Shattered Dreams (2 page)

“Hopefully, then, Lord Fellingsdown won’t occupy so much of your time that you won’t find time to ride. It would be a shame to ignore such a magnificent horse.”

“Yes, it would.”

She moved her reins as if she intended to leave and he was desperate not to let her go without setting a time to meet her again. “Do you go to the stables often?” he asked.

“Yes. Every day. About this time.”

“Perhaps we will meet again.”

“Perhaps.”

“And perhaps I can challenge you to another race.”

She smiled and his blood turned hot.

“I look forward to it.”

“May I escort you back?” He wanted an excuse to spend a few more moments with her.

She shook her head, but there was nothing shy or demure in her look. “I have an errand to run before I return.”

“Very well.” Reluctantly, he turned his mount toward the house. “Until next time.”

She didn’t say more and he left her, thinking of the one stipulation the Marquess of Fellingsdown had made – that Brent woo their recluse sister away from her knight in shining armor without breaking her heart.

He wanted to laugh. There wasn’t a chance in hell he could possibly be attracted to Fellingsdown’s sister. Or that he would allow her to become attracted to him.

Not when he’d just met the most perfect woman on earth.

Chapter 2

“Is everything ready?”

Harrison Prescott, Marquess of Fellingsdown, looked at the three people in the room: his twin sisters, Patience and Lillian, the youngest of the Prescott brood, and George, his closest brother both in age and all else that mattered. His remaining brothers, Jules and Spence, were handling the arrival of the guests while he covered the last-minute details for the upcoming two-week house party.

Harrison studied the serious expressions on the faces of his twin sisters and for the first time in his life he wasn’t moved by their remarkable beauty or their endearing innocence. His having to host the two-week event at The Down was their fault. They deserved his terse tone and ill temper.

Patience spoke first. “Yes. The guests have begun to arrive and are being shown to their rooms. Jules and Spence are playing hosts until we return.”

Harrison studied the list on the top of his desk. Dear God, but he prayed this went well. If it didn’t...

“Is Elly ready?”

Patience and Lillian slowly turned their heads and looked at one another.

A wave of concern washed over him. “What?”

“She isn’t here,” Patience said.

“She must be out riding,” Lillian added.

“Damn! You were supposed to keep an eye on her today. You were supposed to make sure she stayed close.”

Patience and Lillian both blanched at his rare use of profanity and his reprimand but he didn’t care. This was their fault. If they hadn’t...

“She’ll be back soon,” Patience said. “She promised she’d be ready when it was time to go down to meet the guests.”

Harrison raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “You know how she loses track of time when she’s riding. We’ll be lucky if she returns by dark.”

“Don’t worry, Harrison,” Lillian added. “Elly knows how important this is to you.”

“To me! We’re doing this for
her
! Which we wouldn’t have to do if you two hadn’t been so irresponsible!”

“Harrison,” George warned.

Tears pooled in his sisters’ eyes but he ignored them.

“We’ve already told you how sorry we are,” Patience said boldly. “We only wanted Elly to be happy.”

Harrison shoved back his chair and bolted to his feet. He braced his palms on the top of the desk and leaned toward them. “Just because the two of you have fallen in love and have married doesn’t mean Elly has the same dream.”

“Every woman does,” Lillian cried out. “We simply wanted her to know what it was like to have someone remarkable pay attention to her. We wanted her to feel special. And wanted.”

“How could you think creating an admirer who doesn’t exist would make her happy?”

“We had to do something,” Lilly said in a rare show of bravery. “She’s never even had a beau. She only hides away here at The Down.”

He slammed his fist on the top of his desk. “You make it sound like Elly’s starved for attention, that she’s been locked away in the country because we don’t want her around us.” Harrison stepped around the corner of the desk. “Plenty of people pay attention to her. She receives more love and attention than any other woman in England.
Male
attention, I might add.”

“But the four of you are her brothers!” Lillian cried out. “That’s not the same!”

