How to Avoid the Marriage Mart Read online

  Charlotte’s mother’s answer to their financial problems had been to try to marry Alexander off to an American heiress. But all her plans had been thwarted when Alexander had married for love, not money, and chosen a penniless orphan for his bride. Charlotte smiled at the memory of how horrified her mother had been when that matchmaking plan had gone disastrously awry.

  But with Alexander married, Charlotte’s mother had been free to turn her full attention to finding a husband for her only daughter. She shuddered at the memory of her mother’s lists of eligible men. A bigger group of wastrels she was unlikely to ever meet. And she had put Nicholas at the top. That was appropriate. He was the biggest wastrel of all.

  Charlotte’s cheeks once again burst into fire as she remembered the embarrassing way she had all but thrown herself at him. She had wanted to prove herself to be free and progressive, and all she had done was prove herself to be a fool.

  When she had met Nicholas, her mind had been full of fantasies of living a bohemian lifestyle, just like Mademoiselle LeBlanc, her art tutor. Her mother had hired the flamboyant Frenchwoman to try to teach Charlotte to paint. She was about to have her debut and her mother saw her as sadly lacking in the skills a young lady was expected to possess. Mademoiselle had been a revelation, particularly as Charlotte was already starting to have her doubts about what Society expected of a young woman of her class.

  Mademoiselle had been so carefree and happy, a stark contrast to Charlotte’s mother and her miserable married friends, and the few months they had spent together had been full of fun and laughter. Instead of occupying their time talking about colour, form and painting techniques, Charlotte had bombarded her with questions about her lifestyle, and her time among the artistic circles of Paris. Charlotte had revelled in tales of women who had thrown off the strict rules of society, who had taken lovers just like men did, and cared nothing for what so-called respectable people thought of them.

  It had all sounded so romantic and liberating. She was dreading her first Season, where she would be expected to marry as quickly as possible and spend the rest of her life with a man her mother deemed suitable, but Mademoiselle had presented her with an alternative.

  Charlotte knew she did not want to be like her mother, forced into the horror of an unhappy marriage. She wanted to be like Mademoiselle LeBlanc, single, happy and free.

  When she had met Nicholas, he had seemed like the perfect candidate for her to launch her new bohemian lifestyle. She could take this handsome rake as her lover and live a wild, carefree existence.

  What a mistake that had been. Nicholas had destroyed all her romantic illusions. His rejection had left her shattered and seeing him again brought back the full force of her humiliation.

  This weekend, the Earl of Uglow would not be the only man she would be avoiding—not when every time she looked at Nicholas she was reminded of just what a fool she had made of herself.

  She rounded the corner and saw the Marquess’s library, the door wide open. No one else was likely to venture in there. She glanced back down the empty hallway, then entered the room and breathed in the comforting scent of leather from the books lining the walls.

  Charlotte suspected the Marquess, like many members of the aristocracy, had never read a book in his life. He had probably inherited all these books from some more learned forebear, when he took possession of this estate and his title. She pulled a book off the shelf and settled down in the comfortable leather chair in front of the large mahogany desk.

  Smiling to herself Charlotte began reading. Her mother was forever berating her for constantly having her nose stuck in a book, but this was how she enjoyed spending her time. Being surrounded by shelves full of books was infinitely preferable to being bored to death at a social gathering, surrounded by the idle rich and being forced to listen to the gossip and fripperies of the aristocracy. If only she could spend the rest of the weekend in this private sanctuary, this horrible shooting party might be almost tolerable.

  * * *

  Nicholas looked discreetly over his shoulder at the clock ticking on the mantelpiece. It was an antique, Georgian, he guessed, and he was sure time must have moved more slowly in the Georgian period, because the hands seemed to be ticking at a painfully slow pace. The card game didn’t start till eleven o’clock and it was still only ten. Could he endure another hour of these debutantes’ company? A set of redheaded twin sisters had joined the group and were gazing up at him with identical, imploring blue eyes. Now he was hemmed in against the mantelpiece by a circle of women, all laughing at everything he said as if he were the star act at the Gaiety Theatre, and the relentlessly flicking fans were now creating quite a breeze.

  He looked around the room for a means of escape and accidentally caught his mother’s eye. She was talking to yet another debutante. She smiled, took the debutante’s arm and began leading her across the room in Nicholas’s direction.

  Please, no, not another one.

  Despite the constant agitation of the air from the debutantes’ fans, the room was becoming increasingly stuffy. Nicholas pulled at his starched collar and took another look at the clock. He was sure the hands were now moving backwards.

  His mother introduced the latest debutante and then, smiling to herself, departed, presumably in pursuit of more debutantes to round up and add to the growing corral.

  If the entire weekend was going to be like this Nicholas was unsure how he would survive. The newest debutante started telling him a supposedly amusing story about the daughter of a duke who had run off to America with her footman. He could see the group of young women relishing their outrage over something so scandalous.

  Nicholas’s mind drifted off and he looked around the room. The Baron and the Dowager Duchess of Knightsbrook were still deep in conversation, but Charlotte had departed. Sensible woman. He had watched her leave, envying her ability to escape. Unlike him, she had the luxury of retiring early.

