Page 21 of The Wedding Challenge

Francesca shrugged. “I disappointed her. But it was neither the first time nor the last, I assure you.”

“I get so tired of trying to please other people.”

“Perhaps you have been trying to please too many other people too much of the time,” Francesca suggested. “Perhaps you need to think about yourself, instead.”

“That is exactly why I came to you!” Callie cried. “I knew you were the person to help me.”

“I don’t understand,” Francesca said, puzzled. “I will certainly help you if I can, but I am afraid my opinion counts for little with either Rochford or the duchess.”

“Oh, no, I do not want you to talk to them. I want you to help me find a husband.”

CHAPTER FIVE

FRANCESCA STARED at her visitor blankly. “Pardon me?”

“I have decided to marry, and everyone assures me that you are the person to turn to when one is looking for a husband.”

“But, Callie…” Francesca looked dubious. “I thought that you were upset because your grandmother and Lady Odelia were pushing you to marry. It sounds to me as if you are simply trying to please them again.”

“No. Truly, I am not,” Callie told her earnestly. “You see, it is not that I am against marriage. I am not a bluestocking who would rather spend my life quietly reading than marry. And I am not independent like Irene, or wary of tying my life to a man’s. I want to marry. I want to have a husband and children and a home of my own. Don’t you see? I do not want to spend the rest of my life as Rochford’s sister or the duchess’s granddaughter. I want my own life. And the only way I can have that is to marry.”

“But, surely, if you wanted to be on your own…you are over twenty-one and in possession of an ample fortune.”

“Are you suggesting that I set up my own household?” Callie asked wryly. “And have the entire beau monde asking what has happened to set Rochford and me at odds with each other? Or listen to my grandmother lecturing me on my ingratitude, and my duty to my brother and to her? I have no wish to break with my family. I only want to have a life apart from them. To be free from the restrictions. But I would still have them all even if I had my own household. I would have to hire an older companion, preferably a widow, to live with me, and I would still be a young unmarried woman, unable to go anywhere or do anything on my own. You know what it is like, Francesca. It is not until you are married that you have the slightest freedom at all. I would so love to have a green ball gown. Or one of deep royal blue. Or any color other than this everlasting white!”

Francesca began to chuckle. “I remember that feeling. But you can hardly want to marry just to be able to wear royal blue.”

“Sometimes I think I might,” Callie retorted, then sighed. “But of course it is not just that. I want to be married. I feel sometimes as if I am bobbing along going nowhere, simply keeping pace, waiting for my life to begin. I want to start my life.”

Francesca leaned forward earnestly. “But, surely, my dear, you must have an ample amount of suitors. I would think you would only have to beckon and a dozen men would be on your doorstep, asking Rochford for your hand.”

“Oh, I have had no lack of suitors,” Callie admitted with a sigh. “But all too often they have been fortune hunters. There are other men, I think, who are actually reluctant to even approach me because of who I am. They do not want to be seen as opportunists, or they think that I would never consider them because they haven’t the proper amount of wealth or a noble-enough name. People assume, without even meeting me, that I am very high in the instep. And I am not, you know.”

“No, you are not.”

“And others are frightened off by Rochford. It is all very well when the suitor is a fortune hunter or someone I cannot bear, but Sinclair is so intimidating that he scares off perfectly nice young men, as well.”

“The duke can be a trifle daunting,” Francesca admitted dryly.

“Humph. That is putting it mildly. If I take him to task about it, he just puts on his ‘duke’ face—” Callie drew her pretty features into a haughty mask “—and tells me that he has my best interests at heart.”

Francesca could not help but laugh. “Yes, I know that face well. He uses it whenever he does not want to be questioned.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you…perhaps…have some particular man in mind for a suitor?” Francesca asked delicately.

“Oh, no,” Callie responded quickly, though her mind leapt unbidden to Lord Bromwell. Could he be someone whom she would want to marry?

There was something compelling about him, something more than his good looks or warm smile. When she was with him, she felt different—brighter, happier, as if she glowed. But, of course, she knew that it was foolish to even think of him and marriage in the same thought. Why, she barely knew the man, and, anyway, her brother clearly disliked him.

Callie shook her head for emphasis.

Francesca cast her a shrewd look, but said nothing. When Callie did not continue, Francesca began carefully, “Do you not think that you might want to wait a while? You are not, after all, past the age of marrying. Why, Irene and Constance both married after twenty-five, and you have not yet passed three-and-twenty. You need not jump into anything. The right man for you may well appear.”

Callie smiled impishly as she asked, “You mean that I might yet fall in love? Be swept off my feet by a handsome stranger?” Again her thoughts slid involuntarily to the stranger she had met tonight, but she quickly pulled them back. This was not, she reminded herself, about him. Not at all.

She shook her head, saying, “I used to think that such a thing would happen to me. When I was seventeen or eighteen, looking at my first Season.” She shrugged. “But it did not take me long, being in the ton, to realize how unlikely that was. I have met many eligible men, and there have been none who have stirred my heart. Oh, I have fancied one or two, at least for a little while. I flirted a little, and danced with them, listened to their flatteries, and for a week or two I would think ‘perhaps this man will be the one.’ But he never was. After a time, I began to see this thing that was wrong about him, or notice a trait that grated on me. Before long, I began to wonder what I had ever seen in him.”