Ostensibly, he’d accomplished his goal of making friends with her. But something about the entire exchange had bothered him. There was more to Miss Marianne Notley than met the eye. He knew it, and he was rarely wrong about people. He needed to find out more about her, and quickly.
CHAPTER SIX
Marianne had just served her charge breakfast in her chamber the next morning and was laying out Lady Wilhelmina’s clothing for the day when Lady Copperpot came sailing into the room.
“Willie, there you are,” Lady Copperpot said. “You won’t believe what I just heard down at breakfast.”
Lady Wilhelmina pushed herself up in her chair and sipped her tea while blinking at her mother with great interest. “What, Mama?”
Lady Copperpot came over and sat on the edge of Wilhelmina’s bed. She had a bright, happy smile on her face. The woman looked like a cat who’d just found the cream bowl. “According to Lady Clayton, Lord Kendall is looking for a wife!”
Wilhelmina’s eyes went wide. “Lord Kendall? Is he here?”
Lady Copperpot’s face fell and she pursed her lips. “Well, no, not yet, but Lady Clayton says he may arrive soon, and that he intends to find a bride before spring if he can.”
“Oh, Mama thatisgood news…but there are so many lovely young women here.” Wilhelmina stared into her teacup and blinked, dejected.
“Willie, you must have more confidence,” Lady Copperpot declared, patting her daughter’s leg through the blankets. “How do you intend to win Lord Kendall’s hand if you assume he’ll want another young woman?”
“I don’t know, Mama, I—”
“Well, stop it this moment. When Lord Kendall arrives, you’ll have to ensure that you talk to him, laugh at his jokes, ask him about his pursuits, and what he enjoys. According to your father, Kendall is dead set on ensuring the Employment Bill passes. Ask him about that, for heaven’s sake.”
A cloud of worry passed over Wilhelmina’s face. “Mama, I don’t know anything about the bills in Parliament.”
Lady Copperpot rolled her eyes. “Of course you don’t, you silly girl. You don’t need to. He’ll be the one talking; you just smile and nod and agree with everything he says.”
Staring into the wardrobe, Marianne rolled her eyes. What sort of nonsense was Lady Copperpot spouting? As if a woman should just nod and smile at a man and take everything he said for granted. That was ridiculous. Dangerous, even. Trusting a man could lead to regret.
Marianne almost felt sorry for Wilhelmina. The poor girl didn’t know what awaited her. Of course, she would marry well and live a life of privilege, so Marianne couldn’t feeltoosorry for her—but Wilhelmina was still young andnaïveand didn’t realize that a man would say anything a young woman wanted to hear, for his own advantage.
Lord Kendall might be of the Quality, but that hardly made a difference. There was even more reason to be distrustful of such men. William had been a knight, after all, and he’d been nothing but a scoundrel.
Scoundrels. A vision of Nicholas Baxter flashed across Marianne’s mind. Mr. Baxter had obviously made it his business to get her to trust him. Why? Oh, she waspretendingto trust him now. Or at least to have declared a truce, but his insistence on their friendliness made her distrust him all the more. She simply had no intention of lettinghimknow that.
“I heard something else that was interesting while I was downstairs,” Lady Copperpot continued, pulling Marianne from her thoughts once more.
“What, Mama?” Wilhelmina asked, still sipping her tea.
Lady Copperpot smoothed her skirts across her lap and leaned forward. “Apparently, Sir Reginald Francis has his sights set on Miss Frances Wharton.”
“Oh, dear,” Wilhelmina replied, blinking. “Poor Frances.” Wilhelmina shook her head.
Lady Copperpot sat up straight and glared at her daughter. “What do you mean, ‘poor Frances’? That girl could do much worse than Sir Reginald. She and her sister have no dowries to speak of, and everyone knows it. Why, she should be grateful Sir Reginald has taken an interest in her. He’s rich as Croesus.”
Wilhelmina scrunched up her nose. “But he’s so…old, and he has a smell about him, and…they’re both named Francis.”
Marianne had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing aloud at that. She wasn’t certain who Sir Reginald was, but Wilhelmina’s description of him certainly made her feel a bit sorry for Miss Wharton, whoever she was.
“Nonsense,” Lady Copperpot continued. “That girl would do well to marry him and her mother is quite aware of it. Mark my words, they’ll be announcing their engagement before the end of the house party.”
Wilhelmina sighed. “Well, if Franceswantsto marry him—”
Lady Copperpot tossed her hands in the air. “Who cares ifFranceswants to marryhim? Her mother is no fool. She’ll ensure the match is made. Now, as to your introduction to Lord Kendall…”
Marianne barely heard another word. It was utterly disheartening, really, when one stopped to consider how the young ladies of thetonwere sold off to the highest bidder on the marriage mart.
Marianne closed her eyes. If she thought very, very long and very, very hard, she could remember a time when she’d dreamed of marriage. Not just marriage, butloveand marriage actually. It had been nothing more than a dream, but she’d been foolish enough to believe in it. Foolish enough to believe William when he’d told her he intended to marry her.
