The True Love Wedding Dress (10 page)

“Impossible.”

“Gerald is a wealthy young man by most standards. If you are worried about losing the money, I am prepared to—”

Katie would have thrown something at Forde, except the nearest thing to hand was the wedding gown. She was more determined than ever that Susannah would wear it, and on schedule. Instead she threw him a look of such disdain that Forde’s spine—and lower attachments—should have shriveled.

“Delay the wedding in a quiet, convenient manner? How, I ask, am I supposed to do that, you featherheaded fool? Even if Susannah were willing, which, I assure you, she is not, it would be impossible, my lord.”

“Anything is possible.”

“No, my lord, not at any price, not with your sister-in-law and her daughters arriving for the happy occasion. Tomorrow.”

T
anyon Wellforde, Viscount Forde, was a gentleman born and bred. The tenets of honor and duty were the building blocks of his very essence. A gentleman did not lie or cheat or steal. He defended the weak and protected those who were dependent on him. He kept his house, his assets, and his family safe and without scandal.

So what did he do now?

He could not let Gerald live a lie, marrying a woman whose very name was a fabrication. The truth was bound to come out sometime, when the first rush of infatuation was faded. Then the young man would have a lifetime of regret ahead of him. Nor could Forde betray a woman who had given up her way of life to protect that lie and her own family. Besides, he liked Mrs. Katie Cole.

He had to respect what she had done, with courage, by all accounts, raising chickens and a baby when she ought to have been raising her fan to call a beau to her side at some ball or other. Few other pampered daughters of the polite world could have done as much with so little, all on her own. No other fallen woman would have sold her musical skills and her eggs instead of her body, her lush and lovely womanly body.

He also admired the fact that she had not lost her spirit when she lost her family, wealth, and prospects. Every inch an earl’s daughter, she would not bow down to the demands of a mere viscount, even though he could rend apart her world the way she cracked one of her eggs. She had bottom, did Katie Cole, and a nice one it was, too. Her top was not bad, either, Forde reflected over a glass of cognac back at the inn. He liked her ample breasts and the way they filled her gown, the way they would fill a man’s hands when he—

He wouldn’t. But he’d have one hell of hard time sleeping tonight while he tried to decide what to do about the wedding.

He was still trying to decide when his sister-in-law arrived at the inn the next day.

She commandeered the second-best suite of rooms, which were reserved for Gerald, which meant Gerald would be sharing Forde’s chambers. Then she demanded the viscount’s presence in her private parlor, where maids and footmen were busy carrying in bags and trunks, jewel cases and hatboxes, enough for a small army, much less one woman and two daughters. Before he could greet her—actually, he was going to ask after Gerald, so he could wring the young man’s neck—she began shouting at him from the chaise longue where she reclined, one hand on her dog, the other clutching a vinaigrette.

“My stars, Forde, what kind of uncaring uncle are you? I thought you were going to do something about this awful idea of Gerald’s. You must! He cannot be permitted to marry into that family. Why, the woman is—”

“She told you, then?”

“She told me to leave, and in the rudest way possible.”

“Mrs. Cole?” Forde could not imagine the widow being so impolite to a stranger, and her daughter’s future mother-in-law at that. She had been rude to him, but he deserved it. “She was happily preparing for your arrival when I saw her last.” Actually, she was holding that blasted dress to her bosom when he left. She was furious and frightened, and he wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and tell her everything would be fine. But everything would not be all rosy and romantic, because the world was the way it was, cruel and unforgiving. That was unfortunate, but not likely to change, especially if she had insulted Agnes at the first meeting. He did his best to smooth those waters. “You did arrive a week early, you know.”

“That is as may be, but she said she had no room for my dresser, the girls’ maid, and the governess. Or time for anyone’s megrims.” She sniffed. “As if I were wont to suffer the vapors. All I requested was a cup of tea, some lavender water for my brow, perhaps a posset, and a bit of steak for Ruffles. She claimed my darling barked at her chickens so they would not lay, then she said she had no time, not with a sick child in the house.”

