Snowed By the Wallflower (Revenge of the Wallflowers #48)

Chapter 1

Belinda Westcott gazed out the window of her uncle’s fine carriage as it lumbered relentlessly over the frozen ruts of a narrow Northumberland road.

She wrapped her shawl tighter against the cold, certain she would rather ride outside in the frigid weather than listen to her cousin’s incessant chatter. Sophie could be a dear, but not when she harped on Belinda’s marriage prospects, sounding like her mother, Belinda’s aunt, who had been unable to accompany them.

“Mama says you could have plenty of offers with the smallest of efforts this week.”

Sophie’s mother and Belinda’s aunt, the Marchioness of Gilford, had lectured Belinda on the same subject endlessly after the latest Season passed with no offers of marriage. At least, none that got to her aunt and uncle. Belinda had become adept at deflecting unwanted attention in the six years since she had been “out.” Her great humiliation of the year before, however, had kept most suitors away this past year.

“Mama says even at your age you could attract a decent husband. Not a title, perhaps, but a decent man.” Sophie hardly paused to draw breath.

Belinda gritted her teeth against the onslaught. My age indeed . How much longer until we arrive at Hartwell Hall? She didn’t need or want some “decent man” offering for her out of pity.

“Mama says your dowry alone is enough to draw them.”

Dowry! The very word stung. Belinda longed to use that money, a bequest from her grandmother, as she wished. She could purchase a small house and build a laboratory onto it so she could continue her chemistry studies in peace, but all three of her aunts, her mother’s sisters, refused to consider such an outrage. Her uncles, who had control of the money since the death of Belinda’s parents, merely laughed.

“Mama says there will be several eligible men at this house party.”

Belinda rolled her eyes. “Cousin Cecil and some of his ramshackle friends?” she groaned. She loathed Cecil, who delighted in harassing her. More than one family member felt grateful he wasn’t the heir. His older brother David served with Wellington in Spain. She prayed for him often. If he was killed, they would be stuck with Cecil.

Sophie shot her a pointed frown. “There will be others. I’m to drop hints about the dowry and encourage them to pursue you.”

Belinda shuddered at the thought of Aunt Violet’s son Cecil. He and his horrid friends made her life a misery whenever she encountered them in London. As to the others… The last thing she wanted was another set of fribbles pursuing her dowry, viewing her “odd starts” and bluestocking ways as merely the price they would have to pay for all that delicious cash.

Sophie drew breath and gazed at Belinda, guilt in her pale blue eyes. “Will that be a great bother, Bel? Hinting to them, I mean. I won’t if you don’t want it. You mustn’t let the… difficulty—two years ago, I mean—bother you.”

Belinda smiled at her cousin. She had a kind heart, and Belinda was fond of her when she wasn’t parroting Aunt Flora. At seventeen and fresh from her first, very successful, Season, Sophie couldn’t imagine any greater accomplishment than capturing a titled husband.

“You will be too busy to bother about me, Sophie. You’re going to have a wonderful time,” Belinda said.

Sophie sighed. “But Bel, you should too. Mama says you must not let Aunt Violet use you as some sort of unpaid servant. You are to enjoy the party.”

“I won’t,” Belinda murmured. Aunt Flora wasn’t to know that Belinda found Aunt Violet’s house the most comfortable of the aunts’ great manors. Violet, Countess Hartwell, believed that her house and particularly her kitchen ran better with Belinda in residence. “The meals are so much better when you direct the cook,” she would say. It didn’t occur to Aunt Violet that Belinda was the cook when she was in residence.

“Seriously, Bel. You almost disappeared last year when we visited. I hardly saw you the entire time,” Sophie lamented. “I refuse to let Aunt Violet use you so.”

“I promise we’ll see each other, Sophie. Our rooms will be next to one another. Besides, I’ll be staying on at Hartwell Hall after the party. I can assist Aunt Violet then.”

Sophie sank back, mollified and quiet for once.

