The Summer Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) (11 page)

“Exactly,” said Flynn, patting her hand. He’d remembered to wear his gloves today. They strolled along, bowing to some, stopping to chat to others. Lady Elizabeth, of course, knew practically everyone.

Flynn didn’t miss the silent glances exchanged. They’d love it when the news got out, damn their eyes. Not that he gave a snap of his fingers for their good opinion.

He watched the ton parading their wares in the park—their clothes, their style, their availability in some cases, and their unmarried daughters.

He glanced down at the woman on his arm, now so comfortable with him, because he no longer had expectations of her. He’d had a lucky escape there—only because he’d broken the rules of polite ton behavior, sneaking her outside to
steal a kiss or two. Otherwise he’d never have known, not until he found himself shackled to a wife that couldn’t bear his touch.

The thought of embarking on another search for a highborn wife depressed his spirits. They stopped to chat briefly to an acquaintance of Lady Elizabeth’s, then moved on.

All these people had known each other practically from birth—they were related, or their families knew each other—had known each other for generations—or the men had attended boarding school together—it was a closed little group.

And they all, to a greater or lesser degree, cooperated in keeping outsiders out. Outsiders like him.

Oh, he could buy his way in and marry one of them. But he’d always be an outsider.

It hadn’t bothered him before, and it didn’t really bother him now—he’d been an outsider most of his life.

He had friends like Max and Ash, and now Freddy—real friends, not simply business partners. Friends and equals; he’d been friends with Max for years before he ever knew he was a lord.

Out there in the real world, it didn’t matter. A man was judged by what he was made of, not who he was related to.

He watched the brightly clad fashionable throng, strutting and bowing and strolling, seeing and being seen. English society was like a birdcage, a big, comfortable, elegant birdcage with invisible wires. Those inside knew the unwritten rules and those on the outside could only enter with permission.

Trouble is, he was now far more aware of those unwritten rules than he was when he’d first set out to find a highborn wife, and he didn’t much like them.

He strolled on, lending half an ear to Lady Elizabeth’s bland and predictable chat, responding when required, Lady Elizabeth’s dour maid, Muir, trailing grimly behind, giving Flynn silent dagger looks from the rear.

When he’d first arrived in London, he had this idea about fine ladies that they were delicate, innocent creatures, soft and gentle and in need of protection.

He needed that, somehow. He was in a position to protect
and care for a wife and children now, not like before . . . when he hadn’t been able to help his family at all.

He cut off the painful thought. The past was the past. Nothing he could do about it now. He had a future and it was his to shape, as much as any man could shape the future.

Not only his future. He would protect Lady Elizabeth by not marrying her. Ironic, that.

He scanned the line of elegant carriages making their slow way around the park. No sign yet of Lady Beatrice. He hoped she hadn’t forgotten the little agreement they’d made the day before. If she had, the whole point of this walk with Lady Elizabeth and her maid would be lost and the wretched business would drag on for another day.

Lady Beatrice’s barouche approached. Finally. The instant she spotted him, the old lady poked her driver with her cane and the carriage slowed to a halt. She beckoned him over with an imperious wave.

He steered Lady Elizabeth through the gently milling throng of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen.

The old lady greeted them enthusiastically. “How do you do, my dears? Isn’t it a lovely day—one might almost believe that spring really is here to stay! Flynn, my dear boy, I do like those boots. Lady Elizabeth, you’ve snagged the finest looking man here, so I fear I must punish you for it!”

Lady Elizabeth blushed rosily. “P-punish me, Lady Davenham?” She was invariably punctilious about using Lady Beatrice’s correct form of address.

“I just set two of my gels down to stretch their legs”—she waved a vague hand, and Flynn saw Jane and Abby walking arm in arm some short distance away—“and I need someone to keep me company.” The old lady patted the seat beside her invitingly. “Flynn, help Lady Elizabeth up.”

“Thank you, it’s very kind of you.” Lady Elizabeth glanced back at her maid. “And Muir?”

