The Perfect Fiancé (Matchmaking for Wallflowers Book 0) (5 page)

He was a fortress. A furious, gleaming fortress. One that clanked and creaked and thundered toward her. His visor slammed down, and he stopped to tear it off and hurl it off the stage.

The bang echoed through the medieval room, abetted by the low timber beams, and Rosamund froze.

This had not been one of Fiona’s better ideas.

She swallowed hard. They needed to talk. And unfortunately, speaking now before everyone was the only way.

“What are you doing?” He roared.

“I’m Angélique,” she squeaked.

He scrunched his eyebrows into a scowl.

“Sweet, innocent Angélique?” His words were sarcastic, and she shot a glance at the audience.

Smiles stretched on their placid faces, and she struggled to square her shoulders. “Tis I.”

He glowered, and the urge to flee rocketed through her. The dark edges of the stage tempted her, and she fought the desire to switch roles with her sister again.

But this was her chance. Her only chance. Even if all her relatives and all her neighbors were observing, mistakenly believing that her nerves derived from her abhorrence of acting and not from the fact that her future happiness was at risk.

“This was a mist—”

“You’re supposed to be rescuing me,” she prompted.

He stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. “You can’t be serious.”

The audience rustled in the armchairs the servants had laid out in rows, likely impatient with their whispers.

Rosamund raised her voice. “Woe is me. This is a tragic tale.”

The audience members leaned forward.

“An entirely new version,” Sir Seymour said, his resounding voice easily carrying the several feet from his seat to the stage. “Most intriguing.”

Marcus lowered his voice. “Fiona is indisposed?”

“Y-yes.” Rosamund inhaled. “And I am in need of a hero.”

“That seems unlike you.” His voice was still stiff, still formal.

“Perhaps,” she said brightly, “you can be my hero!”

Sir Seymour chuckled. “He’s wearing the right attire.”

Rosamund thought she heard Aunt Lavinia hushing him.

“Perhaps the damsel would prefer to remain in her castle,” Marcus said.

“Do you want me to remain?” Rosamund asked.

Marcus’s eyes flickered in confusion. “Perhaps there is another lady I might rescue instead?”

“Another!” Sir Seymour laughed and he cupped his hand to his mouth. “You don’t need to juggle here, your lordship! You’re acting. Rescue the lady.”

This time Rosamund was certain Aunt Lavinia was silencing him.

Marcus’s face was still stiff, and Rosamund’s chest constricted.

The plan had been ridiculous, a last attempt before he fled Yorkshire, never to be seen again. She’d already given him her answer, and why would anything change now? The man seemed to despise her.

She strove to retain a pleasant smile for her relatives, even as Marcus’s eyes clouded, even if the warmth that had once existed there seemed forever extinguished. But the act of raising her lips seemed an impossible task, and she suddenly felt a great compassion for Atlas and his task of holding the world up.

“Sir!” She cried, and she scrambled from the makeshift castle. “You—you are my knight.”

Marcus widened his eyes.

“My knight—and no one else’s,” she hastened to add. “I would not want you to be anyone else’s knight.”

The audience must be puzzled now, but Rosamund didn’t care. Her only concern was Marcus.

“I am perhaps being forward,” she said. “But I wanted to assure you that I—I would be deeply desirous of you to stay longer.”

“Not too much longer,” Sir Seymour huffed. “Isn’t the villain supposed to show up soon?”

Marcus’s eyes softened. He narrowed the gap between them, and his gaze swept over her. The faint scent of cotton and pine needles wafted over her.

She closed her eyes and allowed herself to inhale. Perhaps this was the end. Perhaps this was the closest they’d ever be together. Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked furiously. “I—I made a mistake.”

“Rosamund,” Marcus murmured.

“Angélique,” Sir Seymour corrected.

“Shh… This isn’t a Christmas pantomime,” Aunt Lavinia’s crisp voice said from the audience. “His lordship is allowed to forget his lines.”

“Ah, yes,” Sir Seymour said. “Even earls cannot be perfect.”

A warm palm cupped her face, and a hand stroked her cheeks.

Her heart ratcheted her in her chest. “I made a horrible mistake. You are everything wonderful. And marriage to you would be everything splendid.”

“Because you must marry someone?” Marcus asked. “A matchmaker would understand that.”

Rosamund shook her head. “I—I love you.”

“Truly?” His voice softened.

“Truly,” Rosamund murmured.

Marcus’s lips stretched into a wide smile. “Forgive me.”

“You?”

