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Authors: Desperately Seeking a Duke

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Sophie rushed into the bedchamber, her usually pale face flushed with excitement. “He’s here! The Marquis of Brookhaven is here!”

Phoebe grinned at her cousin from where she stood before the vanity, perfectly dressed and ready to take a first drive with her fiancé.

Her own pulse was jumping with excitement at seeing him again. Everything, absolutely everything, was more perfect than she’d ever imagined it could be. The vicar was on his way back to London, but he had sent a note ahead approving the match. It had contained one line that she’d never thought to hear from him again.
“You’ve done our family name proud, my dear.”

Now, she smoothed the front of her walking gown and neatened the lapels of her sky-blue spencer, chosen just to accent her eyes. She smiled. Somehow she’d managed to please everyone, be respectable, and still find a man who made her blood sing. “I think I have finally settled matters to my satisfaction,” she told Sophie serenely.

“Well, I do wish you’d share your secret!”

Phoebe turned to look at her cousin. Even Sophie seemed surprised at her own tart tone. “Sophie, do not resent my good fortune. You will find a husband here in town, I know you will.”

Sophie ducked her head and slanted her shoulders. It made her look like a cringing giraffe. “I don’t want a husband. I only came to London for the museums and galleries.”

Phoebe went up on tiptoe and gave her cousin a quick kiss on the cheek. “Then go to the Royal Academy today. Ignore Tessa and simply go. What can she do—send you back to Dartmoor? She needs your portion to pay for this house.”

Sophie blinked and a small smile warmed her lips. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

Phoebe twirled away from her, letting her gown bell out around her ankles. “I would not have met Marbr—the Marquis if I had not defied Tessa, you know. Perhaps it is an unworthy thought, but sometimes I wonder if perhaps she isn’t trying to—” She shrugged, letting the words go unsaid. Although they were in direct competition against Deirdre, surely their own aunt would not act against them … would she?

Apparently, Sophie had much the same thought. “Sometimes I wonder that as well.” She looked down at herself. “I don’t think I’m going to let her choose any more of my gowns.”

Phoebe waved gaily at her as she danced down the stairs. “That’s the spirit. I shall tell you absolutely everything when I return!”

Well, perhaps
almost
everything!

Phoebe paused in her headlong trot down the stairs. The gentleman standing—nay, looming!—in the entrance hall was tall, handsome, and oddly familiar, though she was sure she’d never laid eyes upon him before. He was also in her way.

“Pardon me,” she said as she walked past him on the way to the parlor.

He turned to watch her as she went. She could feel his eyes on her when she rushed to the parlor to see Marbrook.

There was no one in the parlor. Would Tessa’s rather sullen manservant have put him in the drawing room?

No Marbrook in the drawing room.

The man in the hall was still watching her as she searched. Nosy prat. Finally, irritated with Marbrook’s disappointing invisibility and this odd intruder’s persistent interest, Phoebe turned to the fellow with her fists on her hips.

“Is there something on my dress?” she demanded.

He blinked. “I—what?”

She turned, swishing her skirts about for his view. “Are you sure? Not a streak of soot, perhaps, or the unfortunate leavings of the dairyman’s cob?”

He straightened and scowled. “Are you a little bit mad, perchance?”

She folded my arms and scowled right back. “Well, I thought there must be something wrong, the way you stared.” Tessa would die if she heard her, but what did she care? She was affianced to Marbrook, and likely he would only laugh if he knew.

I think I love you, Marbrook.

The man—what was it about him that was so familiar? He had an astringent twist to his lips that made her think of the vicar’s face when he was thinking about the incident. So, despite the fact that this fellow was very good-looking, Phoebe didn’t like him much at all.

“Miss Millbury,” he began.

She swallowed, for he had mastered the vicar’s disapproving tone as well.

But what need she care for the disapproval of a stranger? She lifted her chin and thanked the Fates for giving her Marbrook. It was only too bad they had to wait for the reading of the banns, for she would marry him within the hour if she could. “Yes?”

