A Vexing Regency Romance (The League of Meddling Butlers #6)

Prologue

Mr. Jerome K. Feldstaffer considered himself the unelected leader of The League of Butlers.

How could it be otherwise? He brought a much-needed rationality to his fellow members regarding their often impractical pursuits.

Mr. Feldstaffer looked at the world with a devastatingly clear eye.

He understood that life was a series of disasters that were only separated by short interludes of peace.

Those interludes of peace were diabolical in their nature.

Disaster had not fled the scene, but rather it quietly hid around corners, biding its time before springing into action.

Mr. Feldstaffer was well aware that the only reason those brief moments of calm existed was to convince a person to let down their guard.

He was not fooled.

His fellow League members leaned on him to explain the truth of a situation. Too often, those fellows drifted along, assuring themselves that everything would “come right in the end” or people would “see sense” or the situation was “not that dire” or their plan “had every chance of success.”

It was in those moments that Mr. Feldstaffer was forced to step in and deliver the bad news. Nothing would come right either now or in the end, those two people would never see sense, the situation was indeed dire, and their plan was terrible.

Somehow, and despite every fact pointing to failure, his fellow butlers had eventually found success in their matchmaking adventures.

Mr. Feldstaffer had spent some long nights contemplating how it could possibly be.

Then it came to him. The fates were holding back all the failure for him, to be delivered in one lump sum.

He speculated that they did not like that he was so rational.

They did not like that he easily saw through all their machinations at trying to convince people that everything was fine, just before hitting them over the head with a calamity.

Mr. Feldstaffer could not, of course, predict just how badly things were to go for him. He was simply confident that they would go bad, probably in some sort of heart-stopping manner his mind had not yet the courage to conjure.

He supposed he would survive it, assuming it did not kill him.

It was to be his season and somehow he was to guide Lady Beatrix Bell, or Bitsy to her family, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Copperstone.

On paper, it looked to be the easiest thing in the world.

The earl and countess had long planned that she would wed her distant cousin, Lord Chester.

The countess and Lord Chester’s mother, a viscountess, had cooked up the whole scheme when their two children were just on their feet.

They had met one day when both families were in Town.

The two children had got along so well, of course it must be a match.

Of course it must be a match. Had a more ridiculous statement ever been posited throughout the annals of history? Those two people had not set eyes on each other since they were both under the age of three.

To hear tell of Lord Chester both within the family and outside of it was as if he were two different people. The earl and countess described him as a dashing gentleman, entirely devoted to his mother. That information had, very naturally, been passed to the countess by the gentleman’s mother.

The rest of the world had a different opinion. He was dashing all right. He was also an unreformed rake who had an excessive fondness for gambling hells and the low women of Drury Lane.

Of course, the earl and the countess would not know that.

Though they came to Town each year for the season, they did not attend most of the usual entertainments.

The earl was too involved in parliament and spent his time there or in conference with his political cronies.

The countess spent her time with a small group of ladies she’d known forever.

Most of the ladies’ husbands were equally political and missing from the house most of the time.

They could not accept many dinner invitations on account of it and attending balls and routs was out of the question.

They called themselves “Tories’ Widows.”

That crowd was firmly out of the gossip circuit and would know nothing of Lord Chester’s proclivities.

They could discuss in minute detail the downfall of the ministry of all the talents, the abolition of the slave trade, the Catholic situation, and what was on the mind of the Duke of Portland on any particular day.

But, they could not even speculate on which actress Lord Chester had conferred his favor on this time.

On the other side of this unfortunate coin was Lady Beatrix, another individual seeming to be two different people depending on who was asked. The earl and countess viewed their Bitsy as a diamond of the first water. Mr. Feldstaffer looked with a more rational eye.

As the earl and the countess had been so busy with their own pursuits, their two daughters had perhaps been influenced by their governess more than would be expected. Miss Sprite had one overarching theory in the governing of young ladies—tell them nothing of the world.

Miss Sprite would see to it that a young lady could play the pianoforte with panache and dance in a ballroom with grace.

Watercolors, painting fire screens, and netting purses were also approved of.

Riding a horse was to be competent, but not excessive and never at a gallop.

Table manners were exacting. Reading was to be closely supervised and consist mostly of rereads of Fordyce’s sermons.

Lady Beatrix had excelled in all of that, and she was pretty to boot. But she was also entirely na?ve. There was not a chance that she would be able to recognize Lord Chester for what he was when she did not even know such gentlemen existed.

Mr. Feldstaffer had been hard-pressed not to point out to Miss Sprite that Lady Beatrix was woefully unprepared for Town. Not that it would have had the slightest effect. Miss Sprite was, if she was anything at all, supremely confident in her abilities and judgment.

The countess had seemed to have some dim recognition that her daughters were not particularly sophisticated.

In response to that idea, she’d purchased a bejeweled quizzing glass for Lady Beatrix and advised judiciously peering through it.

As far as he knew, that was the only thing that had been done.

Lady Beatrix would be a lamb among wolves, with the wolves wondering why she was looking through a quizzing glass rather than running for her life.

So here he was. Innocent Lady Beatrix and Rogue Lord Chester were meant to fling themselves into each other’s arms like a modern Romeo and Juliet.

Even if it seemed like a good idea, which it did not, Mr. Feldstaffer was certain it could only fail.

If for no other reason than people rarely did what you wanted them to do.

Over the seasons, his fellow butlers had been tasked with finding the right match. Mr. Feldstaffer was not so lucky. He was faced with getting rid of the wrong match first.

Why should he be surprised at his ill-luck, though? The fates appeared to despise him with the heat of a thousand suns.