "If yer from that 'society'—ye can jus' take yerself straight back out that door. I told you—I give th' little cabbagers three squares an' a dry place to sleep."

Waving his hands, he bustled them back into the corridor and into the shop, but not before Gabrielle caught sight of a dozen little faces with huge, dark eyes that had looked up at her in dull surprise. "Prosperous" Londsdale protested that he had improved their ragamuffin lives by taking them off the streets and "keepin' 'em too busy for trouble. And I don' deserve to be hounded by the likes o' you for it!"

Gabrielle soon found herself out on the street, with her elbow in Pierce's tight grip, being propelled along toward the carriage. Holding her hat, she resisted long enough to look back at the dingy establishment and sputter:

"Horrid man—he runs a 'sweatshop'… using children. Why, the oldest among them couldn't have been more than twelve." Then she looked up and caught Pierce's amusement and glared at him. "He's a liar, a fraud, and an opportunist. He probably
paid
someone to write his letter for him.

Something ought to be done about men like that!"

It took a while for her to calm and regain her poise when they reached the carriage. She kept seeing the children's faces and thinking about how the wretch claimed to be helping them. It was hard to put behind her, but after they were underway again, she lifted her chin and tried to focus on the possibilities that lay ahead. Drawing the letter from her second prospect out of her handbag, she perused it. "Well, I'm certain that Vicar Trowbridge will prove much more suitable. How far is Brompton from here?"

Several minutes' drive, south and west, were all that was required to reach Brompton, but it took a bit longer for them to locate Holy Trinity Church. It had been surrounded and all but overwhelmed by a large and impressive bit of construction going on around it. When they were able to reach the church, through the lorries and maze of wooden walks, they were greeted inside by an irate clergyman whose face was set like red granite.

"Have you ever encountered such lunacy in your life?" the fellow demanded, gesturing to the doors and the confusion in the street beyond.

"They're out to ruin this church, they are—wretched papist conspirators.

Building their cursed oratory right virtually on top of Holy Trinity. It's an insult, I tell you. And they're doing it on purpose—to ruin my parish!" He halted and took a deep breath, smoothing his split collar and his nerves.

"Well, I don't intend to let them get away with—" He halted and regarded them suspiciously. "What do
you
want?"

"The vicar of the church," Pierce said after a moment, and Gabrielle nearly gasped. "I wonder if he is here."

The clergyman drew himself up to give them a thorough looking over.

Their fashionable appearance worked a miraculous change in his demeanor.

He gave them a stiff, joyless smile and folded his hands together in ecclesiastical forbearance. "I am Vicar Trowbridge. What do you want of me?"

What indeed? Gabrielle's eyes widened and she backed a step, looking at the gaunt, graying man. His letter had portrayed him as being a dedicated churchman devoted to music, holy charity, and doing good works… but in person he appeared to be a dyspeptic sort who vacillated disagreeably between "irascible" and "unctuous."

"We're here to see the church," Pierce said, when she didn't speak. He looked around the sanctuary, marking the fine windows and handsome architecture. "A lovely setting for a wedding." He glanced at Gabrielle.

"Don't you agree?" She barely restrained herself from giving him an elbow in the ribs.

"Ah." Trowbridge looked them over with a judgmental frown, making the obvious assumption. "Well, I do marry persons from outside the parish… if they meet with my approval and my conditions. You see, I believe marriage is taken much too lightly these days. Men ignore their responsibilities and allow women to come and go as they please… abroad in the streets without proper protection or supervision." He gave Gabrielle a suspicious look, then turned to Pierce. "Young women today require a firm hand." He closed his hand into a fist, seizing the reins of some mercifully hypothetical female.

"Take my advice, sir, 'spare not the rod of reproof, lest you allow your wife to stray from the path of righteousness.' "

Gabrielle gave the clergyman a scathing glare, turned on her heel, and headed straight for the doors. Pierce gave the indignant clergyman a sardonic shrug. "These
modern
girls."

They were in the carriage and well underway before she could swallow the anger lodged in her throat and speak. "The pompous wretch. Writing to me of charity and love, claiming to seek holy nuptial bliss with a woman of good character, when what he really wants is a plodding beast of matrimonial burden. A marriageable ox!"

But her anger at the opinionated vicar was also fueled by the smile broadening on Pierce's face, as her second matrimonial prospect turned out to be nearly as disagreeable as the first. She stared out the side of the carriage, her face hot and eyes stinging, refusing to look at him. It was bad enough to have her matrimonial hopes dashed in such a drastic fashion, but to have it happen before
him
…

Pierce gave orders to his driver to take them about in Hyde Park, then sat back in the seat across from her, watching her deal with her anger and embarrassment and getting lost in the sight of her. God, she was gorgeous when her blood was up—those rosy cheeks, those flashing eyes, the irresistible pout of her lips…