Belinda’s mother’s sisters had all married well, unlike Belinda’s mother who happily wed the love of her life, a scholarly country squire, Lord Francis Westcott, third son of a marquess. Since her parents died eight years before, when she was fifteen, the aunts had passed her from hand to hand—not unkindly, but occasionally thoughtlessly. The kitchen at Hartwell Hall had become her favorite place. Mrs. Wesley, the cook, was happy to cede the work, and Belinda was free to explore the magic that was the chemistry of cooking. Uncle Hartwell had a fine scientific library, and she had even set up a small laboratory in an unused buttery off the kitchen. She quite looked forward to it.

Moments later Sophie bounced in her seat. “Mama says The Earl of Ridgemont will be in attendance,” she trilled. “He is most certainly in search of a wife.”

Belinda blinked, drawn out of her abstraction by Sophie’s burst of enthusiasm. Who? Belinda wondered.

“Why is he coming?” She asked

“Because he is the Duke of Wynnwood’s new heir, of course. The sudden death of cousin or something. Anyway, why else would he come to a house party?”

“Why indeed,” Belinda murmured. The duke was an old man. She had no idea he had acquired a different heir. The previous one had been a profligate roué with wandering hands who slipped, unwed, into dissolute middle age. Belinda suspected Sophie was due for disappointment when she met the newly raised earl. He would be of similar age and no doubt the same proclivities.

Sophie didn’t recognize Belinda’s sarcasm. “Exactly. Wealthy and titled. He will need a wife. Getting him was quite a coup for Aunt Violet.”

And a coup for the young lady who snags him , Belinda thought. The entire idea disgusted her.

The carriage lurched around a corner before Sophie could go on, and they drove up a lane flanked by the snow-covered skeletons of elm trees, bare now in early December. Sophie twisted in her seat, almost leaning out the window in excitement. “We’re almost there! I can’t wait.”

Belinda’s joy at arriving matched Sophie’s, but it sprang from an entirely different source.

The door, opened by a footman, let in a blast of frigid air. Bel stepped down and shivered. The weather had been unusually freezing for days, especially here in Northumberland. A light snow covered the ground and more threatened.

The carriage bringing Susan, their shared maid, and footmen on loan from Aunt Flora for the house party, as well as their luggage, pulled up behind the cousins. The swift and attentive reaction to their arrival, a bowing butler and swarming servants, showed Aunt Violet’s household stood on full alert. Guests must have been arriving in number that afternoon.

“Good day, Carlton!” The butler responded to Belinda’s greeting with a proper bow and murmured “Welcome, Miss Westcott, Lady Sophie,” while discreetly directing the disposal of baggage, horses, servants and carriages.

Aunt Violet fluttered about the entrance hall complimenting arriving debutantes, sympathizing with weary mamas, and preening over the apparent success of her party, if attendance could be the sole criteria.

Sophie spied friends from London and scurried off to join a giggling gaggle of girls. Belinda slid quietly toward the stairs.

“Belinda!” Aunt Violet’s sharp call stopped her in her tracks. She sighed deeply, pasted a serene smile on her face and turned to greet her aunt.

The countess approached with a mixture of a dignified glide and unladylike urgency.

“Oh, my dear, thank goodness you’re finally here. Flora kept you in London so long to spite me. I know she did,” Aunt Violet said with a scowl and shuddering sigh. “Well, you’re here now, and we’ll make the most of it.”

“How can I help, Aunt?”

Aunt Violet patted Belinda’s hand where it lay on the banister. “I know you want to rest after that tedious journey, but I must trouble you to speak to Cook immediately. She won’t listen to me; I don’t know why I tolerate the woman, except she does so much better when you are here.”

“Won’t it keep for an hour or so?” Belinda asked plaintively. She really had hoped for a nap.

“You can rest after you speak to her. Last night’s dinner was a disaster. Underdone potatoes, tasteless mutton, mushy fish,” Aunt Violet hissed, attempting to whisper. “The earl frowned at his plate the entire meal. I wouldn’t have asked him a day early if I knew you would be delayed.” She glanced frantically around to see if she was overheard.

Ah yes. The eligible earl. Aunt Violet’s “coup.”

“I’ll change my clothes and wash up. I can be down to the kitchen in a half hour,” Belinda said, calculating how much time she needed to produce a decent dinner. She touched her aunt’s arm. “Not to worry, Aunt Violet.”

The countess didn’t stop to thank her. She turned to greet more guests, and Belinda trudged up the stairs.

And so it begins, she sighed.