Amberley Chronicles Boxset I: The Impostor Debutante My Last Marchioness the Sister Quest (Amberley Chronicles Boxsets Book 1) (17 page)

“Yes, you are,” Charlotte maintained.

Richard Seymour and Belinda grinned at James’ discomfiture.

“I must thank you, James,” Belinda said, turning serious once more, “for bringing Charlie back to me, and for helping her when she was in trouble in London. It was my fault.” She was trying, not quite successfully, to sound penitent. “I made her pretend to be me, but Charlie was uneasy from the first. It was very wrong of me, and I’m sorry.”

“No need, Cousin Belinda.
I’m
not sorry. I would not have met Charlotte, or fallen in love with her, if you had not persuaded her to come to London.” James took Belinda’s white hand, even more delicate and slim than Charlotte’s, and patted it consolingly. “In the end no harm was done, and it has led to much good. A little girl is reunited with her anxious grandparents, an idle man-about-town has realised that he needs to be more active and has given up gambling. That estate in Cornwall will soon be set to rights, and above all, your sister has been freed from the burden of a sham marriage to a vicious scoundrel.”

“I’m glad about that part, but I don’t understand. How could it be a sham? I was there when they wed, as a bridesmaid, you know. My eyesight had only just begun to fail.”

“Conway had a previous wife still living,” James told Belinda. “She has since died. When we met him in London, he had married yet again, a cit’s daughter with a rich dowry. It is a whole way of living with the man – preying on well-dowered women.”

“I never liked him, but that still shocks me,” Belinda said.

“It would be best not to talk of this outside the family,” Charlotte warned. “To have been married to a bigamist, no matter how innocently, will not make my situation in society any easier.”

“No, indeed.” Richard looked at her with compassion.

“You must have been so angry when you found out!” Belinda said. “I would like to kill Peter myself.”

“Yes, but part of my anger was directed at Father, and even myself. Do you remember how Father made me go through with the marriage, despite my growing misgivings? When James and his friend Alphonse explained to me that I was free, it felt as though a millstone I’d worn around my back for years and years was suddenly gone. The relief, and the joy that I could now marry James, were much stronger than my fury towards Peter. I felt buoyant.”

“Peter still needs to be punished,” Belinda declared. “Where is he now?”

Charlotte looked at James questioningly. “Do you know?”

“Not exactly, but he not escape punishment. Having failed to pay a gaming debt, he is no longer welcome in polite circles or the hells that are his chief passion. The income from his daughter’s grandparents is also cut off, I must suppose, and he is estranged from his current wife.” James frowned as he tried to imagine Conway’s reaction to these setbacks. “He will find it harder to spread malicious gossip about us, but he’s not harmless yet. I shall have to do something about him once we return to town. If I find him there. Conway would be a fool if he stayed in London, especially if he owes more gambling debts, as I believe is the case. Some of these hells employ thugs who would not hesitate to break legs.”

“Well, I hope they break
both
of his legs and his nose too.” Belinda sounded bloodthirsty. Coming from such a lovely, delicate woman, the sentiment made James smile.

“You said you were giving up gambling,” Charlotte remarked. “Have you been doing a lot of that?”

“It’s expected, really, but I’m getting bored with it. Since I have a good head for numbers, I tend to win almost regularly. Thus giving it up is not particularly virtuous for me, more like renouncing an extra income that was just there for the taking.”

Belinda smiled in approval. “Even so, I’m glad you’re stopping. You sound smart enough for my sister. She never could abide fools.”

“And you could?” Charlotte dropped a casual hand on Belinda’s shoulder, smiling down at her. James had never before seen her so happy and relaxed in company. It made Charlotte even more appealing and beautiful in his eyes.

Chapter 30

Dinner that evening in the Manor was
en famille
, just the two brothers and their brides. The cook, put on her mettle by these noble visitors, had excelled herself. Nobody could find fault with the multitude of simple but well-prepared dishes she sent up.

“So you two married on the way north, with no witnesses but Alphonse and your valet?” George repeated incredulously. “When I think how I had to wait for six months because the preparations for our wedding could not possibly be completed any faster, and the endless negotiations about settlements! Marianne’s father invented new conditions every other week.”

“But you had a beautiful wedding in the end. Ours was excessively simple, and we regretted that you two and Belinda were not there,” James said, “we even discussed if we should have a second ceremony with the families present, later on, as Alphonse suggested. Yet now it would feel odd, at least to me. Married is married, after all.”

“I don’t see the need either,” Charlotte seconded him as she put down her wineglass after a small sip.

“Maybe not a second wedding, then, but we could give a reception in your honour,” Marianne suggested. “You deserve a larger celebration, and it should smooth your way in society if everyone sees George standing squarely behind you.”