He narrowed his eyes at her tone. “Miss Millbury, perhaps
I ought to inform you that I am not in the habit of suffering such insolence from … well, from anyone, actually.”

Phoebe nodded. “That explains your sour expression. What explains your rudeness in my aunt’s house?”

He blinked, opened his mouth to speak—then closed it.

Phoebe shook off her twitching impatience and began to move past him. If Marbrook wasn’t here, she was going to put crickets in Sophie’s bed for this prank.

A large hand wrapped itself about her arm. Shock went through her at such outrageous insult. “Sir! Unhand me at once, or I will forced to report this misconduct to my fiancé!”

He gazed down into her face, his brow clearing as if he’d only just realized something. “Ah.” He released her, although not without a lingering touch that made her think he rather liked her.

He stepped back and a slight, rather creaky smile crossed his lips. “Miss Millbury, we seem to be laboring under a misunderstanding.”

She raised a brow. “I understand that my fiancé is within his rights to slap his glove across your face.”

The smile didn’t fade. He bowed. “Miss Millbury, Lord Calder Marbrook, Marquis of Brookhaven, at your service.”

Wrong. Very, very wrong.

“Ah—” She cleared her tightened throat, forcing a normal tone. Something bad was nipping at her belly, sending darts of fear through her. She’d done something wrong and she was very much afraid she knew what it was.

The fellow bowed, then raised his gaze to meet Phoebe’s shocked one. “My dear, I
am
your fiancé.”

Chapter Seven

The Marquis of Brookhaven stared at her for a long moment, then blinked. “Forgive me. What did you say?”

Phoebe froze. She’d said “bugger” right out loud, like a common street urchin, except even a street urchin would refrain from saying it directly to a lord’s face!

“Sugar!” Which was meaningless, but she pasted on a winning smile. “I’m supposed to ask Cook to buy more sugar! If you’ll excuse me for a moment?”

With the insane smile still on her face, she turned woodenly and walked away from him. She went through the first door she came to and shut it behind her. With a thump, she let herself go limp against the wood, disregarding the latch pressing into the small of her back.

“Oh, damn, blast,
bugger
!”

What could she do? Explain to the marquis that she’d meant to accept another man? That would likely go down well. Of course, he’d want to know who, and she could hardly turn around and marry his brother without him noticing!

There was no help for it. She couldn’t leave him standing in the hall much longer. She must simply tell him, now, before this went any further. Taking a deep breath, she pasted on a polite vicar’s-daughter smile and left the room.

He was right where she left him, in the same position
with the same, vaguely impatient expression on his face, like a toy soldier abandoned after play.

Wild giggles threatened to bubble up. Phoebe suppressed them with difficulty, for the situation was heartbreakingly ridiculous and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As she approached her fiancé, she eyed the powerful and wealthy Marquis of Brookhaven, most emphatically
not
the man she knew as “Marbrook,” and tried frantically to think of some way to explain her hideous—although completely understandable if a person stopped to think about it—mistake.

Then someone rapped the front knocker in a peculiar, five-point manner—a habit that Phoebe was very familiar with.

Oh, God, no.
The vicar.

That was all it took. The strength left her knees and her belly went icy with old fears. The new woman was gone. Only the old Phoebe remained to face what the new Phoebe had mistakenly wrought.

She must have breathed the name aloud, for Brookhaven brightened. “Ah, excellent. Your father and I have much to discuss and this shall save time.” He granted Phoebe an approving nod. “Most efficient of you to arrange it.”

Most efficient of her to arrange her most embarrassing admission to simultaneously humiliate herself in front of both Brookhaven and her father?

“Yes, well, I do have a knack,” she said breathlessly, scrambling panic rising within her. She was definitely going to cry—or worse, laugh in a fit of unstoppable hysteria. She could hide, but that wouldn’t work for long.

And there was Marbrook. What would he think of her when he learned of this?

Despite her panic, the thought of Marbrook soothed her somewhat. Marbrook would understand, once she explained
things to him. He might even be able to think of some way out of this mess!