“No, no, your maid can stay here and keep Mr. Flynn company. Can’t leave the poor man stranded and all alone, like a shag on a rock, can we? Now come along up, my dear, you’re holding up the traffic.”

Flynn hid a smile as he helped Lady Elizabeth into the barouche. The old lady was a master manipulator. The carriage drove on and he turned to Muir. “Shall we sit over there while we’re waiting for your mistress to return?”

Muir gave him a look of deep suspicion, but consented to accompany him to a bench some little distance away from the fashionable circuit.

“You’re very loyal to your mistress, aren’t you, Muir?” he said as they sat down.

“I am.” She gave him a disdainful look. “So don’t expect me to gossip about—”

“Far from it. Though,” he added in a coaxing voice, “I would like to know a little about her aunt. The one who lives in Italy.”

The maid sniffed. “Why would you want to know about her?”

Flynn gave her his best charming smile. “I’m trying to find out whether Lady Elizabeth’s aunt in Italy is someone she could turn to.”

Her eyes were chips of ice. “And why would you want to know that?”

“Because, you stubborn woman, I want to try and help the lass.”

“And why—”

“Because as you no doubt know—if you’re in your mistress’s confidence—I’m not going to make her an offer, which means—she tells me—that her father will force her to marry Lord Flensbury. And before you ask why I care, I don’t know, but I do. So, would this aunt in Italy take her in or not?”

There was a long pause while Muir thought about what he said. “She would,” she said finally. “In a heartbeat. But there’s no chance of—”

“Oh, look, Miss Muir,” Flynn exclaimed. “You’ve dropped your purse.”

Muir looked at the thick brown purse that had suddenly appeared at her feet. “That’s not mine.”

“Yes it is,” Flynn said. “You dropped it just now.”

“I didn’t. I’ve never seen that purse before in my—”

Flynn picked it up and shoved it in her hands. “You
wouldn’t want to lose it. That’s the purse that contains the nest egg you inherited from your recently deceased cousin.”

Muir stared at him.

“Or perhaps it’s the sum you won in the lottery.”

‘But I never enter the lott—”

“I don’t care
how
you got it—you’re the one who has to convince your mistress. But five hundred pounds will get both of you to Italy in comfort and will support you for some time while you’re there, assuming the aunt doesn’t change her mind.”

“Five hundred p . . .” Muir fumbled with the fastening of the purse and peered inside. Her lips moved silently as she counted the notes bundled inside. She counted them twice then looked at him in stunned disbelief.

“But why would you—”

“I told you, I don’t want her misery on my conscience, and she’s too proud to accept any help from me. Do you think you could convince her?”

For a long time she didn’t respond. He couldn’t see her expression; she was staring down at the purse that she now clutched tightly to her bosom. Finally she said in a low voice, “You would trust me to use this money—for
her
? What would stop me from agreeing now and running off with it, leaving Lady Elizabeth to her fate? Five hundred pounds—it’s a fortune for the likes of me.”

“I know.” Flynn was well aware of the temptation. A lady’s maid might earn fifteen pounds in a year, and he was damned sure Lord Compton wouldn’t be paying Muir anywhere near that. “I’m gambling on what my instinct tells me.”

“And what does your instinct say about me?” she asked in a low voice.

“That you love your mistress and would do anything to help her.”

Her fingers tightened over the purse, and she sniffed, but it was quite a different kind of sniff. Flynn realized she was crying. He pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her.

“Thank you, sir, oh, thank you,” she whispered.

“No need to mention this to anyone,” he said gruffly. He hated it when women cried. “I don’t care what story you tell
your mistress, just get her out of the country and away from that pathetic excuse for a father.”

“I will sir, oh, I
promise
you, I will,” Muir vowed. “And thank you! A thousand times, thank y—”

“There’s Lady Beatrice’s carriage. Now put that purse somewhere safe and let us go and meet your mistress.” He stood up, relieved to be able to put an end to it.