  While he was enduring this tedium, she was presumably relishing the pleasure of being alone, probably reading a good book. There was little chance of him achieving that state. As soon as the clock struck eleven, he would be ensconced in the card room until the small hours of the morning, with no chance of escape.

  Another yawn rose up inside him. Gambling—that, too, was becoming a bore. It no longer served its purpose of distracting him and relieving his growing sense of tedium. If it ever had. All it did was pass the endless hours, nothing more. Unlike his fellow gamblers, it did not give him a thrill to win money and he cared even less when he lost, although that rarely happened.

  While gamblers like the Marquess of Boswick grew more impassioned with every hand, win or lose, Nicholas could not get excited and reacted with the same level of languor no matter how the cards fell. His fellow gamblers thought he was exhibiting coolness under pressure, but that wasn’t the case. He just didn’t care. And, ironically, this lack of passion meant that he often won. He had taken excessively large amounts of money off the Marquess over the last few months and tonight Boswick was hoping to regain his losses. The Marquess could certainly afford to lose, but Nicholas knew that was not the point. Unlike Nicholas, he took losing personally and was desperate to prove himself the better card player, which in the Marquess’s mind also meant proving himself the better man. Nicholas was almost tempted to just let the man win and have done with it, but just as card players were adept at spotting a cheat, they could just as easily spot someone who was deliberately playing against form.

  He took another look at the clock. Only five minutes had passed since he last looked. In fifty minutes the gambling would begin. Fifty long minutes of this tedium, to be replaced by the tedium of the card table. The debutantes had moved on from discussing the scandal of the lady and the footman to talking about how it was typical of a servant and how none of them could be trusted.

  He had been polite for long enough. It was time to make his escape. He’d retire to the card room early, order a glass of brandy and spend some luxurious time in solitude before the other men joined him and the all-night session began.

  Making his apologies, he was met with a row of disappointed frowns, which he managed to assuage when he told them how much he was looking forward to seeing them tomorrow after the day’s shoot. It was a lie, but a small white lie, and the truth would only hurt their feelings.

  He nodded to the footman as he opened the door and, when the door closed behind him, for the first time since he had arrived at the Boswick estate he breathed easily. Striding down the hallway, he took the familiar route to the card room.

  He passed the open door of the library and something drew his attention. It was Charlotte. Sitting at the desk, a book in her hand.

  He should keep on walking. He should leave her to her solitude, but he didn’t. Instead he stood at the door, watching. It wouldn’t hurt to secretly observe her for just a few seconds, would it? After all, she was engrossed in her book and had no idea of his presence.

  He smiled to himself. It was so pleasant to see her looking so relaxed. In the drawing room she had looked so angry, petulant, strained. Now she just looked like her beautiful self. It was just as he remembered her, his stunning, outspoken, earnest Charlotte. A woman like no other he had ever met. She was one woman who would never be caught simpering and smiling or behaving coquettishly in order to attract a man’s attentions. But she had certainly caught his attention the first time they met and she had caught it again tonight. And one thing he could most definitely say about Charlotte, she was never boring.

  He turned away, still smiling to himself. He should move on. In the past she had made it perfectly clear to him just what she thought of him. She would not want to talk to him. After all, she saw him as nothing more than a rake, a man who lacked wit, intelligence or sparkling conversation. Despite that, he turned to take one last look at her before departing. Charlotte was staring back at him over the top of her book and she didn’t look happy to see him.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Hello, Charlotte,’ he said quietly, almost to himself. She lowered her book, her eyes still fixed on him, her look one of disapproval. He cursed himself. He should not have spoken. He should not have interrupted her. He should have merely nodded a greeting and moved on. The tension had returned to her face. She clutched her book tightly to her chest, but said nothing in response.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I was looking for the card room.’ He looked around the room as if expecting it to magically transform itself into the room he was searching for.

  ‘Well, this is a library.’ Her voice was terse, implying that he was unlikely to know what a library was. ‘I have no idea where the card room is.’

  He remained standing at the door. He should leave, spend some time alone before the gambling began. So why was he still standing at the library doorway? And if he wasn’t going to leave, he needed to say something rather than just staring at her like a tongue-tied idiot.

  But what do you say to a woman who saw you as little more than a dim-witted rake, whose only redeeming quality, if it could be called that, was his reputation in the bedroom?

  You don’t say anything. You just walk away. And that’s what you should do. Right now.

  The bustle of silk and satin behind him drew his attention from Charlotte to the hallway.

  ‘Have you seen Charlotte?’ the Dowager Duchess of Knightsbrook called to him from the end of the corridor. ‘She seems to have disappeared and the Earl of Uglow is desperate to meet her.’