She cleared her throat, trying to think quickly before the vicar made it past the butler. “My lord, tell me—” Quickly! “Your brother, Lord Marbrook—” Was that correct? She scarcely knew, although Brookhaven only gazed at her attentively, so it must be. “When will you be informing him of our … ah, match?”

“Oh, Rafe already knows,” Brookhaven said. “As a matter of fact, it was his idea. He thought you and I might suit.”

Rafe? Was that his given name? How manly—

His idea?

No, that could not be right. “Lord Marbrook? Are you sure? Is he about your height and coloring, with similar—” Similar everything and of course it was the same Lord Marbrook.

Pain lanced through Phoebe’s heart, laying it open in such a way that she suspected it would never heal. His idea.

Marbrook had met her, talked to her, taken her into the dark garden and proceeded to make her fall entirely in love with him—had almost-not-quite kissed her!—then had suggested his brother marry her? Like some sort of—of—
agent
?

She’d been an idiot again, when she’d promised the vicar—and herself!—so fervently that she wouldn’t be.

Her chest ached as if she hadn’t breathed in far too long and a sort of strange clarity came over her vision.

Then the vicar was there, engulfing her in an awkward but enthusiastic hug. That bizarre occurrence alone was enough to snap her from her strange sinking moment, but then he kissed her forehead and said the words she had longed to hear all her life.

“You’ve done marvelously well, my dear. I’m very proud of you.”

Words she’d never hear again if she broke this engagement.

It was so clear. If she spoke up at this moment and announced her mistake, there would be no more awkward hugs, no more pithy approval. She would instantly go back to being the vicar’s wayward daughter, who must be watched like a thief lest she backslide into her old ways.

Old pain swirled with new pain and Phoebe buried her face in the vicar’s weskit as she’d not been permitted to do in so many years. He seemed somehow less in her embrace—more worn and thin.

Frail
. What a strange word to describe her tall powerful father.

She squeezed her eyes shut, picturing the man she’d seen for so long, even as he’d begun to disappear into the man now before her. The vicar had always been angular and just a bit looming … but now he only seemed somehow breakable.

The shock of white hair, the emphatically bushy brows that added weight to the sharpness of his icy blue gaze … still there, yet thinner, less vigorous.

Age had an end. She would never have believed that there might be an end to the vicar … until now. The pain and loss of years welled up within her. So much wasted time …

It doesn’t have to be that way anymore.

The weight of responsibility settled upon her with concrete permanence. With so few years left, could she deny them both this chance to make them good years? The sensible thing to do would be … to take what she’d been offered and be glad of it.

The tears came then, quiet hot ones that leaked from her eyes despite her best effort at control. “Oh, Papa …”

Astoundingly, the vicar merely put his arms about her and patted her rather too firmly on the back. “There, there, my
dear. I suppose a bride is entitled to a bit of an exhibition, as long as she keeps it among family, eh, Brookhaven?”

Brookhaven cleared his throat. “Might I assume there won’t be many such occasions?”

The vicar chuckled crustily. “Oh, no need to worry about that. My Phoebe is a most sensible young lady.”

My Phoebe. My dear.
Words she’d ached for.

She had inadvertently made her father’s dreams come true.

What of your own?

Despair and loss mingled with the desire for more of the vicar’s rare approval. Phoebe inhaled deeply of the vicar’s tobacco-scented weskit, then straightened, dabbing at her eyes with her demure-vicar’s-daughter smile upon her face. “Pray, pardon my excess, my lord, Papa. I am quite all right now.”

And she was.

No you’re not. This is not how it is supposed to be and you know it.

Yes, she was. She was engaged to a fine, handsome, wealthy man who just might make her one of the richest women in London—and she was basking in the vicar’s unqualified approval for perhaps the first time in her life.

What wasn’t fine about that?

Something inside her gave a last despairing wail, and then finally, thankfully, shut up.

BOOK: Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01]

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