“I was too hasty with my proposal.”

Rosamund blinked.

“I missed something,” Sir Seymour hollered from the audience.

Marcus flicked a hand away and smiled as he gazed down at her.

“I’m a scientist. When I find the right answer—and you, my dear, are definitely the right answer—I’m far too happy. But I understand that you might still want to get to know me more. And, my dear, I can go slowly for you. If you’re the least bit interested. I would like to court you. I can be a turtle, a snail—”

“A caterpillar?” Rosamund’s lips twitched for the first time.

“I—”

“They tend toward slowness, judging from their leisurely crawling on the cobblestones every spring.”

“Right.” Marcus grinned.

He was smiling and perhaps, just perhaps, everything would be alright.

“You don’t need to transform yourself, Marcus,” she said. “Even though I’ve heard that caterpillars transform themselves into the most wondrous butterflies.”

“What do you want?” His voice sobered.

“You.” Her voice was breathy. “I didn’t really want you to marry my sister.”

“Sister?” Sir Seymour bellowed. “I think you must have skipped an act.”

“Hush…” Aunt Lavinia murmured.

“They’re not supposed to skip acts,” Sir Seymour muttered. “He said he knew his lines.”

Rosamund sighed. She kept her voice low, but she didn’t care if everyone else heard. Marcus
had
to understand. “I just wanted you both to be happy, and I—I was so unhappy at the thought that I liked you more than I should.”

“You did?”

“I did. I do, I—” She swallowed hard.

“My darling.” This time he swept her in his arms. The steel plates of his ridiculous armor pressed against her, but the only sensation she felt was joy.

Marcus smiled and he pulled her closer to him. “You despise acting.”

She shrugged. “I don’t despise you.”

His lips twitched. “I don’t despise you either.”

“You were planning on leaving right after the performance, and—and I wanted to see you again. I wanted to explain everything to you. But I at least wanted to see you again.”

“My darling.” He lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers. Their kiss deepened, moving from tenderness to something fiery and scintillating and—

Sir Seymour cleared his throat loudly.
Very
loudly.

“I think the others are expecting a play,” Rosamund said.

“Shall we proceed?”

Rosamund’s cheeks warmed, and she glanced toward the audience. “I’m afraid I don’t know all the lines.”

He laughed. “Do you think the guests can satisfy themselves with an engagement party instead of watching a play?”

“Marcus!” She looped her arms around his neck.

“Will you make me the happiest man in the world? Will you marry me?”

“I will.”

There was no hesitation this time.

They kissed again, and then he took her arm and led her off the stage. The others stood up.

“You-you kissed her,” Sir Seymour sputtered.

Marcus grinned. “I’m going to marry her.”

“In the play?”

“Forever.” Marcus squeezed her hand.

“You better,” Sir Seymour exclaimed.

“Nothing in the world would make me happier,” Marcus declared.

Delight darted through her. Her sister, her grandmother, and everyone she cared for were here. Right now some of them were still surprised, but soon they would recognize, just like she had, that this was real.

THE END

***

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Chapter One

December 1815

Yorkshire

Crisp jingles chimed through the cold air, merging with the rhythmic trot of horses, and Fiona Amberly had never been more convinced of her utter abhorrence of Christmas.

She poked her head from the archaeological site, brushed a hand smudged with clay through her hair and peered in the direction of the sound.

A coach barreled down the slope, pulled by two pairs of prancing white horses, and her throat dried. Red and green plumes perched from the horses’ headgear, an unnecessary nod to the approaching holiday. The sun glowed over the glossy black surface of the coach, flickering over its vibrantly painted wheels and golden crest.

She tightened her fists around the slabs of timber she used to fortify the pit.

Only one person had threatened to visit her.

Madeline.

Fiona hauled herself up and rushed to the road, dragging her dress through more mud. The coach thundered toward her, and she waved both arms above her head. Now was not the time to muse on the ridiculousness of her appearance.

“Halt. Halt.”

The coach slowed, and she hastily brushed some dirt from her dress, managing to remove a few specks.

“What is it, Miss Amberly?” The driver was sufficiently trained not to openly gawk, but his gaze still darted to her ragged clothes and the pile of excavation materials.

Never mind that. Red-headed women with freckles were never destined to possess elegance.

“Is Lady Mulbourne inside?”

The driver nodded, and Fiona rushed to the door. The question was foolish: only her cousin would have asked for her coach to be decked out in such finery for a five-mile jaunt.

