Louise Allen - The Shocking Lord Standon

‘What? Lord, I beg your pardon, Jessica, you felt so right there I quite—’ He broke off, shaking his head as though surprised at his own words and opened his arms. Jessica slid off his lap and returned to her own place, her cheeks glowing.

‘My lord…’ She pulled her robe into some sort of order and pushed her hair back over her shoulders. This was a madhouse and she needed to extricate herself from it and go and interview employment agencies before she became any more embroiled.

‘Gareth. I think we have gone beyond the use of titles, do you not?’

Gareth . It suited him, a solid, warm name. But she could hardly imagine herself using it, except in her head.

‘You see, don’t you, Gareth?’ Maude continued. ‘Papa finds you in the torrid embraces of a scarlet woman, and still persists in saying we should marry. What on earth do you have to do to make him realise we are not suited?’

‘Perhaps Lord Standon could marry someone else?’ Jessica suggested. She suppressed the turmoil the last few minutes had thrown her into and tried to apply some logic to the situation. Someone had to. ‘It seems the commonsense solution.’

‘So it is, if there was anyone I wished to marry.’ Gareth grimaced, pouring more coffee. ‘I’d sooner marry Maude than some female I don’t like.’

‘Then why?’ Jessica persisted, determined to make sense of it all. Her food was lukewarm. She pushed the plate to one side and started on the bread and butter and honey. ‘Why is Lord Pangbourne so insistent and why, when you obviously both like each other very much, don’t you do what he wants?’

Maude and Gareth exchanged looks, then he shrugged and gestured for her to start. ‘Once upon a time,’ she began, her voice taking on the singsong tone of the storyteller with a much-told tale, ‘Gareth’s uncle fell in love with my aunt. Our families’ lands march together and it was true love and a marvellous romance. He was the son of the duke, she was a great beauty. Everyone was thrilled, but on the eve of the wedding they were killed in a carriage accident. Both families were plunged into deepest mourning and our fathers vowed that when we grew up—I had just been born—we would marry and recreate the legendary love match.’

Jessica’s thoughts—that this was a piece of sentimental nonsense—must have shown, despite her careful lack of comment, for Gareth grinned. ‘It was not such a foolish piece of romance as you might assume. As we grew up it became obvious that because of her poor mother’s continuous ill health Maude was going to remain an only child—and there we were, presenting the perfect alliance to unite two great estates.’

‘Our fathers exchanged letters formally agreeing to the betrothal,’ Maude picked up the story. ‘And here we are.’

‘But you are not legally bound?’

‘No, this is not the Middle Ages, thank goodness, but Papa controls my money until I am thirty or I marry with his consent. And he has made sure everyone believes us to be betrothed.’

‘Then why don’t you do as he asks?’ Jessica persisted. ‘You can hardly object to Lord Standon, surely?’

‘Thank you Jessica,’ he said gravely.

‘I meant,’ she said repressively, kicking herself under the table for thinking aloud, ‘you are apparently highly eligible and you like each other.’

‘They made the mistake of bringing us up like brother and sister—we simply can’t think of each other except as that. And I know perfectly well that somewhere, out there, is the man I am going to fall in love with,’ Maude said flatly. ‘And I do not want to be married to someone else when we meet. Doomed love and broken hearts may be all very well in novels, but I have no intention of subjecting myself to such discomfort.’ She attacked an apple with a pearl-handled knife and a fierce expression. ‘But I will never get to know any men to fall in love with because no one will do more than make polite conversation because they are all scared of Gareth.’

‘He is rather formidable,’ Jessica agreed, eyeing his lordship’s brooding figure at the head of the table.

‘Thank you,’ he said again, politely. ‘We are agreed that I am eligible and formidable and that Maude cannot be sacrificed upon the altar of matrimony other than to a man she truly loves. You will also have observed that her father is a thick-skinned old termagant who won’t take no for an answer. You are a young lady whose common sense is her stock in trade—what do you suggest?’

Jessica pondered the problem, her abstracted gaze fixed on the rather attractive whorl of Gareth’s left ear where the crisp brown curl of his hair set the defined shape into sharp relief. She knew exactly what the skin there smelled like.

‘Um… You could pretend to become betrothed to someone else. Lord Pangbourne would admit defeat then, surely? But that means you need to find a complacent lady who would not mind such a charade, and you risk finding yourself permanently attached if she proves unscrupulous. Or you could do what Lady Maude suggested and embark upon a course of debauchery so public that even Lord Pangbourne will be forced to admit that he cannot marry his daughter to you. After all, he has just surprised you apparently making love amidst the marmalade.’

Maude suppressed an unladylike snort. Jessica contemplated another slice of bread and honey, decided that she was eating merely to keep her mind distracted from Gareth’s proximity and sucked the tips of her sticky fingers. Then she realised his gaze was resting on her lips and promptly snatched up her napkin. ‘The latter course would be safer—the debauchery, I mean, not the marmalade.’ Maude gave way to giggles. ‘I imagine that you could hire a professional without risk of finding yourself sued for breach of promise.’

She closed her eyes for a moment, imagining Gareth back in that brothel interviewing candidates for a charade of debauchery. Only, once having paid for them, she assumed it would require a saint not to avail himself of the services thus acquired, so playacting would not be required. He is a man , she reminded herself briskly. That is what men do. And in any case, what is it to me?

‘Excellent. We have a plan.’ Maude tossed her napkin on to the table and stood up, ignoring Lord Standon’s grimace and shaken head. ‘You see, Gareth, Jessica agrees with me.’ She smiled across the table. ‘Now, I will drive home and then send my carriage back to collect you and take you round the agencies. As soon as that is done you can come and stay with me until you are settled.’

‘But Lord Pangbourne has seen me.’

‘He saw a wanton female with her hair down, half-dressed in a improper nightgown and from the back. He will not recognise you, Jessica, take my word for it.’ Gareth walked across and opened the door. ‘Maude’s offer of the carriage is a sensible one.’

Gareth strolled through the doors of White’s, nodded absently at the porter who relieved him of his outer garments, and climbed the stairs to the library. He needed some peace and quiet to think about Maude’s predicament. For himself, although it was tiresome, Lord Pangbourne’s ambitions were merely a nuisance. He could, and would, marry where he chose. One of these days. When he got round to it.

But Maude was a considerable heiress and, if her father truly intended to, he could keep her financially dependent on him until she was thirty. She could choose herself a husband, he supposed, always provided she could find someone prepared to ignore the persistent rumour that she was already betrothed to him, or who was prepared to take a dowerless wife, but that was assuming a case of love at first sight and a determined lover at that.

He could put an advertisement in the paper, denying the rumours, but that would create a scandal—the presumption would be that there was some reason discreditable to her, which was why he did not want to marry Maude. He could carry on denying it whenever it was mentioned—but no one believed him when he did. By common consent, he would be insane to refuse to marry a lovely, high-born, wealthy young woman who would bring the Pangbourne acres to join his own. And everyone knew that Gareth Morant was no fool. He was simply, the gossips concluded, in no hurry to assume the ties of matrimony.