Forde stopped his pacing around the parlor. “What, has one of the girls taken ill? And you left her for Mrs. Cole to tend?”

“My daughters are fine, and in their own chambers here at this tawdry inn, resting. There is nothing niminy-piminy about them, I’ll have you know.”

On the contrary, Forde recalled his nieces whining and wailing at each minor scrape or sniffle. “Did Miss Cole contract a fever, then? She was in perfect health yesterday.”

“If you must know, it is Crispin, your son.”

Forde almost snatched the vinaigrette out of Agnes’s plump hand. “My son is ailing? And you waited until now to tell me? And . . . Crispin is here, not at his school?” Forde was already halfway out of the door and calling for a horse.

“Oh, sit down, do. Gerald’s dilemma is far more serious. Crispin is not about to stick his spoon in the wall. He was begging to be permitted to feed the chickens when we left. That woman keeps chickens, Forde. Did you know that?”

“Yes, and goats, too. Piglets in the spring. What is wrong with my son, dash it?”

“Oh, a piddly measles outbreak at his school, if you must know. The headmaster wrote to inform you, but you were gone, weren’t you? I could not leave the poor boy at that dreadful place, could I?”

“Instead you dragged him halfway across England? You put a sick child in a carriage and drove for days to get here, where I doubt there is a competent physician in miles?”

“Pish tosh. I told you, he is not ill. Besides, my girls both had the measles and did not require anything but an apothecary.”

And the services of a nanny, two nursemaids, and a score of other servants.

“Furthermore, Crispin did not ride in the carriage, not past the first change, that is. He is a poor traveler, don’t you know. I had forgotten. Gerald took him up with him on his horse, or had him sit by the driver. He rode with the servants in the baggage cart the rest of the time.”

“Great gods, ma’am, if he was not ailing before, he would be now.”

“Nonsense. He begged to be given the reins.”

Forde looked long and hard at the woman his brother had wed, wondering if she could be evil enough to wish Crispin ill so that her own son would be next in line to the viscountcy. Deuce take it, he was suspecting everyone’s motives these days. No, Agnes was lazy, not malicious.

She seemed to shrink under his glare. “Crispin wished to see his cousin Gerald married, and he looked so small and lonely, with half the school in hospital. And I could not recall if he had the measles before. My girls did, or I would not have exposed them, naturally. That Cole woman took it into her head that he had to stay at her poor excuse for a cottage, rather than here with you at the inn, which had been my intention. She said that if the boy is not sick himself, he might carry the disease to the village children.”

“And she was right. But if he did come down with the contagion, who did you think was going to nurse him. You?”

“Me? You know my nerves are too delicate for that. Why, I had to take the waters at Bath when my poor girls came down with the disease at the same time. So disfiguring, don’t you know. And Nanny took another position when poor Crispin was sent to school, so she was not available to look after him. I supposed your valet could play nursemaid.”

They had had the same argument for two years now, about sending Crispin to school. “
Poor
Crispin adores his school and his friends there, where he would have received adequate medical care. Damn, now Mrs. Cole has to take care of my son as well as prepare for the wedding.” And now he was in her debt.

“I thought we decided that you were going to stop that nonsense about my son marrying a nobody. That was why you came here. And why I came early, to make certain you did.”

“I came to look into the matter, that was all. After weighing the facts I have decided . . .”

“Yes?”

“To speak with Gerald. If he is old enough to marry, he is old enough to make his own decisions.”

The dog yelped at being squeezed so hard and jumped down off the chaise, growling at Forde. Agnes did, too. “What? Gerald is a mere child! His bride is a dowd.”

“You mean she is so pretty she will put your daughters in the shade.”

“Bosh. Her looks are nothing out of the ordinary. Another blue-eyed blond chit, that is all. Short and thin as a rail, to boot.” Agnes’s own daughters were in her younger image: ginger-haired and plump. “She is nothing, I say, a nobody. They are poor, Forde. Why, they do not have room for servants, even if they could afford them.”

“That is not a crime, not that I know of.”

“It is not fitting for a Wellforde.”