  The Dowager was approaching at a rapid rate, her black satin gown billowing out around her, like a warship in full sail. The Dowager’s husband had died several years ago, but like Queen Victoria the Dowager had chosen to continue to wear widow’s weeds long past the requisite two years of mourning. It seemed strange that she had chosen to do so, because, unlike Queen Victoria, Nicholas doubted the Dowager’s decision to remain in black was due to ongoing grieving, considering what a reprobate the old Duke of Knightsbrook had been. Although from what his mother had said, since the old Duke’s death, the Dowager had almost elevated him to sainthood status, and now claimed that they had had an idyllic marriage. Why this should surprise him, Nicholas did not know. After all, the Dowager wasn’t the only person he knew of who was capable of deluding themselves that marriage and happiness went hand in hand.

  While the Dowager was occupied opening doors, Nicholas quickly glanced into the library. Charlotte’s expression was no longer tense. She now bore an uncanny resemblance to a cornered fox facing a pack of hounds.

  Nicholas turned back to the Dowager. ‘No, I’m sorry, Your Grace, I haven’t seen her. Perhaps she’s decided to retire early.’ He pointed towards the stairs at the end of the corridor. ‘You should check her bedroom. I’m certain that’s where you’ll find her.’

  ‘No, I’ve already looked in her room and she’s not there.’ The Dowager opened another door and peered in, then expressed her disappointment at not finding her daughter by shutting the door with a resounding slam.

  He took another swift glance into the library. Charlotte was rapidly flicking her hands in his direction, as if indicating that he should do something, anything, to stop the Dowager from finding her there. But apart from tackling the Dowager to the floor, he suspected there was little he could do to halt her relentless progress. Poor Charlotte was going to be caught and dragged back to be inspected by the Earl of Uglow, and he was going to be caught in a lie.

  Nicholas looked back at the Dowager. ‘Perhaps she’s already returned to the drawing room. I think you should go back there. That’s certain to be where she is.’

  But the Dowager kept coming, opening and closing doors, each one slammed firmly behind her as she made her way down the corridor. As discreetly as possible he closed the library door and leant against it, his body filling the frame.

  She arrived at the library, stood in front of him and sent him an imperious look. They held each other’s gaze for a moment and Nicholas knew he had lost. Charlotte was right. He was completely dim-witted. He was unable to think of a single reason why he would bar the Dowager’s entrance to the library. ‘Let me get the door for you,’ he all but shouted so Charlotte could prepare herself as best she could for her inevitable discovery.

  The Dowager huffed her annoyance at his delay and continued to frown at him as he fumbled with the doorknob.

  He opened the door slowly and reluctantly stepped aside.

  The Dowager leant forward and peered inside. ‘Hmm, the library, that would be the most likely place for her to be, but she’s not here. Perhaps you’re right and she has gone back to the drawing room.’

  Nicholas looked over the top of the Dowager’s head at the now empty library. Charlotte was nowhere to be seen.

  Giving one more irritated hmmph, the Dowager turned, then looked up at Nicholas as if seeing him for the first time and smiled. ‘Nicholas, it’s so good to see you again. Or should I call you Your Grace now that you’re the Duke of Kingsford?’ She bobbed a small curtsy. He returned her greeting with a formal bow, then shook his head. ‘To you, Duchess, I will always be Nicholas.’

  She sent him a smile that would be called coquettish if it came from a younger woman and Nicholas inwardly groaned. There had been a time when the Dowager had hardly spoken to him, unless it was to order him about. But now that he was a duke, she was suddenly acting in a deferential manner. He should be getting used to this change in the way people spoke to him and behaved in his presence, but he wasn’t.

  ‘That’s so gracious of you, Your Grace... I mean, Nicholas.’ The Dowager tapped him lightly on his arm with her fan and gave a small laugh. ‘Charlotte and I were only a few minutes ago discussing you and wondering about your time on the Continent. I know Charlotte is anxious to hear all about it. I’m sure she’ll find everything you can tell her about your adventures absolutely fascinating. Perhaps you’d like to visit Knightsbrook some time soon so you can enthral us with all your tales of travel.’

  Nicholas heard a low groan emerge from behind the curtains, which he covered with a loud cough. He tapped his chest with his fist. ‘Excuse me, Duchess, I believe I might be coming down with a slight cold.’

  ‘Oh, that is unfortunate. You must talk to Charlotte about that. She’s such a compassionate young lady. Whoever marries her will be so fortunate to have such a caring, tender wife. Plus, she’s not just caring. She’s also talented and accomplished as well. Do you know she speaks four languages fluently, is a wonderful piano player, has a beautiful singing voice, creates exquisite pieces of embroidery and her watercolours are much admired?’

  Nicholas coughed again to cover the even louder groan.

  ‘No, I didn’t know any of that. And, yes, I promise you I will make some time to talk to Charlotte this weekend. But as she’s obviously not in the library, perhaps you had better find her first.’

  The Dowager took another look around the library, frowned, then smiled up at Nicholas. ‘I’ll tell her you’re anxious to talk to her. Perhaps I’ll have a word with the Marquess and make sure she’s seated next to you at tomorrow night’s dinner. Charlotte is much sought after as a dinner companion because she’s such a wonderful conversationalist, as I’m sure you know, but don’t worry, I’ll be able to pull some strings to ensure you’re seated together.’