Harrison gave his sister a hostile look that made her shrink back, no doubt wanting to run into her husband’s comforting arms. But the Earl of Berkingham wasn’t here. Only he and George and the two females who’d caused this travesty. “For the life of me,” he continued, “I can’t imagine what in
hell
possessed you to do something so irresponsible.”

“We wanted Elly to have a romance,” Patience repeated for the hundredth time. “We wanted her to know someone thought she was special.”

“By allowing her to give her heart to someone who doesn’t exist?” Harrison waved the letters that were the cause of their problem.

“We never imagined it would go this far,” Patience, always the braver of the two, answered.

“Just where did you imagine a correspondence like this would end? Didn’t you think for one second that Elly would eventually want to meet this—” Harrison crushed the love letters in his fist and threw them into the fire. “—this...paragon of virtue and masculinity?”

“No,” they answered together.

“Elly’s never shown any interest in men,” Patience continued. “Not that it would have been possible the way the four of you stand guard over her.”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

Harrison thought of their two brothers who were downstairs, Jules and Spence. They were both tall and broad-shouldered, the same as George and he were. United, they presented an impressive front in their determination to protect Elly from any harm – which they would each do to the death. Partly because she was special. Partly because they were responsible for what had happened to her.

“You know as well as anyone that the few times we’ve convinced Elly to travel to London, the four of you surrounded her like an armed guard. There wasn’t a man in all of England who was brave enough to face such an invincible force to even carry on a conversation with her.”

“It was
Elly
who always shied away from going out in public. Or have you forgotten the reason she might hesitate to be put on display?”

“It’s
you
who can’t forget, Harrison. You and George and Jules and Spence. You’re the ones who won’t let her risk hearing something that might offend her. You who are afraid she might be stared at when she’s in public. It’s the four of you who are overprotective of her because you can’t stop punishing yourselves for what happened. Lilly and I just wanted to let her glimpse the world she was missing.”

“So you thought giving her some nameless fantasy was what she needed.”

“We just wanted Elly to think someone wonderful admired her,” Lillian said.

“Every woman needs to be loved just once in her life,” Patience added, recklessly treading into deeper waters. “She’s seven and twenty already. Everyone knows she’s far past the age when any man will—”

“Enough! What you did was implement a half-witted scheme with the potential to cause irreparable damage.”

George had been very quiet so far, but at Harrison’s outburst he sat forward in his chair. “Have you written Mother and Father to tell them we’re hosting a two-week house party?”

“Yes.”

Patience and Lillian’s eyes opened wide. “Do you think that was wise?” Lillian asked after sharing a concerned look with Patience. “They’ll know something’s wrong when they hear.”

“Something
is
wrong,” Harrison fired back. “
Very
wrong!”

“But maybe Mama and Papa wouldn’t have found out,” Lillian offered tentatively.

“Do you think there’s a chance in hell we could have a gathering of this magnitude without one of Mama’s friends writing her as soon as the first invitation went out? Have you forgotten who your parents are?”

Patience’s gaze lowered to the floor. Lillian’s followed.

“Nothing happens the Duke and Duchess of Sheridan don’t know about. Usually
before
it happens.” His last statement almost contained a rare hint of something that anyone who didn’t know him might mistake for humor. “But if everything goes as planned, and the party accomplishes our goal of making Elly forget the secret admirer you two so aptly invented, Mother and Father will agree this was necessary.”

Harrison turned on his heel and paced from one side of the room to the other. He had to make Elly forget the secret admirer Patience and Lillian had introduced her to in a series of love letters. And she could never discover what they’d done. If she did, it would kill her.

Harrison would rather have a stake thrust through his heart than have her suffer any more than she already had.

“So,” he said, filling his lungs with air, then releasing it. “It’s time to begin this fiasco. George, go down and assist Jules and Spence.” He looked at the twins. “Find Elly and make sure she’s ready on time.”

Patience and Lilly nodded then turned to the door. Patience stopped with her hand on the knob and turned.