“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”

—JANE AUSTEN,
EMMA

F
lynn attended a party the following night—the first one he’d attended where Lady Elizabeth wasn’t present. She’d cried off with a headache or some such thing, and he couldn’t say he wasn’t sorry not to have to see her here tonight.

He was starting his search for a wife all over again.

He leaned against a doorway and surveyed the throng of pretty damsels with a jaundiced eye. The whole Lady Elizabeth experience had made him more than a touch cynical.

One of these young ladies might one day become his wife.

The thought no longer delighted him quite the way it once had.

Polite society . . . He snorted. The politeness was about as thin as a layer of silk. Deception was more like it.

They smiled, they flirted, they welcomed, but it was his money they wanted, not Flynn. Him they would tolerate, or try to. Behind those smiles was often a layer of hidden contempt for his blunt ways, his battered hands, his history.

He’d always known that his fortune was what would make him acceptable, but now he was more aware of the
subtle arrogance of aristocratic superiority—bred in blood and bone, and he didn’t much like it.

Lord Compton had gambled away his fortune and was ready to sell his only child into virtual slavery so he could continue his hedonistic lifestyle unchecked, and yet he—and the rest of polite society—considered himself vastly superior to a man like Flynn.

Flynn used to think it would be a fine thing to get himself a fine, dainty, ladylike, highborn wife. A sign of everything he’d achieved. For a canny man he’d been damned naive.

It was like looking into a sweet shop and longing for a particular sweet that had caught your fancy. You couldn’t afford it, but it was all you dreamed off. You knew if you could only get it, it would taste sublime.

And so you worked and you saved, and you finally had the money. You stepped into the shop, and with pride laid your money down on the counter—and the sweet was yours. And when you bit into it, it tasted of . . . nothing.

The delicious appearance was all for show.

Once bitten twice shy. Serve him right for letting ambition blind him. He’d proved he could marry an earl’s daughter—and where had that got him?

He would choose more wisely next time.

He wasn’t interested in a girl who only wanted him for his money, he didn’t want someone who’d always think herself superior to him, simply because of her birth. And he sure as hell didn’t want a girl who’d marry him out of duty, and then have to
force
herself to the marriage bed.

What he wanted was . . .

Aye, that was the question. What
did
he want?

He thought of the sweet response that Daisy had given him, the intoxication of a simple kiss.

He looked around the room. Girls in white dresses swirled around the dance floor, women in low-cut gowns swished by, giving him sultry, come-hither looks.

There was nothing for him here.

He made his excuses to the hostess of the party and walked back to his lodgings. There was nothing for him
there either. He felt unaccountably lonely, which was ridiculous. He’d been alone most of his life and now here he was, in the most sophisticated city in the world, with society at his fingertips, and friends—good friends. He had no reason to feel lonely.

Maybe he should get himself a mistress.

He’d barely arrived home when there was a pounding on the door. It was almost midnight—strange time for a visitor. Flynn had given Tibbins the evening off, so he answered the door himself.

Lord Compton practically fell into the room. “She’s bolted! The filly’s bolted, dammit!”

“You’ve lost a horse?” Feigning ignorance, Flynn gave him a look of mild enquiry. “What do you imagine I can do about it?”

Lord Compton missed the sarcasm. “Not a horse, you fool. The little slut’s eloped! Heading for the border at this very moment with some dammed milksop I’ve never heard of—a Mr. Felix Something-or-other. Not a penny to his name, I’ll be bound.”

“Are you referring to Lady Elizabeth?” Flynn said coldly. A man ought to speak more respectfully of his own daughter.

“Of course I am—who else would it be?” Lord Compton stood glaring at Flynn, his fists clenching and unclenching. “Well, don’t just stand there, you fool! Go after them!”

“I don’t think so.” He didn’t for a moment believe Lady Elizabeth had eloped with a man. Her maid, yes. And he doubted she was on the way to Scotland, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Dammit, did you not understand me, man—she’s bolted. Left you standing high and dry. Made a complete fool of us both! Little bitch left me a note—see?” He waved a piece of paper at Flynn.

