Bronwyn Scott - Tempted By His Secret Cinderella

His mother smiled. ‘You want to make it a fairy tale. I like the idea. It certainly softens the edge of scandal. You invite all the eligible girls to a house party at the Newmarket estate. Let them have a taste of the luxury that could be theirs. We’ll put out the best china and polish the good silver to impress the mothers. We’ll lay in champagne and French wine to impress the fathers. Hartswood always shows at its best in the summer. The girls can stroll and pose in their pretty dresses for you in the gardens while their fathers fish the river.’

Sutton laughed. ‘You make it sound so easy.’ He wished he had his mother’s confidence when it came to his marriage. Some of the burden eased with the relief of having a partner in this. His mother did not challenge his decision, she simply got behind him and lent her considerable energies. ‘I’m afraid it needs to be a bit more involved than pretty poses in the garden. I don’t want to select a wife based on how she looks in a dress. I tried that once, a deviation from the norm, and a failure of an experiment, if you recall.’ The disaster of Miss Anabeth Morely had been years ago in his youth, but he had no desire to repeat it.

Sutton moved on, refusing to dwell on the memory. ‘We’ll need a full slate of a variety of activities. I want to arrange to have time with each of the girls, to observe them in different settings, with different people, and with me. At the end of the house party, we’ll hold a ball and I will announce my choice at midnight, the perfect ending to the fairy tale we’ll create.’

‘So, the party is to be your microscope? You’ll be putting them under the lens of your scrutiny,’ his mother surmised aptly.

‘Yes. I suppose it is. But I am not the first to use a house party to such ends. There is no scandal in the setting I propose. It’s quite traditional, really.’ And it was efficient. He could gather everyone in a single space for his consideration.

‘A setting and a task torn straight from the pages of a fairy tale,’ his mother agreed. ‘When is the party to be?’

‘In five days. I don’t think I can spare any more time than that if I’m to meet my uncle’s deadline. Can you do it?’ It wasn’t the idea of the party that he doubted, it was the implementation. They had to act quickly, but extravagant entertainments took time. ‘Can you arrange the activities, the details, the guests?’ He was counting on her for this. His days would be taken up with paperwork and other legal details. Even so, he didn’t know the first thing about planning a party of this magnitude.

‘In five days’ time? You want the impossible, but I think we can manage.’ Her eyes danced, energised by the challenge. ‘It’s a mother’s job to know how to arrange these things. If you are set on this, then I will help see it done.’ She smiled softly. ‘My son is getting married. Goodness knows you’ve made me wait long enough. I should start planning the wedding while I’m at it since time is of the essence.’

‘Thank you, Mother.’ He was an only child, out of poor luck in that department. His mother should have had legions of children to command: daughters to march out on the marriage mart, sons to organise into professions. Instead, she’d got him, a gentleman scientist who preferred his camels and horses to the social whirl. His one foray into that world had not recommended it. Some experiments didn’t bear repeating.

There was one last piece to discuss. ‘As to the guests, I am aware the Season is slowing down and so many of the girls are spoken for.’ Sutton thought of the tea heiress, Pavia Honeysett, married now to his friend, Cam Lithgow. She would not have fit his uncle’s criteria but she, a girl of mixed birth and not title, had caught the eye of a marquis before her marriage, general proof that girls had been swept up early this year and the competition for well-born wives was fierce.

‘There’s always someone to marry.’ His mother was unbothered by his concern. ‘People are looking for something new now that Ascot and the Regatta are behind us. I’ll post an announcement in The Times and London will converge on Newmarket in five days.’ She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Everyone will want to come.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘And we’ll let them; let them vie for your attention. London will wait upon your favour. You needn’t beg, not with your good looks and the promise of that fortune.’

That’s what he was worried about. He didn’t want to limit his choices to the dregs, to wallflowers and fortune hunters, but he kept his thoughts to himself. There was only so much of the situation he could control, thanks to his uncle’s stratagems. It wasn’t the house party that would draw them, it was the mere presence of the fortune. Whether he was in Newmarket or in London wouldn’t matter. At least in Newmarket he could control who he spent his time with. Here in London he’d be at the mercy of other people’s guest lists. He bent to kiss his mother on the cheek and took his leave. He needed the sanctuary of his club, a drink and time to think. Who would want him, just him, now? Who would even see him, the man, standing there behind the fortune? In that regard, he’d just have to trust to luck that he’d be able to throw the net wide enough. But he was a scientist. Trusting to luck was not something he was used to doing.

* * *

There was a reason for that. Luck often failed and it was failing him spectacularly today. Sutton had barely set foot inside the asylum of his club before he realised his mistake. London had not waited for an announcement in The Times . From the buzz in the common room, it seemed the whole city already knew he had been named heir to Sir Leland Keynes’s fortune. By four o’clock that afternoon, London fully grasped the import of that. The Season now had an eligible parti nonpareil .

Sutton was bombarded with men wanting to shake his hand, some of whom he hadn’t seen since school days, others whom he’d never met at all but who claimed introduction through convoluted connections. Older men wanted to offer condolences on his uncle’s passing, younger men wanted to renew acquaintances or establish them. All of them had sisters, daughters, nieces, cousins, wards or god-daughters. The preponderance of females offered up to him made his earlier observation about the dearth of candidates laughable. Apparently, marriageable females were thick on the ground when one was possessed of a fortune.

But his instant popularity reinforced his earlier worry. He’d become nothing but a placeholder, a gateway to a fortune. Sutton made his way to an empty, isolated chair in the corner and ordered a drink. He didn’t kid himself the privacy of his seat would last long. He was a man no longer, but a thing to be used and manipulated for personal gain, the very reason he’d resisted the idea of marriage for so long. He didn’t want an alliance. He didn’t need an heiress’s money or a debutante’s father’s political connections. He wanted something more.

Not love, necessarily. The idea of love was an illogical concept when it came to the science of successful pairings. Animals didn’t mate for love or for alliances. They mated for strength, for compatibility. That’s what he wanted. Compatibility. Someone who loved animals, who would enjoy working beside him with his camels and his horses, who might enjoy him . Those wishes were now officially relegated to the dustbin of impossibilities.

A pair of young men approached his sanctuary and invaded with oblivious bonhomie, taking advantage of a very casual connection. They’d met once or twice at Tattersall’s. ‘Keynes, so good to see you. Dare say we’ll see more of you in London, these days.’

Sutton smiled and shook their hands, wondering just how long it would take them to mention the unattached women in their lives.