Chapter One
“You do know what this is, don’t you?” Delia stared, mouth agape, at the cream-colored stationery in her hand.
“A house party,” came the unconcerned reply beside her.
“Not merelyanyhouse party, Frances. One of Lady Osbourne’s infamous matchmaking house parties.” Delia waved the invitation below her cousin’s nose.
Frances yawned and curled up in her corner of the carriage, while the sole maid they were going to share, Lucy, sat opposite, staring out the window.
Delia wrinkled her nose as she reread her unexpected fate.How could her cousin be so nonchalant?Probably because Frances was married already and only coming along as a chaperone to escape London for two weeks. Any sane person would do the same in the unseasonably scorching July.
Frances’s husband was away on a mission for the Crown,very hush-hush, and thus, Delia knew nothing about it. However, given her cousin’s placidity over his whereabouts, he couldn’t be up to anything monstrously dangerous.
Thus, she and Frances departed hot and sticky London for a fortnight in the less crowded environs of Bath and its surrounding countryside. According to Delia’s mother, they had been promised daily and nightly entertainment. They could promenade through the grand squares, orderly streets, and gracious gardens of the Roman city, as well as along its canal. Most assuredly, they would take tea and sample the delicious Sally Lunn buns everyone raved about.
They might also try the mineral waters that absolutely no one raved about because they were as foul as drinking from a bucket of pig slops. As to culture, there was an elegant theatre for music and plays. And within the distance of a short carriage ride, they could venture out upon sightseeing tours of nearby country estates, open to the public by the permission of their owners. Lastly, there would be dances.
Undoubtedly, she and Frances would be run off their feet and endure utter exhaustion by the party’s conclusion. Apart from balls and mingling with strangers, which Delia loathed, it would be fabulous!
Except she hadn’t realized their hostess was the infamous Lady Osbourne until her mother packed her into the carriage and handed her the invitation an instant before the footman closed the door.
Lady Barnaby, Delia’s mother, was decidedly at her wits’ end. It was the only explanation for the duplicitous act perpetrated against her eldest, unmarried daughter, pushing her into the grasp of the match-making hostess.
Delia looked out the window and recollected how she’d been lured to this odious fate. Her mother had told her only of an amusing house party with otherlike-mindedladies, neglecting to mention the presence of any single gentlemen.
Besides, Delia doubtedanyof the other guests were truly of a similar mind to her own. Above all else, she preferred one of two things, examining plants or drawing plants. Her family’s own country estate was close to the two-hundred-year-old Oxford Botanic Garden, which had spurred her interest from a young age. And while in London, she had plenty of verdant places to sketch, especially when invited to the palace at Kew or strolling the four acres of the Chelsea Physic Garden along the banks of the Thames.
Apart from Delia, her family consisted of twin sisters, four years younger, each pretty and perfectly agreeable to the task of finding a husband when it was their turn. She, on the other hand, was old enough that she’d already been presented at court and ought to be out in society, meeting marriageable gentlemen.
If only she wasn’t so much better with plants!
Delphiniums didn’t want to engage in prattle, nor did they smirk should she become tongue-tied. Towering oaks didn’t ask her to dance, nor embarrass her when she trod upon their toes. Buckthorn didn’t look down her décolletage or try to get a glimpse of her ankles. Toadstools didn’t attempt to steal a kiss or ask her to go somewhere alone. And roses most certainly didn’t make fun of her if she refused to let them do either.
She liked plants so much she had morphed into one — the despised and pitied wallflower.
Therefore, while she intended to take part in as many of the amusements as she could tolerate, Delia was glad to have brought her sketch pad and pencils. If anyone so much as ruffled her leaves, she would retreat to the safety of a garden bower or under the branches of a welcoming tree.
RUPERT PERISH WAS FILLEDwith regret. He had made a bet and lost. The wager had seemed a simple one — a horse race, which he ought to have handily won because if there was a single thing he knew and loved, it was horses. However, a small adder had appeared from under a hedge on Rotten Row, spooked by someone on the other side. His horse had shied.
It had been the slightest of faltering steps, but enough to allow his friend Hawthorne to pass and win. Rupert’s forfeit was to attend Lady blasted Osbourne’s blasted country party in his friend’s place.For two blasted weeks!
Hawthorne had been positively gleeful to escape the fate of being amongst all the marriage-minded females, having promised his attendance to his aunt, a cousin of their esteemed hostess.
Instead, Rupert would be the one to fill out the even number of single guests headed for the stockade. No matter that he already had his eye upon Lord Williamson’s eldest daughter, Lady Lillian, a dazzling charmer he’d seen for the first time two weeks earlier. And she seemed to fancy him right back. They’d danced more than twice, been partnered at a dinner, and even taken a ride in Hyde Park.
Rupert was fully prepared to continue his pursuit of her. Unfortunately, he would be stuck for a fortnight with strangers who might be the definition of insipid. Horses and the pleasure of a country estate suited him well — as long as it washisfamily’s estate in Lincolnshire. At times, he almost resented London for taking him from the Perish ancestral home to sit in the House of Lords.
In any case, he doubted he would enjoy someone else’s manor house, especially when it wasn’t truly the countryside. It was the outskirts of blasted Bath.
It might as well be London, except with some ghastly mineral water and even more ghastly desperate females!
The house would be filled with those same ladies who hovered on the edges of ballrooms. The overly tall and gangly, the exceedingly round, the overly loud and nasally, the meekly quiet and raspy, and any other measure of awkward or unpleasant traits.Why else would they need help making a match?
Basically, he was to be thrown in with the females who hadn’t been able to secure a man upon their own miserable merit, including spinsters long past their prime years.
For fourteen days, Rupert would dodge their grasping hands and their despairing doe eyes and their hopeless attempts to win him or, worse, trick him. It was well known those were the sorts of women for whom Lady Osbourne found matches — by hook or by crook.
Drawing a silver flask from his pocket, Rupert tapped on the roof so his driver would halt. He needed to stretch his legs, take a piss, and rethink his affinity for gambling. This wager had been the worst mistake of his life. After taking a swig of smooth, smuggled French brandy, he climbed out of his carriage onto the dusty road.