“We know who you’ve invited as guests for the house party, and who Jules and Spence and George have invited. But as yet we don’t know who you’ve invited for Elly. Or for yourself.”

Harrison lifted his gaze. It was time to reveal the man he’d chosen to play the role as the perfect partner for Elly, the person he’d chosen to make her forget the imaginary admirer Patience and Lillian had invented. It was too late for them to do anything but accept his decision.

“As for myself, I’ve invited Aunt Esther as my guest. I’m sure Aunt Gussie will appreciate her company and we could hardly host an event without inviting Aunt Gussie and Uncle Bertram.”

“But wouldn’t you rather invite—“

Harrison stopped Lilly’s words with the same glare Elly had often teased him was cold enough to freeze the Thames. “Don’t think there will be a chance for you to play matchmaker. The object of this affair is to keep
Elly
from getting hurt, which wouldn’t be necessary if the two of you hadn’t put us in this predicament.”

Harrison took a small amount of satisfaction in seeing his sisters’ cheeks turn scarlet.

“Whom have you selected for Elly?” George asked.

“Yes,” Lilly asked, chewing her bottom lip. “We all know she won’t make this easy on him.”

“That’s probably the most understated remark anyone could make,” George said on a laugh.

“It can’t be just anyone,” Patience added.

“No,” Lilly said, turning back into the room. “He has to be someone Society considers an outstanding catch.”

“Yes,” George added. “And he can’t be a milquetoast. Elly will shred him to pieces before he’s been here a day.”

“And he can’t be dim-witted,” Patience spouted, focusing her gaze on Harrison. “You’re the only one of us who can hold his own against Elly.”

Harrison fought the reservations eating at him. “I know. And even I’m not always successful.”

“But most of all,” George said on a heavy sigh, “he has to be someone so perfect he can topple Elly’s suitor from his pedestal. Who did you invite that has all those qualifications?”

Harrison straightened to his full height and faced three of his six siblings. They looked at him with expectant expressions as if they were confident that he’d chosen the perfect suitor for Elly. This is the way it had always been. He was the one they always came to when they needed help. And he’d always been successful. He’d always taken care of them - except for once. The day he’d almost let Elly die.

“Let me first explain that you are correct in the qualifications Elly’s guest needs to possess.”

“You’ve found someone who has all of these attributes?” Lillian asked.

“In my opinion, there is only one person whose reputation is widely known when it comes to charming the fairer sex.”

“Who?”

Harrison didn’t answer George right away. He couldn’t. Once he revealed the man he’d chosen he wouldn’t be able to stop the uproar.

“Why do I have a feeling we’re not going to like this?” George said with a frown on his forehead.

“Probably because you aren’t.”

“Who is it?” Patience asked stepping closer to George so the three of them formed an indefensible line of attack.

Harrison stood a little taller. “Think of the most irresistible male in all of England. Someone who’s reputed to be as rich as Croesus and possesses an unbelievable amount of luck, both with cards and...and with women. Someone whose comings and goings are noted by everyone in Society, and whose opinion, both personal and professional, is constantly sought.”

“I can’t believe there is such a paragon,” George said on a guffaw.

“Neither can I,” Patience and Lillian added.

“Then put a name to the man every eligible female has tried to leg-shackle for years. Someone whose presence at any function guarantees its success.”

Patience’s eyes grew wide as recognition dawned. Lillian’s expression changed moments later.

“You can’t be serious,” Patience said barely above a whisper.

“Tell me you didn’t,” Lillian demanded with a horrified look on her face.

George’s frown deepened. “Who? Who is it?”

“The scoundrel is said to break some poor woman’s heart on a daily basis.”

“And he’s said to have had more mistresses than even
he
can keep count of.”

“Who?” George said loud enough to finally draw his sisters’ attention.

“The Earl of Charfield!” they cried out in unison.

George’s jaw dropped. He finally closed it and took a step forward. “Bloody hell, Harrison. You can’t be serious.”

“He’s not at all appropriate for Elly,” Lillian said firmly.