Madeline poked her head through the carriage window, and Fiona hastily brushed a few more specks of soil from her dress.

“Happy Christmas,” Madeline chirped.

“Er . . . yes.”

“You have a remarkable ability to never change.”

Fiona shifted her feet, and her boots crunched over dried leaves.

“So unconstrained by the pulls of even the most basic fashion rules.” Madeline’s eyes flickered over her, roaming over every button and pleat with the eagerness of a general scrutinizing a map of enemy territory. “And still in half-mourning, I see.”

Fiona stiffened and pulled her hands back. No need for her cousin to comment on the frayed hem of her sleeve as well as her gray dress.

“Would you like a ride? I’m on my way to see Grandmother.”

Fiona didn’t want a ride. She wanted to work more on the site. Winter was approaching, and if the farmers were right about their grumblings regarding the shade of the sky, the place would be covered in snow soon.

But ever since Fiona had blurted out to Grandmother that she was engaged to the most brilliant man in the world, it was vital that she did not allow Grandmother to be left alone with Madeline.

The captain was everything a man should be: handsome and brave, smart and funny, and since the Napoleonic Wars had ended, finally living in England.

At least he would be if he existed.

Fiona groaned. Yes, Christmas was firmly relegated to the short list of things she despised. The holiday surpassed dress fittings, empty dance cards, and mushrooms in horribleness. Only Napoleon, carriage accidents, and somber-faced doctors ranked higher on her list of hated things.

How on earth had the emperor had the indecency to give up the war before Fiona had had the foresight to invent a death worthy of her dear, valiant, charming fiancé?

Fiona glanced at the site. “Let me just rearrange some things.”

Madeline nodded, and Fiona hastily covered the pit, casting a lingering look on the Roman finds. The shards of pottery and coins buried within the clay were so near, and she ached to remain and unearth more, to feel the giddiness and delight that rushed through her with every discovery she made with her trowel.

Instead she hurried back to the carriage. A familiar dread tightened her stomach as she climbed the metal steps, but she steeled her jaw and rubbed her hand against her hair, dislodging a lock from her chignon.

“How pleasant to see you,” Madeline said in a too-sweet voice, and a prickly warmth dashed up the back of Fiona’s neck. “I was hoping you might be able to attend my Christmas Ball this year, given that you have never attended before.”

Fiona smiled tightly at her one-time friend as she struggled to re-pin the lock of hair. She settled onto the bench and flickered her gaze downward. Telling herself not to dwell on the smudges of dirt scattered on her dress failed to lessen her embarrassment.

Disappointing people was a skill she had acquired in childhood, simply due to the apparent misfortune of her hair color. She’d long ago accustomed herself to her striking inability to fulfil the
ton
‘s expectations. Her unfashionably curved figure had frustrated her dressmakers during her shortened season and made her conspicuous against the sleek, willowy figures of the other debutantes.

“I suppose it must be terribly trying for you to attend a ball, given that you have so little practice in looking pleasant.” Madeline smoothed the golden ringlets that framed her face. Every flourish, formed in the proper manner, with curling tongs rather than nature’s haphazardness, was immaculate. “Unless perhaps you can grace us with your presence after all?”

“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” Fiona said. “Regretfully.”

“Oh.” Her cousin’s lips stretched into a straight line.

“It is unfortunate you had to travel all this way. I would have thought the postal system would have managed to deliver my regrets,” Fiona continued.

Madeline pressed her lips together and swung her gaze to the window and the view of heavy dark clouds that floated over the jagged Dales.

The light from the carriage windows slid over her cousin’s pale blond hair, framing it like a halo, and cast a glow over the glossy silk ruffles of her dress. Somehow her cousin had managed to travel five miles and appear immaculate, and Fiona could scarcely travel a few feet without finding herself in difficulty.

Holly and mistletoe dangled from the ceiling of the coach, bright bursts against the staid black walls. Such greenery had been but a mild curiosity to Fiona before the accident, but now it signified everything dreadful.

If Christmas did not exist, her cousin would not be across from her, and Fiona most certainly would not have abandoned perhaps her last chance to visit the archaeological site in order to sit in a closed and jostling coach, striving for an excuse to skip the woman’s ball.

“Now do tell me,” Madeline said, “Whatever were you doing standing in a pit in the earth?”

“I—”

“It’s the sort of thing that gives Yorkshire women a bad reputation,” Madeline said. “You really must reconsider your habits. It will be trying enough for you to find a husband without acting like the local madwoman.”