Flynn took it and retreated into the sitting room to read it in the better light there. Lord Compton followed. “Cunning little cow expected me home tomorrow evening but I came home early. Cards not running my way.”

Flynn read the note and hid a smile. Lady Elizabeth, according to the note, had eloped supposedly to Gretna with
a Mr. Felix Rome.
Felix
meaning happiness; it wasn’t hard to guess the significance of
Rome
.

“Brandy, Lord Compton?” Flynn handed the letter back to Lord Compton who tossed it impatiently aside. It floated to the floor.

“No, I don’t want a blasted brandy! Are you going to let her get away?”

Flynn shrugged. “She’s made her choice.”

“No, blast you, she has not! According to the servants, she only left a few hours ago, so we can still catch her. I’ll drag her back and get her to the altar as planned.”

Flynn arched a brow. “Against her will?”

“The gel doesn’t know what’s good for her.”

“No, she doesn’t know what’s good for
you
,” Flynn said with delicate emphasis.

Compton ignored him. “The fellow she’s bolted with must have tricked her. Wants her for her fortune, I’ll be bound.”

Flynn raised his eyebrow. “In for a disappointment then, isn’t he?”

Lord Compton flushed. “I’ll catch her, stop this nonsense. Get a special license and you can marry her out of hand. A good bedding will soon tame her.” The man was vile.

“I’m not going to marry your daughter. Understand me?
Not.
”

Lord Compton’s jaw dropped. “But you have to. I’ve got debts, man! Bailiffs only holding off bec—” He broke off, realizing it was not the most tactful approach, and tried another tack. In a coaxing voice, he said, “Flynn, you’re a good fellow. You’ve got to help me. I can’t have my little gel ruinin’ herself with some damned unknown. My curricle’s downstairs, we can make the Great North Road in no time.”

“No.”

“Dammit, then I’ll fetch her myself.” Compton headed for the front door. “Flensbury will still have her. He won’t mind damaged goods.”

He was worse than vile. Flynn opened a door. “This way, Lord Compton.”

Compton started through it, then stopped. “What the—”

Flynn gave him a shove, slammed the door and locked it.

The earl hammered on the door, yelling and swearing.

Flynn returned to the sitting room and finished his brandy. An excellent drop. He picked up Lady Elizabeth’s note and smiled as he dropped it in the fire. Rome, eh? Good for her. But he didn’t want her father out there searching for her. He might learn that she wasn’t headed for Scotland after all.

The least Flynn could do was give the girl a good head start.

The front door opened and his valet, Tibbins, entered, saying, “Good evening, sir. How was your—” He broke off, staring at the closet door from which sporadic furious pounding and a stream of abuse was coming. He glanced at Flynn. “Sir, there appears to be someone in . . .” He indicated the closet.

“Yes, I know,” Flynn said. “Pack me an overnight bag, will you?”

“But, sir, what on earth is going on?”

“I’m spending the night at a hotel.”

“But . . .” Tibbins indicated the commotion coming from the closet.

“Exactly,” Flynn said. “I won’t get a wink of sleep with that racket.”

“But who
is
it, sir? He’s roaring like a wild beast.”

“Close enough. It’s a wild earl.” He grinned at his valet’s expression. “A furious, frustrated and desperately enraged earl.”

“An
earl
?” Tibbins’ eyes almost popped. “But shouldn’t I—?” He tentatively pointed towards the closet.

Flynn put out an arm. “Not on your life! I’ll be off as soon as you can get my bag packed. You can stay the night here or elsewhere, as you wish, but you will not release him until eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Understood, Tibbins?”

Tibbins cast a miserable eye at the closet door and was rewarded by a volley of thumps and yells. “But sir, he’s an
earl
.”

“Yes, but a very nasty one. And up to his neck in debt,” he added, knowing Tibbins’s priorities.

Tibbins looked shocked. “In debt, you say?”

“Bailiffs on his doorstep, he told me so himself. He’s to
stay locked in there all night—at least until eight o’clock tomorrow morning, do you understand me?”