“That would indeed be very helpful.” James smiled at Marianne. He did not know her that well yet, but appreciated her generosity and helpfulness. For the daughter of a Marquess she was not at all high in the instep. “I am afraid, however, that Mother would spoil any such demonstration of familial harmony. She was dead set against the match. I wrote to her after our wedding, but have not heard back yet.”

Marianne helped herself to more cutlets, unworried. “She’ll come around eventually. Your mother cannot wish for a permanent estrangement in the family.”

Charlotte looked sceptical, and both brothers shook their heads. “You don’t know Mama,” George told his wife. “Since she likes you, she has only shown you her better side so far. But once she takes somebody in strong dislike she cannot be budged. Ever.”

”And she still thinks Charlotte is Belinda,” James added gloomily. “She will be doubly enraged when she learns how she was fooled. For some reason Mother has conceived a violent dislike of Charlotte.”

“I was somewhat taken aback when I first learned of this imposture,” George said, smiling at Charlotte to take the sting out of his words, “but I quickly got over it, and I feel little sympathy for Mother. If she’d ever taken the trouble to visit her only niece and goddaughter, or realised that there was a sister who strongly resembled Belinda, this confusion could never have arisen. I cannot recall Mother even mentioning that we had a cousin in Yorkshire, in all the years of my life. I wonder why.”

“When Mother ordered me to squire my supposed cousin around town, she already seemed to dislike Belinda, even before she had set eyes on her,” James recalled. “I remember thinking that there must be some story behind her hostility, but when I asked she only told me how much she disliked and distrusted Belinda’s father, Sir Rudolph Yardley.”

“She deplored my likeness to him,” Charlotte said, “and in that last horrid scene, before she practically threw me out, she referred to bad blood. Since she still thought I was Belinda, whose birth is unexceptional, I was puzzled what she could mean.”

Marianne had been listening with the air of one trying to recall a something half forgotten. “I may have the answer, or at least a good guess,” she said now. All eyes fixed on her enquiringly. “Something my great-aunt Roselyn mentioned long ago. She said that ‘young Millicent’ had done very well for herself by catching an Earl, after her near-engagement to young Rudolph Yardley came to naught. Her and Rudolph’s father were close friends and promoted the match. According to my aunt your mother, George, seems to have been very willing, even eager for the match.”

“Impossible.” James shook his head in instinctive denial. The very idea of his mother engaged to anyone other than his father felt wrong.

“By no means impossible,” Charlotte argued. “Father was closer in age to your mother than to her younger sister Amelia. And while he was attractive even in his later years, I’ve heard that as a youth he was devastating, well-nigh irresistible. Unfortunately all that female admiration went to his head, and he treated women callously at times. My mother –
both
of my mothers – suffered from Sir Rudolph’s selfishness.”

“And apparently Lady Amberley too,” Marianne said, “for according to my great-aunt, just days before their engagement was to be formally announced at a ball, Yardley flaunted his mistress, an opera dancer, in Millicent’s face. She was furious and refused to have anything more to do with him. Three months later she accepted your father, George. Most fortunately for all four of us, or you and James would not exist.”

“Such a public humiliation would certainly explain her prejudice,” James conceded. Could it be true? If
he
found a certain shade of blond hair and blue eyes so arresting, perhaps is was little wonder if his mother had felt likewise in younger years.

“Instead he married the younger sister some years later,” Charlotte said. “Mother was brought up in the country, and would still have been in the schoolroom during her older sister’s debut. She may not even have been aware how close Millicent came to marrying Sir Rudolph. Or perhaps she found out, and tried to mend the rift by asking her to be Belinda’s godmother? I fear we will never know.”

Their speculations were suspended while the servants came in to remove the course and place a variety of new dishes on the table. This was not a subject to be discussed in their presence.

“Even if Yardley hurt our Mother in her youth,” James said when everyone had been served, “she has no right to blame his actions on Charlotte or Belinda.
That
is quite irrational.”

“Leave her to me,” George offered. “If Mother listens to anyone, it will be me. I’ll do my best to make her see reason. Having a public rift in the family can only lower our consequence. She must be sensible of that, if nothing else.”

Charlotte and Marianne smiled approvingly. James suspected that George was overestimating his influence as head of the family, but nothing would be lost by trying. “Thank you, George. I’ll be most obliged if you can smooth Mother’s feathers.”

“I still cannot fathom,” Marianne said, “how your mother could cut the whole Yardley family out of her life for all these years. Belinda should have been one of my bridesmaids, if she hadn’t been married herself, that is. At the very least she should have been present.”

“And Lady Amberley never saw younger sister in the last years before she died. If only she were still alive!” Charlotte said. “She was the best mother in the world, and is missed every day.”

“It is a pity you never got to know this aunt of yours. Let’s call one of our daughters after her,” Marianne suggested to George. 