Fiona squared her shoulders. “How kind of you to worry. Really, it’s wholly unnecessary. And I’m not in the least need of a husband.”

If only Grandmother would believe that.

Madeline smiled. “You’re always in the habit of saying the most curious things. Most fascinating.”

Fiona gave her a wobbly smile and considered divulging her secret. She pondered the pottery, the Roman coins and helmets, the vases and mosaics she’d found on the border of the apple orchard.

She longed to share everything. There were so many brilliant objects. It couldn’t be sheer coincidence. There had to be a Roman palace buried there.

Cloudbridge Castle lay on the route toward Hadrian’s Wall, and it was not entirely absurd to think that the Romans may have built a palace on the way. Perhaps the Romans had had a tendency to wander around in togas, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t enjoyed fine homes as well. The materials she had found were too ornate for a simple station for soldiers of insignificant rank.

But her cousin wouldn’t understand. The last person Fiona had told had been Uncle Seymour. She’d wanted his permission to excavate the apple orchard, and he’d exploded at the prospect of cutting any of the trees down on the off chance that some broken cups and plates might be underneath. Though Uncle Seymour visited infrequently, the estate belonged to him, and once Grandmother died, he would move in.

Fiona drew in a breath. Some things were better not dwelled on. And perhaps Madeline was right. Perhaps she should attend the ball.

“Will the baron be there?” Fiona tilted her head, thinking of the materials she’d found underneath the apple orchard.

Madeline’s husband’s advice in assessing the objects’ value would be invaluable. The baron was a renowned art critic, and his work on the Elysian Marbles was genius. She was sure his favorable assessment had spurred the new British Museum to acquire them. Unfortunately, he seemed to favor London far more than Yorkshire.

“My husband?” Madeline’s voice faltered.

“I would like to speak to him about some findings…”

“Oh.” Madeline’s long black eyelashes swooped down over her eyes.  “Perhaps I might be of some use—”

Fiona shook her head. The less people she told about the apple orchard the better. The ones she had told already thought her mad for believing there was a Roman palace buried underneath there. Her cousin was not the type to lend herself to confidences; she was far too fond of gossip.

Right now it was more important that Madeline did not learn of Fiona’s supposed engagement; her cousin was the largest gossip in Yorkshire. Fiona had no inclination to be a laughingstock, and any hope of the credulity and support the baron might give her theory on the Roman palace would be destroyed if he were to discover she’d invented a fiancé.

Though she’d long abandoned any aspirations to marry, she couldn’t stand the thought that all her work, all the carefully collected and recorded artefacts, would lose all significance because their finder was deemed a foolish girl. No one would donate funds so that the rest of the palace might be dug from the ground, and any mosaics, any sculptures, any pottery would remain firmly in the earth to be forgotten.

Fiona’s conviction that a Roman palace lay under the apple orchard would be deemed ridiculous, and anyone she told would be reminded in giggling tones that Fiona also had insisted she was betrothed to a wonderful man, when the man had turned out to be entirely imaginary.

The coach pulled in before Cloudbridge Castle, and Fiona exhaled. Gray stones blended into the harsh gray sky above, as the castle thrust its jagged turrets, defenses from a former age, into the sky. In another age her ancestors would have warred against the neighboring aristocrats; now they were supposed to be friends, simply for their shared status.

Her cousin exited the coach and glided toward the butler, padding her lace boots over the cobblestones. Fiona lifted her gray dress and proceeded. The coarse wool prickled her fingers, and she stumbled on a worn cobble.

“Madeline.” Grandmother’s astonished voice rang out from the open door of the castle, and Fiona quickened her pace.

Murmurings sounded. Fiona couldn’t decipher her cousin’s doubtlessly refined answer. Madeline’s delicate soprano voice never carried, a fact her cousin had exploited once she discovered she could make snide comments about everyone, assured that only her seat companion would be able to hear.

Fiona entered to discover Grandmother leading Madeline toward the Great Hall. So much for any hope of speaking with Grandmother alone. Fiona followed them, her dress swishing against the antiques cramming the narrow hallway.

“I was just telling Fiona that I was so hoping you might grace us with your presence at this year’s annual Christmas ball.”

Grandmother laughed as they settled into the velvety armchairs that surrounded the table in the Great Hall. “My days of balls are behind me, though Fiona might attend.”

“How splendid.” Madeline clapped her hands together.

Fiona moved a finger to her collar, brushing against her mother’s favorite brooch. “Thank you for inviting me, but I fear I cannot accept the invitation.”