Page 7 of An Engagement with the Enemy

“Cheer up, James. It could be worse. She could be the twentieth fair maiden to reject you as a possible husband rather than the first.”

“Are you certain you must go to Northumbria?” he asked his friend. “You have barely returned home from Scotland. You must be exhausted by the travel.”

“Quite the opposite. I enjoy it, immensely. At least this time I’m not on my way to a party, only visiting relatives.” Leo put his empty cup on a footman’s tray as the servant passed. “You ought to get out more. I told you to come to Scotland with me.”

“It was your friend’s engagement party, and I hadn’t been invited.”

“Lord Lismore wouldn’t have minded. I think he needed all the friends he could get.”

“I heard it was a somewhat mercenary arrangement.” James raised both hands when Leo shot him an annoyed look. “Gossip makes its way through Amoret village as well as it does anywhere else.”

“Lismore and Miss Godfrey seemed well-suited. Granted, I am not especially close to Lismore. Haven’t been in years. But still.” He shrugged. “An engagement party may have put you in a better mood.”

“I’d rather go with you to Northumbria.” James glowered at his friend. “You will leave me in desperate circumstances, you know. I haven’t any other allies in this part of the world.”

“Familial obligations are what they are.” Leo didn’t spare James even a moment’s pity. “Cheer up, old fellow. I will only be away a month. You will get through this summer in one piece, I have no doubt, and maybe even end it with a pretty bride.”

With each passing hour, James doubted it. The bridal search his parents had arranged was the last thing he wanted.

“You shouldn’t look so glum.” Leo slapped James on the shoulder. “Your mother is watching us with that look of hers. The one that asks, ‘Why are you not dancing? I specifically commanded it!’” He put his cup down. “As I wish to stay in her good graces, I say we both find partners for the next set. Are you ready?”

James glanced to where his mother stood, near the open doorway leading to the gardens. Indeed, she had her chin tilted at an angle and her eyebrows raised, staring directly at him. He released a sigh and put his cup down next to his cousin’s. The dishes were immediately swept away by a footman in the ridiculous powdered wig and livery his father insisted they wear during social events.

James searched out a partner from among the unmarried ladies and invited her to cavort with him in a Scottish Reel. His mother knew he was doing his best. But his father would certainly express his displeasure over the evening’s failure.

An hour passed, with James taking the hand of one lady after another, each of them declared unsuitable brides due to their lack of connection to nobility. Friends of his sister, women he had played games with as a child at summer picnics, each of them quite aware his family hadn’t any intention of his courting them.

They didn’t seem to mind. Most were happy enough to enjoy the evening and the conversation. Perhaps he would have felt better if a few had set their cap at him. But no. Everyone seemed to know he had to find a woman at least his equal in rank.

Though it grew cooler outside, the interior of the ballroom remained summer-warm. Despite the open doors and the high windows above the beams. The scent of flowers adorning every surface and hanging from the beams mingled with the scent of bottled perfumes and the fumes of dozens of candles.

He needed air.

As soon as he could, he slipped away into the gardens. And he had no intention of coming back. Not until the end of the evening, when people were too tired, too tipsy, and too wrapped up in their evening to ask him questions about Lady Emily. There wasn’t any use in pretending to enjoy himself when most of his friends knew he’d been rejected. Or at least that there’d been a mutual lack of interest, if he were less dramatic and more honest about it.

He slowed his walk as he passed a suit of armor holding a torch. It was quite clever, really, the way things had been arranged with wires and a narrow pole to make it look as though the suited knight held the flame. “Sir Hop,” he said, nodding respectfully to the only incomplete suit of armor his family displayed.

One leg of the armor and its accompanying boot cover had disappeared, perhaps fifteen years previous. No one claimed to know where it had gone. Not a single family member, servant, or troublesome neighbor would admit to removing the knight’s pieces. Nor could James even think why it had gone missing. But the distinction had earned the suit of armor its own name and a place in the family’s affection.

“Come to commiserate with Sir Hop?” a cheerful voice asked, and James winced. It was his sister who spoke. But at events such as these, nine times of ten, his sister had her dearest friend by her side. Chances were excellent that when he turned around, he’d come face to face with his sworn enemy.

“If he cannot dance, why should I?” James asked, putting a note of defiance in his voice that he didn’t feel. He turned on his heel and met Jessica’s dark-gray gaze. “Ah. Miss Westcote. I sensed a chill in the air.”

“Mr. Aldwick, you are as charming as ever.” She had her fan out and waved it beneath her chin, smiling languidly at him. “Are those the sweet words that won Lady Emily’s heart? Surely, I must owe you my felicitations. Yours would be quite a match. If you managed to make it.” The triumphant gleam in her eyes was evidence enough she knew the truth.

“Catherine, are you spilling all the family secrets to your friends again?” he asked, turning a disapproving frown to his sister. No one was supposed to know about the bridal hunt. At least, no one was supposed to speak of it so openly. He hadn’t thought Catherine even knew what was happening, beyond their mother’s desire to host as many guests as possible over the course of the summer.

His sister didn’t seem the least upset. “Oh, come now, James. Everyone in the neighborhood surely guessed why Lady Emily was invited. It’s hardly a secret with how often our parents throw the two of you together.”

Knowing that his future, a future he didn’t even decide for himself, was freely talked about in the neighborhood nettled him. Gossips would discuss each guest his family invited to stay, debating the merits of one family and their bridal representative against another. They would dissect his intentions and interactions with each other, whispering about him behind fans, snickering at his situation in their parlors. And he could do nothing about any of it.

Except pretend he wasn’t miserable. That none of it mattered to him. Which he did, at that moment, wearing a smile that felt completely unnatural on his face. “I suppose we cannot expect to get the thing right the first time. Perhaps the next one will work out better.”

“The next one?” Jessica repeated, her eyes narrowing rather dangerously. “You mean the next lady? Are there to be other guests invited for the singular purpose of wedding you?”

“That sounds rather unlikely,” Catherine said lightly.

She didn’t know, then. Not really. But she would catch on soon enough. Everyone would. James gritted his teeth. “What does it matter why they are invited?”