Tibbins swallowed. “Very good, sir.”

“And if I hear he’s been let out one minute sooner . . .”

Tibbins sighed. “You won’t, sir.”

Flynn gave his man a sovereign. “Good man. Now go and pack my bag—and one for yourself if you like. You won’t sleep with that racket going on. Grillons Hotel is reputed to be very comfortable. You can come with me.”

Tibbins glanced at the roaring rattling closet and made up his mind. “Very good, sir.”

*   *   *

D
aisy always looked forward to Lady Beatrice’s literary society days—she loved having stories read aloud to her. She could read well now, thanks to Abby and the girls teaching her, but she couldn’t sew and read at the same time, and by the time she fell into bed at night, she was too tired to read.

At the literary society she got to sew and listen to a story. And talk to people as well during the breaks. These days it was just about the only outside company she got.

Today though, she was feeling a bit . . . on edge, wondering whether Flynn would turn up or not. He often attended and usually it was a pleasure to see him.

Since that kiss, however, she felt stupidly self-conscious and awkward at the prospect of seeing him. Which was ridiculous, she told herself crossly. He was just Flynn, the same as ever he was.

She had no problem with fancying a man—it was only natural, after all—and she had to admit that she fancied the pants off Flynn. She had from the start.

And why shouldn’t she? He was a gorgeous chunk of manhood, handsome in that Irish way with thick black hair with a hint of curl, and bold blue eyes that knew how to flirt and how to laugh—a combination she’d always had a weakness for.

Her whole body tingled in remembrance. In different circumstances she might act on it, fancy his tight pants right
off him—and his shirt and smalls, too—but it wasn’t going to happen.

He was still courting Lady Elizabeth, and if he looked at Daisy in any way, it would be as a bit on the side. And she wasn’t going to be second best, not for anyone.

Not that the question would even come up. She was respectable now.

He probably wouldn’t even come today. Now that the Season had well and truly begun, there were plenty of other events to attract a man.

She gathered her things together. Lady Beatrice had decreed that it did not
do
to be seen sewing a hem or a seam or—heaven forbid—some kind of undergarment, so today Daisy was embroidering forget-me-nots on a pair of tiny puffed sleeves that would go on the latest dress she was making for Jane.

But she fiddled around, delaying her arrival—not thinking about Flynn—and by the time she arrived the room was more than half-filled and Daisy’s usual place—beside Lady Beatrice—was now taken by the bloke who was unofficially engaged to Jane—Lord Comb-it-up—and his aunt.

Daisy didn’t mind. She found another seat behind a couple of large ladies with enormous hats. As long as she could hear the girls reading she didn’t need to see them.

Abby, Damaris and Jane did the readings. The three girls were the big attraction—them and the good stories they chose. Abby read the best, Damaris was a close second, and while Jane was a bit stiff and wooden when she read—she didn’t do nearly the thrilling voices that Abby and Damaris did—she was the most beautiful. And still unmarried.

Daisy settled herself with her sewing basket at her feet and the sewing in her lap. She smiled and nodded, as various people greeted her. She knew most people here but made no move to circulate or join in any conversation. It was enough that she was here, accepted as belonging. Some days she wanted to pinch herself at the thought that she was on nodding and smiling terms—cool as you please—with half the toffs of England.

So she preferred to sit back and watch, looking at what the various ladies were wearing, and imagining how she’d dress them differently. It was always an improvement—in her mind, anyway.

Featherby rang a little bell to signal the start of the first reading and people hurried to be seated. Daisy waited for the reading to begin.

Still no sign of Flynn. He wasn’t coming, then. Good. That would make things easier.

A hush fell over the room, and Abby began to read aloud: “Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard’s school, and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history. She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young ladies who had been at school there with her.”

Daisy bent to her embroidery. She was enjoying this story.
Natural daughter
meant that like Daisy, this Harriet girl was someone’s bastard. The gentry set great store by legitimacy, and Daisy could see where this story was leading—Harriet would want what she couldn’t have and that would be her undoing. It always was.