Agnes was not born a Wellforde, and the viscount resented her setting herself up as the family’s arbiter. “Did you get a chance to speak with Miss Cole? I found her charming and well mannered, besides a comely lass.”

“Hmph. How could she be well mannered, coming from such a creature as that Cole woman?”

Agnes did not know the half of it.

“If Mrs. Cole was rude,” Forde said, “I can only assume it was out of worry for Crispin. And her house truly is small, adequate enough for two women and a guest or two, I’d suppose, but that is all. She undoubtedly felt you would be better served at the inn.”

Agnes wrinkled her nose, looking more like the Pekingese than ever. “I can see she has won you over.”

“No such thing,” Forde insisted.

Agnes ignored his disclaimer. “I must say I am disappointed. I was certain a man of your experience and intelligence would have seen through her mock ladylike manner. I thought you would have convinced her to withdraw her daughter from the engagement the day you arrived.”

The day he arrived he was flat in the mud. He had not fared much better with Mrs. Cole since, either. “How was I to do that, Agnes?”

“How should I know? You manage to intimidate everyone else.”

“I do? Then why are you—? That is, Mrs. Cole is not easily swayed.”

“Then you could have bought her off or seduced her.”

He had tried both, unsuccessfully. “Mrs. Cole is not the mercenary adventuress you take her for. Nor is she open to a gentleman’s advances.”

“Aha! You did try, then.”

“I assure you, I am not in the habit of forcing myself upon virtuous ladies.”

“Which means she turned you down. The woman is a fool, besides being a pauper. The daughter must have feathers for brains, too. Or else they are looking toward Gerald to pull them out of poverty.”

“I do believe Miss Cole is sincerely attached to the lad.”

“You see, you do consider Gerald a boy!”

“That was a figure of speech only. He is man enough to choose his own bride. I did not, and that was a mistake.”

“A mistake? Your wife brought you a fortune and gave you a son. That was no mistake. Miss Cole is. You must talk to Gerald tonight. Make him see reason, not merely her big blue eyes. With the last banns not yet called he can cry off gracefully. No one in London needs to know the particulars.”

“Miss Cole lives here. She would be shamed if her groom decamped a week before the wedding.”

“You care more about that woman’s daughter than your own nephew?”

“Right now I care about my son. Good day, Agnes.”

 

First he checked the boy for spots, then for fever. Then he picked him up and hugged him close, even though Crispin felt he was too old for that. Forde could have lost his boy, though, and needed to hold him tight.

“I am fine, Father. I already had the measles, remember?”

Forde did not, and was embarrassed. “Of course I remember,” he lied—it was against his principles, but so was letting his son think he was a care-for-naught—“but you might have suffered on the journey.”

“Oh, no, I do not get the carriage sickness anymore. I did not want to sit with Aunt Agnes and the girls, though. All they talked about was bonnets and beaux. Jem Coachman says I will make as good a whip as you when I get bigger.”

“I am sure you will, but you should not have worried your aunt, or Mrs. Cole.”

“Oh, Mrs. Cole is great guns. She knew I wasn’t sick, but she said she’d rather have me as a guest than my aunt. Promise you won’t tell Aunt Agnes, though? I swore I wouldn’t peach on Susannah’s mother.”

“Then you mustn’t. And I would not think of telling.”

“She says I can feed the chickens tomorrow, and she will show me how to gather the eggs.”

The future Viscount Forde mucking in a henhouse? The current viscount almost scooped the boy up again, to get him out of such common surroundings. But Crispin looked happier than he’d seen him in ages, babbling about the goats, and how there was a stream next door at the squire’s, and could they go fishing there? Gerald’s friend Doddsworth had two younger brothers, and they went all the time with their father.

Forde had never been fishing with his son. The boy spent summers in the country with his grandparents, his mother’s family.

“I’ll ask Squire Doddsworth, shall I?”

“Mrs. Cole said she would. He is coming to supper tonight, but Aunt Agnes insisted I am to have my meal on a tray upstairs. Mrs. Cole asked the cook to make strawberry tarts ’cause they are my favorites.”