James raised his glass to Charlotte in a silent toast, before turning back to his brother and sister-in-law. “Even with your help, there will be something of a scandal. I wrote to you to warn you about it. Did you get my letter before departing from the castle? But no matter how people talk, I do not regret anything. When you find the person you are meant to marry, nothing else matters to the same degree.”

“Oh, we know
that
.” George exchanged a private smile with his countess. “By the way, I was impressed with young Beecham, Belinda’s solicitor. Why didn’t you use our family solicitors?”

James shrugged. “I found them too stodgy and rigid for this unconventional case. I did ask them to gather intelligence on the problem at first, but old Roberts did not seem particularly impressed with me. I shall employ Beecham for my own affairs in future.”

“You haven’t made any settlement on your wife yet, I suppose,” George said. “It is normally done before the actual wedding.”

“I certainly don’t mind.” Charlotte smiled at James. “And after all, you married me without any dowry.”

James squeezed her hand. “It will be done as soon as we have this inheritance settled. As I’m not the Earl in this family, for which I thank Providence, it can wait a few more weeks. You are already my heiress.”

“You’ll also need a bigger place in London,” Marianne reminded him. “Have you thought about that?”

“We won’t always stay in London.” Charlotte looked up from her syllabub. This was a subject they had discussed at length during the recent journey. “I don’t mind town some of the time, but I also love the country.”

“We’ll find out what suits us best, and we can easily afford a decent house,” James added. He hardly wait to show her his favourite places in the city, and to explore both their estates with Charlotte by his side.

“Another thing,” George said, looking very serious. “Have you sent an announcement of your marriage to the papers yet?”

“Not yet,” James admitted. “I didn’t want you and Mother to learn the news from the Morning Post.”

“Oh dear, I can imagine the rumours that must be circulating in London right now,” Marianne said. “That must be rectified immediately, so that by the time you two return for my reception, the gossip will have calmed down. With any luck some bigger scandal will have superseded yours.”

“Well, I
had
sent the announcement of our engagement, though the name was Belinda’s,” James recalled. “As far as society is concerned, I have merely escorted my betrothed out of town.”

“But the false name,” Charlotte said guiltily. “I was uneasy about it, but I thought that even in the worst case, the blame would only fall on me. I never wanted to embroil you whole family in this.”

There was a short silence, as each considered the likely repercussions of announcing a betrothal to one woman, and immediately marrying another.

“I have a suggestion,” Marianne said at last, “it’s not ideal, but we have to minimise the social damage somehow.”

“Go ahead, love,” George said encouragingly.

“These announcements are short and formal. What if we word it thus:
“A marriage is announced between the Hon. James Ellsworthy, and Charlotte Belinda, eldest daughter of the late Sir Rupert Yardley, of Yardley Manor, Burchfield, Yorks., and the late Lady Yardley. The marriage was attended by the groom’s brother and sister in law, etc., and the bride’s sister, Mrs. Richard Seymour, of Burchfield.”
It’s
mostly
true, and I don’t think that Belinda or her husband would mind, even if someone jumped to the conclusion that Charlotte was the legitimate daughter.”

“Let the lie stand, as it were? I had no idea you could be so Machiavellian, Marianne.” James looked at his sister-in-law with added respect. “But what if someone raises awkward questions? Not just about Charlotte’s identity, but about her previous marriage?”

George raised a haughty brow. “If anyone is so impertinent as to ask, and we cannot simply intimidate them to let the matter drop, we tell the truth and say that Charlotte was belatedly recognised in her father’s will. Thirty thousand pounds equates to a clear acknowledgement of the relationship, in my view.”

All of them looked at Charlotte.

“You three grew up in society, and you are the experts in its niceties and necessities. I cannot like it, but I’m willing to go along with your suggestion, if Belinda and Richard agree. Knowing them, I have no doubt they will. But if anyone asks me about it, I am not going to lie.”

“Nobody expects you to,” James said. “You are quite right to despise us as hypocritical, but this little subterfuge could make life easier for our future children.”

“Oh, very well, then …” She signalled to Marianne, and made to stand. “Should we leave you gentleman to your port?”

“You cannot possibly imagine that port is more attractive than your company.” James rose with alacrity. “And it’s been a long day. We should seek our rest.”

“Oh, is
rest
what you call it?” George asked him with a grin, also getting up and moving towards his wife.

“George!” Mortified, Marianne put her hand on the earl’s arm. “Don’t pay any attention to Amberley, Charlotte. I am certain he meant nothing by his remark.”

“I have no idea what he
could
have meant,” Charlotte said piously. “Rest is indeed a most welcome end to this day. Good night to all.”

James, impatient with all this pretence, swept her up in his arms and moved purposefully towards the staircase.

Behind him, Marianne and his brother chuckled, but who cared? He had paradise ahead of him, just one landing above, on this night and all his future nights.

Not forgetting the mornings, and the afternoons, of course…

The End