“Chance and Seri will be a moment longer. Lady Atterley didn’t seem quite prepared to bid them adieu. You know how she can be sometimes now that her daughter has married and moved to the Continent.”
“I hope Lady Frederica is very happy,” Felicity said while leaning forward and stretching to see the earl and his pair of adoring hens.
“Who are you watching?”
Felicity snapped back and straightened in the seat. “No one. Why?”
Merry stretched and stuck her head all the way out the window for a long moment, then pulled back inside and settled in place. “Lady Carolee and Miss Maralee are making fools of themselves over that gentleman. Who is he? I have never seen him before. Did you happento notice him before you escaped to the kitchen?”
“Mrs. Amesbury said his name was Lord Wakefield.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie, because Mrs. Amesbury had asked him his name.
“Lord Wakefield,” Merry repeated, then wrinkled her nose. “Is he the one whose uncle died in the carriage accident and left him the title?”
“The very same, is my understanding.” Felicity hated lying to Merry, but the evening was still too raw to spill all the details and all the mistakes made.
“Hmm…” Merry stretched back out the window for another look. “He appears to be leaving. On foot. Is that not rather odd?”
Felicity shrugged while fighting the urge to hang out the window and see for herself. “It is a rather nice evening.”
“Yes, but to walk? Why did he not ride his horse? That would have been just as pleasing, and far less exertion in his best clothes and shoes.”
“Perhaps he likes to walk?” Felicity wished Merry would be quiet, but a quiet moment with Merry was a rare occurrence. “Any sign of Chance and Seri? I do not look forward to the ride home.”
Merry waved away her worries. “You know how it will be. Chance will sulk, and Seri will bathe us both in disagreeable looks and hissing sighs. Tomorrow will be worse. I am sure Chance will call one of hismeetings of the flock.”
“His flock is shrinking fast, and I am certain our dwindling numbers have him champing at the bit.” Felicity pointed at her sister. “Best take care—since you have reached the ripe old age of one and twenty, he might not be satisfied with only one marriage this year.”
Merry wrinkled her button nose again. “Chance needs to be thankful for that which he already has.” She shook a finger. “And he also needs to remember that Seri must marry as well. When is he going to turn on her and hang her in the available-to-wed window along with the rest of us?”
“Seri knows how to handle Chance,” Felicity said. “She discreetly steers him in whichever direction she wishes him to go. I very much doubt he will turn on her until you and I are gone.”
“Well, I am not ready yet.” Merry gave a curt nod, making her blonde curls bounce. “I wish I could get the babies without having to deal with finding the right sort of husband. They are all so…so…irritating and full of themselves, expecting us to fawn all over them and place them on a pedestal.”
“Mama placed Papa on a pedestal,” Felicity gently reminded her.
“That is because Mama adored Papa as much as he adored her.” Merry’s smile turned sad. “And Papa was never a pompous arse with her. He listened and took her thoughts to heart.”
“Would it not be wonderful to find a man like that?” Felicity wondered if the earl might remotely satisfy that requirement.
“It would be heavenly,” Merry said.
*
Drake Pemberton, thesecretly impoverished and fake seventh Earl of Wakefield, walked home from the Atterley dinner party, claiming the night much too glorious for riding in a carriage and his Thoroughbred much too spent after escaping the stall earlier in the day. In truth, his carriage was in dire need of repair, and his Thoroughbred was yet to be properly re-shod because he had barely scraped together enough blunt to pay the farrier, who had refused to grant the Wakefield estate any more credit.
Hands in his pockets, a heavy sigh escaped him as his footfalls thudded and crunched on the crushed stone of the roadway. The balmy evening did nothing to comfort or lift his spirits. Old Uncle George had surely drawn him into a fine kettle of fish, and he was about to drown in it.
Heaven help them both if anyone discovered that his uncle, thesixth Earl of Wakefield, was still alive and hopefully safely hidden away at Wakefield Manor, which was actually Drake’s property that he had inherited from his father. Uncle George had gambled away the original Wakefield Manor, then coerced Drake into agreeing that it could be released from entailment to pay other household debts that had been ignored. Drake had no choice. It was either that or Uncle George would be dragged away to debtor’s prison; therefore, the barring of entail had been done to satisfy at least a few of his uncle’s creditors.
Unfortunately, the old man’s gambling debts with the moneylenders, Rum and Catherty, were not so easily remedied, and the creditors took umbrage with Uncle George’s unpaid notes. So much so that a carriage accident, which was no accident at all, stole away the use of Uncle George’s legs. Afterward, forever bound to a bath chair and as conniving as the shrewdest cheat, he had convinced Drake to help him stage his own demise to save his life, even going so far as to erect a fine headstone on his empty grave in the kirkyard.
Upon settling the Wakefield estate, some but not all of Uncle George’s legal debts were satisfied, but there was nothing left to pay off the gambling debts owed to Rum and Catherty. As the next earl, neither Drake nor the estate was legally bound to pay those, which left the moneylenders exceedingly disgruntled.
Drake sensed trouble brewing with that pair of usurers who had no compunction about taking their payments in blood. As yet, nothing had happened, but they still believed Uncle George had died of his injuries in the carriage accident they hadarranged.They had no idea that Drake’s uncle now posed as Mr. Charles Pembroke, a dear old friend of the previous earl that Drake had taken in, since the man was not only crippled, but poor as a church mouse.
“Damn and blast it all.” Drake squinted up at the moon while sauntering along, thoroughly disappointed with his current lot in life. The evening had been a disaster as well. After much research, he haddecided to win the heart and hand of one of the esteemed Broadmere sisters, not only because of their alleged loveliness but the plumpness of their dowries. Rumor had it, their dowries were among the most generous of theton. By his count and according to everyone he hadcarefullyspoken with, there were three sisters left on the Marriage Mart. Surely, he could convince one of them to marry him and be done with this damnable insolvency.
Alas, this evening had done nothing to forward those goals. The eldest Broadmere sister had regarded him with an almost hawkish coldness, and the other two were nowhere to be found. The only bright spot in the entire dinner party was the lovely blonde angel in the kitchen.
